- Sarah Stevenson
-
You may be looking for Sara Yorke Stevenson.
Medal record Women's taekwondo Competitor for 
Great BritainOlympic Games Bronze 2008 Beijing +67 kg World Championships Gold 2011 Gyeongju Welterweight Gold 2001 Jeju Middleweight Silver 2005 Madrid Middleweight European Championships Gold 2010 St. Petersburg Welterweight Gold 2006 Bonn Middleweight Gold 2005 Riga Middleweight Gold 1998 Eindhoven Middleweight Silver 2004 Lillehammer Heavyweight Silver 2002 Samsun Middleweight Sarah Diana Stevenson (born March 30, 1983, Doncaster) is a British Taekwondo athlete from Bentley near Doncaster, England.
Stevenson finished fourth on her Olympics debut in 2000 and after a judging error was reversed in the quarter-finals of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, she went on to win a Bronze medal, the first British medalist at the Olympics in this sport. She took silver at the Olympic qualifiers despite suffering a broken hand.
Contents
Early life
She attended the Don Valley High School in Scawthorpe, north Doncaster. She started training Taekwondo at the age of 7.
Career
Stevenson started her career by becoming Junior World Champion in 1998. In 2000, she won the 3rd place in Taekwondo at the 2000 Summer Olympics's World Qualification Tournament and qualified for the 2000 Summer Olympics in Women's 67 kg. These achievements won her fame and drew the attention of martial arts superstar Jackie Chan[1] who sponsored her while promoting his film Shanghai Noon in the United Kingdom. But in the 2000 Olympics she lost to Norway's Trude Gundersen in the semifinal and Japan's Yoriko Okamoto in the bronze match. The next year, she won the champion in the 2001 World Taekwondo Championships's Women's Middleweight, defeating 2000 Summer Olympics gold medalist Chen Zhong in the final. She became the first British Taekwondo World champion.
At the 2004 Olympics in the Women's +67 kg event she was elimimated by Venezuela's Adriana Carmona in the first round. She later trained at Sportcity in Manchester and is a member of the Allstars Taekwondo Academy in Doncaster. coached by Master Gary Sykes
2008 Olympics
Due to an error in judging, Stevenson almost exited the 2008 Olympics in the quarterfinal stage following her match with China's Chen Zhong, the gold medal favourite. In the final round of the match, the judges failed to award Stevenson two points for a high-kick to the head, which would have put her one point in the lead with 10 seconds remaining. Following the match, the British team representative immediately made an official protest and, after studying video footage of the kick the judges reversed the result of the fight and Stevenson progressed to the semifinal. Stevensons's semifinal opponent was Maria del Rosario Espinoza of Mexico, and she lost 4-1, also sustaining a twisted ankle. She then went on to compete for bronze in the repechage, defeating Noha Abd Rabo of Egypt and winning Britain's first Olympic medal in the sport of Taekwondo.[2]
On announcing the change of result in the quarter final, the tournament director said:
"The competition supervisory board has looked into this matter deeply, has made video analysis which has been open to all the referees and judges. In applying paragraph two of page 64 of the competition rules of the World Taekwondo Federation we have to change this result and we have to declare the British player as winner. We are very sorry to the spectators of China but justice is first. Thank you for understanding."
As a result of this judging error in particular, emphasis may be switching to having electronic scoring equipment contained within the actual body protectors themselves, and many tournaments are now using these in trial phase. However, since this technology is far from refined, and due to tactical differences needed in gameplay and style, Stevenson, and athletes from other National Teams, currently do not favour this system and often boycott such tournaments.
Career highlights
- 2011 World Taekwondo Championships: Gold
- 2010 European Championships: Gold
- 2009 British Open International: Gold
- 2008 Summer Olympic Games: Bronze
- 2006 Commonwealth Taekwondo Championships: Gold [3]
- 2005 World Taekwondo Championships: Silver
- 2005 European Championships: Gold
- 2004 European Championships: Gold
- 2004 Summer Olympics Games: 15th
- 2001 World Taekwondo Championships: Gold
- 2000 Summer Olympic Games: 4th
- 1998 European Championships: Gold
References
- ^ http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/english/200008/25/eng20000825_48962.html Martial Arts Star Jackie Chan Backs Stevenson for Olympic Glory
- ^ [1]
- ^ "2006 Commonwealth Taekwondo Championships Results". Full Contact Taekwondo. http://www.fullcontact.co.uk/webs/resultsdetail.aspx?ResultsID=72.
External links
Categories:- 1983 births
- Living people
- English taekwondo practitioners
- Taekwondo practitioners at the 2000 Summer Olympics
- Taekwondo practitioners at the 2004 Summer Olympics
- Taekwondo practitioners at the 2008 Summer Olympics
- Olympic taekwondo practitioners of Great Britain
- Olympic bronze medalists for Great Britain
- People from Doncaster
- University of Massachusetts Amherst alumni
- Olympic medalists in taekwondo
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
