Stacey Hymer has fallen short in progressing to the women’s Taekwondo -57kg quarter-finals in a closely fought loss to Brazilian Maria Clara Pacheco.
The Victorian was unable to get through the high leg work of Pacheco, with the Brazilian’s 5-0 win in the opening round enough to seal a 2-0 victory, despite a deadlocked second round.
She will now be hoping Pacheco continues her momentum to progress through to the gold medal bout later this evening, to allow Stacey another opportunity at a medal through the repechage round.
Despite being happy with her preparation for the Games, Stacey wasn’t able to execute her strategy on the day.
“I really thought I could do a lot better,” she said.
“I think when you get out there you feel those jelly legs. You feel all that weight on your legs again.
“I had really good prep and really good strategy, it was just really hard to execute when she's strong at putting a leg across and stopping all my kind of tactics of getting into the clinch and trying to move around.
“It was hard. I thought I was going to end up on that podium. You think you can go all the way so I was in high spirits, but that's it.
“Hopefully, she wins and then I've got a second chance because I've got so much to give.”
A confident looking Stacey bounced on to the mat at the Grand Palais looking confident to take the win in her second Olympic campaign.
Quick footwork from the 25-year-old was able to dodge the barrage of high kicks from Pacheco early, holding the bout to a stalemate for more than a minute.
Pacheco eventually landed a blow with 50 seconds remaining in the first to score two points, and continued to barrage the Australian with several high kicks.
Despite her best efforts to counter and land her own hits, Stacey was unable to land a score, with the Brazilian adding three more points to close the round off.
The second round was a tight affair, with Pacheco coming out hard in an attempt to put the bout to bed.
Stacey executed her defence perfectly, preventing any of the attacks to land throughout the two minutes.
However, her own counters and attack attempts were also blocked, meaning she was unable to score the required points to force the bout into a third round.
Stacey relished the opportunity to take part in her second Olympics, and the different experience it had brought compared to Tokyo three years ago.
“This Olympic experience is just surreal,” she said.
“It's like an over the moon kind of feeling just to be able to be in it and soak it all up.
“Hopefully I get a second chance to do it again.”
This article was originally written for The Australian Olympic Team. You can read the published version here
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