She won her country's fourth medal at the Tokyo Olympics
The Egyptian Gianna takes the bronze... and inspires the "Pharaohs of the Hand" to a historic achievement
Egyptian Gianna Farouk celebrates on the bronze medal podium.
Reuters
Egyptian Gianna Farouk dealt a blow to the Chinese champion Yin Chaoyan.
EPA
picture
Egyptian Gianna Farouk won the bronze medal in karate in the women's under 61 kg at the Tokyo Olympics, after losing yesterday to China's Yin Chaoyuan, by the preference of judges' vote "Hanti", after they tied 1-1 in the semi-finals.
This is the fourth bronze for Egypt in the current games after Saif Issa in the 80kg weight and Hedaya Malak in the 57kg weight in Taekwondo, and Mohamed El-Sayed Ibrahim “Kisho” in the Greco-Roman wrestling for the 67kg weight.
Farouk, 26, won three consecutive victories in the group stage over Peruvian Alexandra Vanessa Grande Risco 2-0 with two hits by Yoko, then Ukrainian Anita Serogina 2-1, and Moroccan Ibtisam Sedini 5-0.
In her last match in the group stage, Faruk lost to Serbian Jovana Perkovic (1-1), with a preference for Sencho, to be runner-up to the Serbian.
Karate was officially included in the Olympic Games after a long wait and relentless efforts that lasted years, to be one of the four sports that were added to the Olympic calendar for the first time.
Farouk, the 2014 and 2016 world champion and the third in 2018, started this sport at the age of six at Al-Ahly Club in Cairo, “After I finished the swimming class, I was intrigued by karate.
I didn't even know the name of this sport, then I asked my mother to change my sport.”
The Egyptians hope that Gianna Farouk's medal will inspire the Egyptian handball team to compensate for its loss to France 23-27 in the semi-finals, and to win the bronze medal today against Spain.
"We must forget now and focus on the bronze," said Yahya Khaled, the 23-year-old back of Hungarian club Vesprem.
This is just the beginning for the Egyptian national team.”
Egypt will play the bronze medal match with Spain, which lost against Denmark, the defending champion and world champion, knowing that it has so far won four medals in the games.
And the Egyptian mission confirmed the absence of Ali Zain, who recently moved to Barcelona, from the next match, "after the player suffered a crack in the right hand."
Egypt, which is supervised by Spaniard Roberto Garcia Barrondo, was the first African and Arab team to compete in the semi-finals of the Olympic Games.
They matched France in the first half, but the 2008 and 2012 and 2016 runners-up made a comfortable goal difference in the second to reach the final for the fourth time in a row.
This is the second time that Egypt has lost in the last four of a major tournament after the 2001 World Cup, when it was defeated by France specifically 21-24, before finishing it in fourth place.
In turn, veteran captain Ahmed Al-Ahmar said, "We will try to win the medal.
We did not lack experience, but luck.
We missed a lot of balls from six and seven meters.
We made small mistakes and they managed to avoid them.”
And the 37-year-old Zamalek player, who also scored five goals, continued, “We will fix it and regain focus.
The future of this team is big, and in two years everything has changed.
We were getting out of the first round in the major tournaments, but we started to rise in the world championships and go to the Olympics semi-finals.
Egyptian handball will be in the best place.”
• By chance, Gianna Farouk led the Karate circuits and crowned her with a medal.
• Ali Zain will miss the Spain match after suffering a crack in the right hand.
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