sport news Tokyo Olympics: Sinden won't take any satisfaction from silver medal following ...

sport news Tokyo Olympics: Sinden won't take any satisfaction from silver medal following ...
sport news Tokyo Olympics: Sinden won't take any satisfaction from silver medal following ...

Eight seconds. Count them out. That was the margin between a golden moment and something else for Bradly Sinden, a guy with no great care for silver linings. Eight seconds. Brutal old pyjama party, taekwondo.

For those with lower expectations and lesser talents, silver is great. Silver is a life’s work wrapped up in a day. Silver is Britain’s best of these Olympics to date. Silver would have done for Jade Jones, a double champion who left with nothing earlier in the afternoon.

But in his eyes? The bloodshot eyes of a 22-year-old who saw gold in the flicker of time before Ulugbek Rashitov of Uzbekistan turned on one heel and rammed the other into his gut for four points? Not so much.

Taekwondo star Bradly Sinden won't take any positives from his defeat to Ulugbek Rashitov

Taekwondo star Bradly Sinden won't take any positives from his defeat to Ulugbek Rashitov 

‘My coach always says silver is best loser,’ he said, and there was nothing in his expression that indicated a counter-argument would be forthcoming. By Sinden’s view, it was his. And it was, in so much as you ever have a grab on anything in a sport that plays out in a thrilling blur of madness.

At this point, a brief run through the first five minutes and 52 seconds of this fight for the 68kg gold medal. He led 6-2 and then he trailed 11-17, picked off by the precision of the quick teenager from the blue corner. Going into the third of three two-minute sessions, he was behind by 18-14, but by the home stretch he had swung it around to 28-26.

That’s when the clock read eight seconds. A long yawn to us, an eternity to them. Remember Lutalo Muhammad? He had only one second to kill to win gold for himself and TeamGB at Rio 2016, and they weren’t happy tears he gave to the BBC, so eight is dangerous.

Sinden says he 'gave away' the gold medal as he fell to defeat against Rashitov in Tokyo

Sinden says he 'gave away' the gold medal as he fell to defeat against Rashitov in Tokyo

As indeed are spinning kicks to the stomach. They’re worth four points in taekwondo money, and that’s what Sinden paid up in the moment it all turned, when he thought Rashitov was off balance. He charged in to finish him, but ended up surging straight on to the shot. A few penalties on from there and it was all over, 34-29, but it was the kick that did it.

Sinden is called the ‘robot’ by Jade Jones because ‘he literally has no emotion’, but he cried for a second or two on the mat here when the buzzer sounded. In time he

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