Daily Times

It is buy-one-get-one-free for France’s taekwondo team ahead of the Paris Olympics with a Spanish-Turkish coaching couple behind the country’s efforts to gain its first gold medal in the combat sport.

Rosendo Alonso and Gulsah Kuscu have two world champions in their team of four athletes for the Games and feel France has never been closer to winning that gold — the only medal missing from an Olympic tally of three silvers and five bronzes.

“We’re at home. We’re aware of the level we’re at. It’s no exaggeration to dream of a gold medal,” Alonso, the winner of World Taekwondo (WT)’s best coach award last year, told Reuters. The 45-year-old Spaniard met Turk Kuscu at the European championships in 2004 and the couple, partners in life as well as business, have been training the French team since 2018. They have particular hopes for 28-year-old Magda Wiet Henin, who won the world title in the women’s welterweight category last year and has defeated most of the fighters who will be at the Olympics.