Paris Olympics: France's Taekwondo Duo on Mission for Historic Gold

Ahead of the Paris Olympics, France's taekwondo team aims for its first gold medal with the help of Spanish-Turkish coaching couple, Rosendo Alonso and Gulsah Kuscu. Boasting world champions Magda Wiet Henin and Althea Laurin, the team feels well-prepared to make history in the sport.

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.

Alonso cautioned that there were at least five athletes with the talent and potential to win the gold medal in Wiet Henin's category. "She beat them all but they have beaten Magda too," he said. "It's up to us to concentrate, do our job and get it done."

France's other aspiring female medallist is 22-year-old Althea Laurin, who will compete in the heavyweight category in Paris. A member of the French police force, she won a bronze medal at the Tokyo Games three years ago. Unsurprisingly, given the origins of the sport, South Korea tops the all-time medal table for taekwondo, which appeared as a full medal sport at Sydney 2000.

But the sport also produces a diverse range of medallists, with Ivory Coast and Jordan grabbing historic first Olympic gold medals at the Rio Games in 2016. Russian men won two golds and a bronze in Tokyo but will be absent because of sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine.

"The Russians had the best team in the world for men," Alonso said. The two Tokyo gold medallists, welterweight Maksim Khramtsov and heavyweight Vladislav Larin, were not on the International Olympic Committee's list of Russian and Belarusian athletes invited to compete as neutrals in Paris.

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