JACK WOOLLEY faces an anxious wait to see if a back-door route to a potential bronze medal opens up for him. Woolley was defeated by Gashim Magomedov in his last 16 taekwondo clash. In his second Olympics, the Tallaght man lost the first two rounds against his opponent from Azerbaojan, who had also beaten him in the European Championships earlier this year.
But if Magomedov advances to fight for the gold medal Woolley will take part in a repechage round later today involving anyone who lost to the two eventual finalists at the last 16 or quarter-final stage. Woolley said: “The fact that he is a good opponent is good for me because if he makes it to the final I can get back in and go for a bronze medal but that’s out of my hands now. “I don’t want to dwell on that too much.
"I’ll be ready to go back into the ring when I have to.” Magomedov won the first round 7-4, helped by a video review which went in his favour that he had caught Woolley with a head-kick. But Woolley said: “His appeal for a headshot around the back - I didn't feel anything.
"I don't really see what the camera picked up. "They looked at that a lot compared to a lot of the other fights where it was just like, 'OK yeah, that hit, or that didn't hit'. “They were like, ‘Did it or did it not?’ I think it was like a big toenail.
"Like, realistically, I didn't feel anything. But that's the game.” A review for Woolley at the end of the second round went against him as he lost 12-7.
He said: “I feel if he was a little bit off his game I could have taken that fight and vice versa, it was going to be a close one anyway. “That’s what I was mentally preparing myself for, I knew it wasn’t going to be an easy fight. “I had a game-plan to execute.
"It’s like a game of chess, he’s thinking two steps ahead, ‘OK Jack is going to want to do this and if Jack does this, I have to do this’. “Both of us are doing it and when my game-plan wasn’t working I had to change it and throw some spins and stuff that wouldn’t necessarily be my game-plan but would be something that was going to counteract what he was doing. “It’s very difficult to have that head-space when you’re in a room full of 7,000 people and you’ve got two minutes to execute it.
“I’m not happy with my performance but I’m happy with the fact that I got out there today and I have no regrets. “Only a certain amount of people get to call themselves Olympians in this sport, and to even call myself an Irish Olympian in this sport two times, nobody else has done it before. “I hope that I'm able to inspire the young kids at home that they can get to this level and who knows, there's another four years in me.
“I went into this to enjoy it, because, six months ago, I wasn't in the best head space. I wasn't in the best physical condition. “I'd had to make weight over 20 times last year.
"58 kilos for me is pretty tough. It's about six kilo cuts. So it's very draining on the body.
“So at the end of last year, I kind of had enough of it, and I used that time with an amazing team in Sport Ireland to get my head back in the game, to be the best I've ever been, the best shape I've ever been.” The 25-year-old – the victim of a vicious unprovoked attack shortly after the Tokyo Games – savoured competing at Le Grand Palais. He said: “You've got eyes.
You can see it yourself. Look at it. It's absolutely beautiful.
"It's probably the best stadium, it IS the best stadium that has ever been in this sport. “And I think it will be the best stadium that's ever been in our sport for decades to come. "Nothing will ever compare to this.
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