An Kum-Ae continued North Korea's fine record in Olympic women's judo by winning the under-52kg division on Sunday.
The 32-year-old went one better than last time out in Beijing as she beat Cuba's Yanet Bermoy in the final with a counter-attack in the sudden-death golden score period.
In winning gold she became the second North Korean woman after Kye Sun-Hui to claim an Olympic crown.
Kye beat Japanese legend Ryoko Tani (then Tamura) in the under-48kg final in Atlanta in 1996 when just 16.
"I'm following in the footsteps of the queen of North Korean judo and I wanted to honour her," said An.
"By winning gold I was able to reward my country for what I have been given by them. I learnt from Kye's strong spirit and determination."
For Bermoy, 25 and a former world champion, it was heartache again as she repeated her result as a 48kg fighter in China four years ago.
Once the dominant nation in women's judo, Cuba have not won Olympic gold since Sibelis Veranes (-70kg) and Legna Verdecia (-52kg) in Sydney.
They won three silvers in Beijing and Bermoy believes this latest medal shows they can be Games winners again.
"I'm very happy to have won a second silver medal but I really tried my best to get gold," she said.
"We've had Olympic champions before, we're working hard on getting more so don't lose hope, I think we'll get them."
Italy's Rosalba Forciniti and France's Priscilla Gneto won the bronze medals after beating Marie Muller of Luxembourg and Belgian veteran Ilse Heylen respectively.
An's most important bout came in the second round after she had ousted Britain's Sophie Cox.
She came up against world champion and second seed Misato Nakamura of Japan, who she had beaten in Beijing four years ago as well.
And this time, the Japanese was taken over backwards with a valley-drop (tani-otoshi) counter for a half-point waza-ari to again come up short.
She did hit back with an inner reap (ouchi-gari) that was originally awarded an equalising waza-ari before being downgraded to a minor yuko score.
That wasn't enough for the twice world champion and she was out.
Although Japan have the world champions in both the bottom two women's divisions, they failed to pick up any medals in either at the Games.
An qualified for the semi-final by beating Gneto by a penalty and then threw Forciniti for the maximum ippon (a technical knock-out) with a major outer sweep (o-soto-gari).
It was a competition that was full of shocks, with all four top seeds crashing out before the quarter-finals.
In fact An is only ranked 26th in the world, although that is in no small part due to North Korea competing in a limited number of international competitions.
Top seed Bundmaa Munkhbaatar beat Linouse Desravine of Haiti but was then pinned by Bermoy in the second round.
The Cuban beat Muller and the 35-year-old Heylen to reach the final.
Third seed Erika Miranda of Brazil submitted to a strangle against South Korean Kim Kyung-Ok in the second round while fourth seed Soraya Haddad of Algeria was disqualified in the first round for an illegal leg-grab on Andreea Chitu.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/north-korean-wins-womens-judo-under-52kg-155912434.html
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