BEIJING, Aug 15: China’s Tong Wen clinched a long-awaited Olympic gold medal on Friday, snatching a dramatic victory from Athens champion Maki Tsukada in the dying seconds of the women’s +78-kg final.

The triple world champion, denied a chance to compete at Athens in 2004 by a serious knee injury, rushed over to her coach and embraced her in a bear-hug after her victory.

Appearing spent and trailing on points with 16 seconds left, Tong hauled her Japanese opponent over her shoulder with a one-armed throw to score an automatic victory by ippon and send thousands of screaming Chinese fans into ecstasy.

The last-gasp ippon was a spectacular end to an enthralling contest in which Tsukada drew first blood, tossing Tong on to the tatami for a low uko score.

But the Chinese judoka was not to be denied by an opponent she had beaten five times before, including twice for world titles.

Cuba’s Idalys Ortiz and Lucija Polavder of Slovenia, won the bronzes.

Japan, who had hitherto relied on their Athens champions to bring home gold, welcomed a new, if unorthodox, hero in youngster Satoshi Ishii.

The 21-year-old, branded judo’s bad-boy by Japanese media for his penchant to win bouts through grit rather than skill, beat Asian champion Abdullo Tangriev of Uzbekistan by a technicality in the men’s +100-kg final.

Rather than seek to score, Ishii gleefully let the flustered Uzbek build a score for him through conceded penalties for passivity.

His victory gave Japan its fourth gold for the tournament, only half of its Athens total, but enough to pip China whose record three-gold performance left it second in the medal standings.

World champion and favourite Teddy Riner of France recovered from a shock quarter final loss to Tangriev to beat Georgia’s Lasha Gujejiani for a bronze.

Cuba’s Oscar Brayson defeated Mohammad Reza Rodaki of Iran to win the other bronze.—Reuters