TAEGU,(South Korea), Aug 22: Seoul taekwondo student Han Jin-sun survived a fierce fightback from American Darcy Kimmich to give hosts South Korea their first gold medal at the world university games on Friday.

The 20-year-old pulled out a whirling high leg kick with 14 seconds left to win 3-2 and take gold in the women’s 63kg division on the first full day of competition in Taegu.

South Korea, who have the largest squad of athletes at the games — 280-strong — had targeted eight gold medals in their national sport of taekwondo and 19 overall.

But Italy gate-crashed the party as Carlo Molfetta won gold in the men’s 72kg class, pounding out a 7-3 victory over Ukrainian Petro Davydov in a bruising final.

Meanwhile, Chinese fencer Zhang Lianliang beat South Korean Ha Chang-duk 15-11 to take gold in the men’s foil individual at Taegu Exco.

North Korea also got off to a flying start, thrashing Germany 6-0 in the preliminaries of the women’s soccer competition.

Captain Li Un-sim opened the scoring after just eight minutes and substitute Sok Chun-myong completed the rout on the hour as North Korea made light of the stamina-sapping conditions to win their Group B opener.

Relations on the Korean peninsula have been strained since Pyongyang admitted last year to developing a nuclear weapons programme.

In the men’s competition, defender Kwak Tae-hwi scored four minutes into the second half as South Korea beat Ireland 1-0 to go top of Group A with six points from two games.

In other matches, fast-improving Thailand upset Italy 1-0 in Group A, Japan overcame South Africa 3-0 in Group B and Iran beat China 3-2 in a pulsating group D clash.

Meanwhile, Korean-based Iraqi Haydar Baqir lost in the first round of the men’s 72kg taekwondo, beaten 4-2 by Viacheslav Mitrofanov of Russia.—Reuters