Jack Woolley can't believe his shot at the gold medal is gone - and probably his Olympic bid altogether.
Woolley, Ireland's first Taekwondo Olympian, was distraught and bemused after his defeat to Argentinian opponent Lucas Lauturo Guzman.
The 22-year-old from Tallaght was 19-18 ahead with only five seconds to go of a tense three-round contest, but a kick by Guzman turned the tide and Woolley lost 22-19.
He was utterly distraught afterwards, but Guzman has beaten the third seed Hadipour Seighalani on point gap.
If Guzman wins again, in his semi-final at 9.45am Irish time, that would allow Woolley back into a repechage and a chance to go for bronze.
“I’m very disappointed, everything was good in the lead up, in our prep, I felt physically great going in," he said.
"I walked in today and something just didn’t click, it just wasn’t my day. I have to keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best this evening.
"Sport is unpredictable. I hope everyone else he fights has a similar performance to me, but we have to see - he has to get to the final first.”
"We'll see. It's sport, isn't it? No-one expected me to lose that, nobody anticipated my performance to be as poor as it was.
"Especially coming from a small country, some people just qualifying for an Olympics is good enough. Not for me.
"To be honest, I felt that I was one of the favourites, a lot of people would have said I was one of the favourites to get a medal and just to perform the way I did, you never know with sport.
"If he does get to a final then I'll need to shake this off and get back into it, but we'll have to see what happens."
