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Four Australians earn Rio taekwondo berths

Carmen Marton, Caroline Marton, Safwan Khalil and Hayder Shkara will represent Australia in taekwondo at this year's Rio Olympics.

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Source: AAP


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All four of Australia's Olympic taekwondo hopefuls are Rio-bound after each won gold at the Oceania qualification tournament in Port Moresby.

Husband and wife Safwan Khalil (less than 58kg) and Carmen Marton (less than 67kg), her older sister Caroline Marton (less than 57kg), and Hayder Shkara (less than 80kg) took out their respective divisions in Papua New Guinea's capital on Saturday.

A shot at redemption in Rio will come as sweet relief to London Olympians Carmen Marton and Khalil.

Marton, 29, narrowly missed out on a medal at the 2012 Games, going on to become Australia's first-ever taekwondo world champion the following year.

Khalil, also 29, lost his tense bronze-medal playoff, too.

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For Caroline Marton, this represents her first Olympics nod, having missed the cut for Beijing 2008.

Sports Taekwondo Australia were allowed to select only two male and two female athletes for the event, which was the last available pathway to Brazil.

No Australians managed to book a spot via the World Taekwondo Federation rankings at major events such as the world championships and Grand Prix series.

In Rio, 128 athletes will contest the taekwondo event.


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