Azerbaijan's 19-year-old Aykhan Taghizade celebrates an unlikely god in the taekwondo  ©Getty Images

Honour was satisfied at the European Games here today as Azerbaijan’s Aykhan Taghizade and Britain’s Olympic champion Jade Jones earned gold in the respective under 68 kilogram and under 57kg classes.

Taghizade could reasonably have regarded the final, against another relatively unheralded talent in 17-year-old Karol Robak of Poland, as a simple matter given the pressure he had been under in the semi-final, where his opponent was the top-ranked Russian Olympic bronze medallist, Alexey Denisenko, and his supporters included President Ilham Aliyev, the First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva and the Minister for Sport, Azad Rahimov.

But the 19-year-old came through all that, and later provided a packed arena with the result most present craved as he defeated Robak after the scores were tied at 9-9 after the Pole had come back from behind with 33 seconds to go when he produced a head shot.

The gold came down to the Golden Point and, as both men moved in to deliver a telling punch to the body, the “clunk” of the electric marking system registered.

And it was the Azerbaijani score which flicked over into the extra point.

Taghizade, whose best international result to date was a silver at the 2013 European Junior Championships, commented: “Now my opponents know who I am.

"“This medal is the most important thing in my life."

For Robak it was a cruel final twist after a tournament in which he had beaten the Olympic and world champion Servet Tazegul of Turkey in the preliminary round.

But Taghizade had done his own giant-killing in defeating the London 2012 under 58kg champion Joel Gonzalez Bonilla before Denisenko.

Bonilla recovered to win bronze, as did Denisenko, who narrowly defeated Tazegul in the other bronze medal match.

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Jade Jones of Britain (right) took gold in the final despite not being at her best as she recovered her impetus after last month's surprise World Championships last month ©Getty Images

The women's event was less dramatic, although for Jones it was a hugely encouraging statement of intent for the defence of her title in Rio next year after the shock of losing in the quarter-finals of the World Championships last month.

Jones took full control of her final against the world under 53kg bronze medallist, Croatia’s Ana Zaninovic, and never let it go, eventually winning 12-9.

But she had lived dangerously in the earlier rounds, particularly in her quarter-final against Hungary’s under 57kg world  bronze medallist Edina Kotsis, trailing right until the end, having only scored her first point 30 seconds from time.

She had arrived here with a lot of determination - but a certain amount of doubt, as she revealed before the fight.

“Because I’m Olympic champion everyone just assumes I’m this perfect athlete that should never lose,” she said.

“But I’m still young, I still don’t even know the game fully, I haven’t got it perfected, mentally it’s a big thing, and I’m improving with that all the time.”

But after her final, when she had completed her impromptu lap of honour with the Union flag, the doubts were gone.

“I’m just buzzing,” she said.

“I've got the Olympic Games and the junior Olympics so to get European Games as well, all three at such a young age…

“All through the day I didn't fight my best but I scraped through a couple of fights and I feel like I fought a lot better, I just tried to stay focused.

“I was really upset after the worlds and I did really well just to get straight back into training and crack on to win gold.

“I was distraught, I wanted to win this so much - against the girl from Hungary I was 4-3 down and all I was thinking was I do not want to lose again.

“It's boosted my confidence but I've still got so much work to do.

Zaninovic added silver to the family collection after her identical twin sister Lucija had won a bronze in the women's under 49kg yesterday

Nikita Glasnovic of Sweden and and top seed Eva Calvo Gomez of Spain, the world silver medallist, took the bronze medals.



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