Seoul snippets

Press, 30 September 1988, Page 14

Seoul snippets

U.S. athlete freed

NZPA-Reuter Seoul The United States Olympic athlete Johnny Gray, arrested for kicking a taxi, was freed without being charged, South Korean police said yesterday. He was the third member of the United States Olympic team to be arrested in the last week in Seoul, following the detention of two swimmers for a drunken theft from a nightclub. Gray, the world’s fastest 800-metre runner this year, was arrested on Tuesday after an argument with a taxi driver. He was released later in the custody of United States Embassy officials, a police spokesman said. Gray told police he acted in self-defence after the taxi almost hit him. He was accused of trying to flee a busy shopping area after obstructing the taxi and kicking it. He paid compensation to the driver for damage to the taxi to avoid formal charges, the police spokesman said;

Champion knocked out

NZPA-Reuter Seoul The world champion, Jiang Jialiang, of China, went out of the Olympic table tennis tournament when he lost in the quarter-finals to Sweden’s Erik Lindh yesterday. Jiang, the top seed, made an impressive start against the unfancied Swede who looked nervous in the opening game but faded and was beaten 16-21, 21-12, 21-13 22-10. The left-handed Lindh, ranked No. 4 in Sweden, came into the match as he attacked Jiang’s backhand. Lindh, aged 24, who has beaten Jiang three times in team competitions, took the third game and led 17-13 in the fourth before Jiang rallied to 20-20. But Jiang hit wide and then into the net to allow the jubilant Lindh to take the match after 42 minutes.

Students hurl bombs

NZPA-Reuter t x Se ° ul Students hurled hundreds of fire bombs at police yesterday as South Korean campus protests built towards a threatened attack on the Olympic marathon race in Seoul on Sunday. Witnesses said about 800 radicals staged the protest at Korea University, in the north-east of the capital, demanding the release of a national student union leader arrested last week. The students said that unless the union leader, Oh Yong-shik, was freed there would be an attempt to disrupt the marathon, the final event of a so-far trouble-free Seoul Olympics.

Red socks lucky

NZPA-Reuter Seoul The American Darrell Pace pulled up his lucky red socks then survived a three-arrow shoot-out with the Frenchman Olivier Heck to reach the Olympic men’s archery quarter-finals yesterday. Pace, twice the Olympic champion, showed medalwinning form in the next round, finishing first with 329 points, ahead of Tiny Reniers, of the Netherlands, on 328 and the American Richard McKinney on 327. Only 11 points separated the first 12 qualifiers for the semifinals. "I didn’t want another shoot-off,” Pace explained, showing reporters his red socks, a colour he started wearing in 1972. "That is what influenced me. I was under-guessing the wind, then I just aimed it right.” V The South Korean, Kim Soo-nyung, a triple world record holder, led the women’s event with 337 points. Her compatriot Wang Hee-kyung was second on 330 ahead of Joanne Franks, of Britain, with 327.