Kye Sun-Hui wins thirdjudo world judo title

Kye Sun-Hui of North Korea won her third straight world title with a stunning throw in Cairo on Saturday. She swept Germany's Olympic champion Yvonne Boenisch off her feet with an inner thigh reap (uchi-mata) to score the maximum ippon (knockout) score after just 38 seconds of the under 57kg final.

Brazil's Joao Derly won his country's first ever world title to claim gold in the men's under 66kg division, defeating Olympic champion Masato Uchishiba of Japan in the final.

Kye also beat Boenisch two years ago in the world final in Osaka, Japan, but the tables were turned in the 2004 Olympic final in Athens where Boenisch came out on top.

The North Korean's victory was far more convincing than Boenisch's was in the Athens final but in both making the gold medal bout, they proved without a shadow of doubt they are the two best in their division.

Kye was also world champion in 2001 when she fought in the under 52kg category but it was in the bottom weight division, under 48kg, that she made her name.

In 1996, Kye, then a precocious and unknown teenager, turned up at the Atlanta Olympics and beat the overwhelming favourite and reigning world champion Ryoko Tani (then Tamura) of Japan.

Tani went on to win six world titles and in Athens became the first woman to win two Olympic titles while Kye moved up in weights but did not repeat her gold medal success until the world championships five years later.