French athlete Steven Da Costa won the first gold medal in Olympic men’s karate competition

Steven Da Costa of France won the first gold medal in Olympic men’s karate competition, beating Turkey’s Eray Samdan 5-0 in the final of the 67-kilogram kumite division. The 24-year-old Da Costa is the 2018 world champion and a two-time European champion in his weight class, but he won a disappointing bronze at the European competition last May. He overcame an early loss Thursday in Tokyo to Jordan’s Abdl Rahman Almasatfa and got a boost from the injury retirement of Italy’s Angelo Crescenzo, the 2018 world champion at 60 kilograms. Da Costa beat Kazakhstan’s Darkhan Assadilov to reach the final. France 24's Clovis Casali met him earlier, take a listen.