Butree moves a match away from Olympic Gold

Buttree

But an uphill task awaits for her in the gold medal match this evening as her opponent is China's Wu Jingyu who will be boosted to maximise her effort by the home crowd.

But the 2006 and 2007 Universiade champion Chutchawal Khawlaor lost to Guillermo Perez of Mexico 1-3 in the men's 58kg. However he will compete forthe bronze medal in the repechage later this evening.

Earlier Chutchawal ousted Ryan Carneli of Australia 2-0 in the taekwando men's 58g quarter-finals.

Chutchawal was one of the Thai gold medal prospect.

The brilliant Buttree Puedpong kept the Thai hope alive in the taekwando women's 49kg after she narrowly beat TRAN Thi Ngoc Truc of Vietnam  1-0 in the sudden-death contest.

In the morning contests, an impressive duo of Chutchawal and Buttree got Thailand off to a winning start in the first-round contests of the Beijing Games taekwondo competition on Wednesday.

Chutchawal, 20, silver medalist at the last year's Bangkok Universiade and the SEA Games in Nakhon Ratchasima, powered past little-known Jean Moloise Ogoudjobi from Benin 4-2 to next take on Australian Ryan Carneli in the second round at 4.15pm local time (3.15pm Bkk time).

Teenager Buttree or "Nong Song", 18, former world junior champion and also the SEA Games gold medallsit, struggled hard in the first-round match against Cuban Daynellis Montejo, bronze winner in the 2005 world meet, before putting the formidable opponent into shade with a powerful kick.

Following a narrow 1-0 victory, Buttree now goes up against Vietnamese Tran Thi Ngoc Truc in the second round at 3.45pm local time.