SEOUL - Olympic champion Moon Dae-sung is making a comeback after South Korea's pride took a battering at the taekwondo world championships in China last month.

SEOUL - Olympic champion Moon Dae-sung is making a comeback after South Korea's pride took a battering at the taekwondo world championships in China last month.

The 30-year-old, who won gold in Athens with a spectacular spinning roundhouse kick that knocked his final opponent out cold, told reporters on Wednesday his aim was to repeat that feat in Beijing next year.

"I was frustrated to see South Korean athletes losing at the world championships," said Moon, who stopped competing in the traditional Korean martial art after his Athens success.

"More disappointing was the defeat in the men's over 80 kilogram class, meaning the prestige of taekwondo's motherland is floundering," the Korea Times quoted him as saying.

South Korea won the men's and women's team titles at the world championships in Beijing in May. Korea's women took home three golds but the men only won one.

Moon, a professor at Donga University in the southern port city of Busan, said his colleagues had urged him to come out of retirement for the sake of Korean sport.

Moon is confident he can get back to top form after a three-year layoff and said he planned to have exhibition matches this summer before the national trials later in the year. - Reuters