By Tom Harle at Grand Palais

Caden Cunningham’s braggadocio has barely been dented by missing out on Olympic gold.

The 21-year-old took to the Games stage like a duck to water and had the Grand Palais dancing to the beat of his drum as he kicked away.

He picked apart the heavyweight final piece by piece, but came unstuck in the final against Iranian head-kicking maestro Arian Salimi, settling for silver and keeping Team GB’s proud record in taekwondo alive.

With a side hustle in modelling and ambitions towards UFC and MMA fighting, Cunningham’s cult of personality will certainly survive this setback.

“It's the start of whatever I want,” said the Yorkshireman.

“I work very hard, if I choose something else I choose something else and I'll master it. If I stay with this, I'll be the king of taekwondo for the next four years, no problem.

“One fight doesn't define me as a fighter, I'm sure people will have watched that and saw that I'm a strong fighter, but I didn't get the result."

Cunningham played a smart tactical game and exploited the new format of taekwondo that has been introduced at Paris 2024.

At this Olympics, taekwondo is decided by individual rounds rather than a cumulative score; if the scores are tied at the end of a round, the fighter with more unscored registrations - contacts that were too light to register - is given the decision.

First to fall at Cunningham’s feet was 2017 world champion Abdoul Issoufou of Niger, who he beat 6-5 in the first and then kept at a distance, taking the scoreless second with more unscored registrations.

Cunningham had to show all of his smarts to come through a cagey quarter-final clash with rangy Cuban Rafael Alba.

Again, the first round was scoreless and went the way of Cunningham but double world champion Alba took the second by a slender margin to force a decider, in which the Brit landed two body kicks in the last 15 seconds to advance.

Cunningham’s semi-final meeting with Cheick Sallah Cissé, who snatched gold from under the nose of Team GB’s Lutalo Muhammad at Rio 2016, was always going to be a blockbuster. Muhammad was metres away from the mat, working as a pundit for Eurosport and Discovery, whipping the frenzied French crowd.

To beat Cissé, Cunningham used the video referral system to his advantage, overturning two decisions and seeing two head kicks upheld, getting the decision once again after it ended 11-6 5-7 5-5.

“To come and beat three World champions, three Olympic medallists, it's a blooming good day,” said Cunningham.

Cunningham won the first round in the final but Salimi eventually took command, landing a head kick with 13 seconds on the clock in the decider to settle the matter.

"It was very good, very fun,” he said. “I've got a lot of respect for that athlete, once that match started, similar to myself, he wanted to kill.

“Outside of that, very nice guy, a genuine fighter, I've got no problem losing if the man is better than me on the day, and that's what he was.”

Two years after rupturing his ACL at the World Championships, Cunningham is the third British man to reach the Olympic rostrum in his sport after Muhammad and Bradly Sinden’s silvers at Rio 2016.

Sinden withdrew from his bronze medal bout at -68kg due to a knee injury, making for a difficult start to the Games for the taekwondo squad after double Olympic champion Jade Jones was beaten in the first round.

But Cunningham’s deep-seated self-belief helped him bag Team GB a taekwondo medal for the sixth Games running.

“I'm gutted I didn't get the gold for myself, my coach and my family and for Britain,” said Cunningham.

“However, I'm very proud to be here. Now I want to see my Mum and Dad, who were the first to encourage to me to go the Olympics. I hope they’re proud of me. I’ll just chill, go home and have a KFC or something.”

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