European taekwondo gold for Stevenson and Cook

GREAT Britain struck two golds medals at the European Taekwondo Championships in St Petersburg - despite fears about the validity of the new electronic scoring system.

VICTORY: Sarah Stevenson added the European title to her long list of career honours (Getty Images)

Former world champion Sarah Stevenson beat Turkey's Nur Tatar in the under-67kg category while Aaron Cook was a confident winner over Greece's Nikolaos Tzellos in the under 80kg division.

Stevenson's troubles during the Beijing Olympics, when she won a controversial bronze, was part of the reason behind the introduction of a new scoring system. The International Olympic Committee had hinted that the sport could be chopped unless they smartened up their act.

She was fuming after a late and decisive kick was not spotted in her quarter-final with home favourite Chen Zong.

Although she was later readmitted to the competition, she lost her next fight with minimal preparation and had to settle for the bottom tier of the podium.

"What we want is a definitive electronic judging system as well as high quality referees but at the moment we haven't got that," said British coach Gary Hall.

"We need to get rid of as much of the subjectivity as possible.

"It's not just one system that is used at all competitions. There was one specific one used at the World Championships and then we recently found out it would be a different one at the Europeans."