South Korea's Park Hee-jun has advanced to one of the Olympic bronze medal matches in the kata event for karate, introduced as an official sport for the first time at the 2020 Tokyo Games.

The 27-year-old ranked third in Pool A of the ranking round at Tokyo's Nippon Budokan on Friday.

Demonstrating the papuren and ohan dai forms during the two elimination rounds, Park earned an average 25-point-62 points to rank third after Spaniard Damian Quintero and American Ariel Torres Gutierrez.

While the South Korean came short of advancing to the finals by coming in third in the ranking round with 25-point-98 points, he had already secured a ticket to the bronze medal match by being among the top three from the previous round.

Park, who is the only South Korean karateka competing at the Tokyo Olympics, will vie for the bronze against Turkey's Ali Sofuoglu, the 2021 European champion, starting at 7:40 p.m. Friday.