Asian Karate Senior Championship:
Iranians scoop four medals on Day 2
The second day of the Asian Karate Senior Championship saw Iranians collect four medals – including a kumite silver for Bahman Asgari – in Melaka, Malaysia, to take the country’s medal count to nine.
Four-time world gold medalist Asgari, who missed out on the Tokyo Olympics due to a positive doping test, beat Sultan al-Zahrani of Saudi Arabia for a place in the men’s -75kg final, before a 3-2 setback against Kazakhstan’s Nurkanat Azhikanov brought him a seventh Asian medal.
Earlier in the day, Tokyo Olympic champion Sajjad Ganjzadeh’s run also came to a rather under-par finish with a men’s kumite +84kg bronze.
Stepping into the competition on the back of a remarkable 11 Asian medals, Ganjzadeh eased to successive victories over participants from Macau and Indonesia but came short against Saudi karateka Tareg Hamedi, whom the Iranian beat for the Olympic gold.
Ganjzadeh still managed to get back to winning ways in the repechage bouts and defeated Emirati Sulaiman al-Mulla 5-0 for a joint-third place alongside Abylay Toltay of Kazakhstan.
Hamedi, meanwhile, went on to beat Japan’s Daiki Ando in the final.
Sara Bahmanyar and Fatemeh Sa’adati also won two women’s kumite bronzes for Iran.
Bahmanyar stood on the third podium alongside Hawraa al-Ajmi of the UAE in the -50kg event, with Sa’adati finishing her run with a -55kg bronze.
Saturday’s medals came after a glittering first day in Melaka for the Iranian karatekas, who bagged a couple of kumite gold medals plus three bronzes.
Atousa Golshadnejad clinched a first women’s gold for the country at the event.
The Iranian girl defeated opponents from Jordan, Kazakhstan, and China before beating Sarah al-Ameri of the United Arab Emirates 3-0 in the -61kg final.
Behnam Dehqanzadeh was the Iranian gold medalist in the men’s kumite contests on Day 1 – thanks to a thrilling 7-4 victory over Jordanian Omar Shaqrah in the -55kg weigh class.
Two-time world champion Amir Mehdizadeh had to settle for a joint third-spot finish in the men’s -67kg event.
The Iranian, who also has double Asian golds under his belt, bounced back from third-round defeat against Kazakhstan’s Didar Amirali to beat Palestinian Mahmoud Daifallah (2-0) and Mohammad aL-Otaibi of Kuwait (3-2) and share the third podium with Hong Kong’s Cheng Hui Pan.
Jordan’s Abdelrahman al-Masatfa – a bronze medalist at the Tokyo Olympics – came out victorious against Amirali for the ultimate prize.
The individual kata events saw Iranians finish their campaigns with two bronzes.
Fatemeh Sadeqi scored 41.6 points against Filipino Sakura Alforte’s 41.2 to grab a third Asian kata bronze of her career.
Hong Kong’s Grace Lau came out on top against Japanese Kiyou Shimizu in the final, with Liya Koshkarbayeva of Kazakhstan taking the other bronze medal of the category.
Meanwhile, Abolfazl Shahrjerdi – a 2018 world bronze winner – registered 40.7 points in the third-place contest, with the Chinese Taipei’s Chen Chao-Ching on 40.0, to take his tally at the Asian Championship to five medals – including double silvers.
Kakeru Nishiyama of Japan beat Kuwait’s Mohammad Bader for the gold, while South Korean Park Hee-jun also won a bronze.