Iranian girls out to repeat historic success in Asian taekwondo meet
Iranian women will be chasing a second successive team title at the Asian Taekwondo Championships when the event gets underway in Da Nang, Vietnam, on Thursday.
A historic campaign in 2022 saw the country collect six medals – including triple golds – for a maiden women’s kyorugi trophy in the competitions in South Korea.
Reigning world champion Nahid Kiani will headline the Iranian six-woman squad in Da Nang, hoping to add a second Asian -53kg gold to her medal haul ahead of the Paris Olympics in August.
Mobina Ne’matzadeh will also be looking to flex muscles before heading to Paris when she competes in the -49kg contests.
The 18-year-old prodigy, who bagged the Asian silver in the previous edition, will step into the event on the back of an impressive run in recent months – during which she won the bronze at the Asian Games before punching her Paris ticket in the Asian qualification tournament in March.
Joining the two Iranian Olympians in Vietnam is Saeideh Nasri, who will represent the country in the -46kg weight class fresh from a bronze-winning campaign in April’s Galeb Belgrade Trophy – Serbia Open.
Elham Haqiqi will hope to build on February’s Fajr Open gold on home soil in the -62kg contests, while Yalda Valinejad will take part in the -67kg event with the WT President’s Cup gold under her belt.
The heavyweight (-73kg) competition will see former Asian silver and bronze winner Melika Mirhosseini go after a second continental medal in less than 12 months, following her third-podium finish at the Asian Games.
The Iranian girls will be coached by Minoo Maddah and her assistants Mahrouz Saei and Fatemeh Ne’mati at the Asian meet.
In the men’s draw, the Iranian team will be eager to make amends for a forgettable Asian Games in Hangzhou, where the country failed to win a single gold under former coach Bijan Moghanlou across five weight categories.
The bad news for Iran head coach Majid Aflaki is the absence of team captain Mirhashem Hosseini, who suffered an untimely injury during a training session in Tehran days ago and will be replaced by President’s Cup gold medalist Ali Khoshravesh in the -80kg class.
Meanwhile, Mahdi Haji Mousaei (-58kg) and Aryan Salimi (+87kg), who settled for a couple of silver medals in Hangzhou, will see the competition as a perfect preparation with less than 70 days until the Olympic Games.
Abolfazl Zandi (-54kg), Matin Rezaei (-63kg), Amir-Sina Bakhtiari (-74kg), and Mohammad-Hossein Yazdani (-87kg) complete the Iranian seven-man lineup at the 26th edition of the Asian Championships, which will be contested by more than 570 athletes from 36 countries across the kyorugi, poomsae, and para taekwondo competitions until Sunday.