Future bright for Iranian taekwondo after double world junior crowns
The recently-finished World Junior Championships was yet another indication of Iranian taekwondo being on the right track under Hadi Saei, the head of the sport’s national governing body, over the past three years.
Iranians collected seven golds medals as well as double silvers and bronzes apiece to beat host South Korea to the men’s and women’s team titles in Chuncheon.
Amirmohammad Ashrafi, the MVP in the men’s competitions, Sina Mohtarami, and Mahdi Razmian were the Iranian gold medalists in the men’s contests, while Ali-Akbar Ebrahimi won a silver and Amir-Mohammad Nasirahmadi and Amin Ahmadvand bagged a couple of bronze medals.
In the women’s draw, Ghazal Houshmand, Parnian Nouri, Aynaz Nasiri, and Hana Zarrinkamar all walked away with ultimate prize of their respective events, with Saghar Moradi settling for a silver medal.
Perhaps Iranian fans should keep all those names in mind as it won’t be long before these young prodigies make their senior breakthrough in the world and Asian competitions.
“We’re not going to abandon this young generation. We’ll keep nurturing them through a right program so that all of them can succeed in the future seniors’ events,” Saei told IRNA on Tuesday.
“That’s what the federation did two years ago and we all saw how it paid off,” added the Iranian.
Two-time Olympic champion Saei, who took the helm at the federation in January 2022, built on his winning mentality and years of experience as a taekwondo legend as the country made a clean sweep of medals across four men’s and women’s weight classes in the Paris Games in August.
Of the four medalists, Arian Salimi was only 20 when he won a first Olympic taekwondo gold for Iran since Saei’s triumph in Beijing 2008, while former world junior champion Mobina Ne’matzadeh, a women’s bronze winner in Paris, is still a teenager.