Fujairah Open International Taekwondo Championship:
Nasiri, Nouri win golds as Iran bags three cadet medals
There was further glory for the Iranian girls at the Fujairah Open International Taekwondo Championship as Aynaz Nasri and Parnian Nouri grabbed a couple of cadet gold medals in the United Arab Emirates.
A world junior champion in South Korea last year, Nasri walked away with the ultimate prize of the -63kg contests, thanks to a final victory over her Russian opponent.
Nouri, also a reigning world junior gold medalist, had won a first cadet gold for the country at the expense of the Egyptian participant in the -52kg final.
Meanwhile, Rozhan Heidari suffered a final defeat against the Moroccan athlete to settle for the silver medal in the -55kg class.
Tuesday’s cadet competitions came after the Iranian women had collected 11 medals, including four golds, to finish atop the team table in the seniors’ event.
Hasti Valinejad (-46kg) and Mahla Mo’menzadeh (-49kg) won double golds after beating fellow-Iranians Sogand Shiri and Saeideh Nasiri respectively in the final.
Nastaran Valizadeh stole the headlines by defeating reigning Olympic champion and world No. 1 Viviana Marton of Hungary to the -62kg title, with Melika Mirhosseini beating Jordanian Rama Abu Al-Rub for the -73kg crown.
Elsewhere, Mobina Ne’matzadeh, an Olympic bronze medalist last summer, took the silver medal in the -53kg contests after a defeat against Saudi Arabia’s Dunya Abutaleb, who made up for her loss to the Iranian girl in the third-place bout at the Paris Games.
Saghar Moradi also finished her campaign with a silver medal in the -67kg event, with Sogol Shiri (-49kg), Tina Madanlou (-57kg) and Zahra Pour-Esmaeil (+73kg) adding three bronzes to Iran’s medal haul.