Saei eager to prove doubters wrong at world, ISG events
Head coach Mahrouz Saei will have a point to prove when Iranian women’s taekwondo team is in action at the upcoming World Championships and the Islamic Solidarity Games.
The 27th edition of the World Championships will get underway in Wuxi, China, on October 24, followed by the sixth edition of multi-sport event in Riyadh on November 7.
Saei was unveiled as the new national team coach by the Technical Committee of the Iranian Taekwondo Federation earlier in the month. She replaced former head coach Minou Maddah, who parted ways with the sport’s national governing body following last year’s historic campaign at the Paris Olympics, where Nahid Kiani and Mobina Nematzadeh won silver and bronze medals respectively in the women’s taekwondo competitions.
Her appointment was met with criticism from many in the country, who believed the decision was motivated by nepotism on the part of Saei’s older brother and the chairman of the federation, Hadi Saei, rather than her own coaching credentials.
However, the president of the federation, who had a long-standing feud with Maddah after the Olympics, has always insisted that her sister “has the best CV for the job in the country,” noting that she led her club to the Iranian title over the past six years and was also named the best women’s coach at the WT President’s Cup and the Asian Club Championships in April.
Iran managed to win a single women’s medal – a gold by Kiani in the -53kg category – across eight weight classes at the 2023 World Championships. Saei will now be eager to improve on that haul to cement her status as the right choice for the role.
Saei, who served as a number two to Maddah in Paris and was in Nematzadeh’s corner through her bronze-winning campaign, has named two different rosters for the upcoming major events.
Kiani and Nematzadeh will spearhead the six-woman team in Wuxi, with Saiedeh Nasiri, Mahla Momenzadeh, Kowsar Asaseh, and Nastaran Valizadeh also in the squad.
Meanwhile, Saina Karimi, Rozhan Goudarzi, Hasti Mohammadi, Yalda Valinejad, Fatemeh Eskandarnia, and two-time Asian silver medlaist Melika Mirhosseini will vie for glory at the Islamic Solidarity Games.