World Taekwondo Championships:
Zandi grabs gold, ends Iran’s decade-long drought
Abolfazl Zandi ended Iran’s 10-year wait for a gold medal at the World Taekwondo Championships, capturing the top prize in the men’s -58kg weight class in Wuxi, China, on Wednesday.
A world junior champion in 2022, Zandi defeated 2023 silver medalist Georgii Gurtsiev of Belarus, who competed as a neutral athlete, in straight rounds (7-3, 12-8) to add a second medal to Iran’s haul in Wuxi.
Mahdi Hajimousaei had settled for silver in the men’s -63kg category after a punch to his neck forced him to withdraw midway through the final against Tunisia’s Mohamed Khalil Jendoubi on Saturday.
Farzan Ashourzadeh, Masoud Haji-Zavvareh, and Mahdi Khodabakhshi had been the last Iranians to strike gold in the world showpiece, when Iran claimed the men’s team title in 2015.
The final victory rounded off an emphatic run for Zandi, who did not concede a single round across five bouts en route to the final.
The young Iranian began his campaign with a dominant 12-0, 14-2 victory over Morocco’s Achraf El Mbarki before pulling off an upset (4-2, 5-5) against former world and Olympic champion Vito Dell’Aquila to reach the round of 16.
Zandi then overpowered Spain’s Jesús Fraile (14-1, 7-2) and followed it with a dominant last-eight win (15-2, 14-1) against Ukraine’s Maksym Manenkov. He then secured his place in the final with a hard-fought 6-5, 12-9 victory over the host nation’s Huang Kefen.
Elsewhere on the penultimate day of the competition, Kowsar Asaseh became the sixth Iranian female contestant to finish empty-handed in Wuxi.
Asaseh came out on top in back-to-back rounds (12-0, 8-2) against Cypriot Antreana Achilleos but suffered a 2-1 setback (2-0, 5-7, 5-5) against China’s Chen Ximin in the -62kg event.
It has been a disappointing campaign for Iranian women at the World Championships, as former world medalist Mahla Momenzadeh (-49kg) also had her campaign after two bouts, while Saeideh Nasiri (-46kg), Olympic silver medalist Nahid Kiani (-57kg), Melika Mirhosseini (-73kg) all failed to go beyond last 16 in their respective classes. Nastaran Valizadeh, meanwhile, fell to a first-round exit in the -67kg division.
Mobina to rescue?
Olympic bronze medalist Mobina Nematzadeh will look to end Iranian women’s dreadful run when she gets her -53kg campaign underway today.
Given a bye in the first round, the 20-year-old sensation will make her debut at the event against Dominican Republic’s Nahomy Victor or Lebanon’s Mariella Bou Habib, with the winner likely to face Turkey’s Merve Dinçel – a -49kg gold medalist in 2023 – in the round of 16.
Amir-Sina Bakhtiari will be the other Iranian in action on the final day, facing Colombia’s Damián Gil in his opening bout in the men’s -74kg contests.