Iranian gymnastics team heads to China for Asian Championships
Iran’s five-man squad departed for China on Friday ahead of the AGU Asian Artistic Gymnastics Championships, which will begin on Thursday in the Chinese city of Zunyi.
Mahdi Olfati – winner of a historic Asian vault gold medal last year – will headline the Iranian roster at the competition, which also serves as a qualification pathway for September’s Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games in Japan.
A men’s vault finalist at the Paris 2024 Olympics, Olfati will be joined by Mahdi Ahmadkohani, Hooman Jafari, Amirabbas Mojahed and Mohammadreza Hamidi.
Hamidi was a late addition to the squad after Mohammad Khosrownejad sustained a ligament injury earlier this month and was ruled out of the continental event.
Ahmadkohani, meanwhile, will be looking to make a strong return to international competition after serving a 24-month suspension imposed by the International Testing Agency (ITA). The ban, which expired on February 21, was handed down after the Iranian gymnast – a two-time rings silver medalist in the 2023 FIG World Cup series – accrued three whereabouts failures within a 12-month period. Ahmadkohani has denied any wrongdoing, insisting that he “had not entered the necessary information on the anti-doping website regarding my residence and training location, which led to my suspension.”
The Iranian team will be coached by Reza Kheirkhah at the Asian Championships.