Zarrinkamar spearheads Iran’s Olympic taekwondo rankings
Teenage prodigy Hana Zarrinkamar has emerged as the highest-ranked Iranian in the latest Olympic rankings released by World Taekwondo.
The 17-year-old sensation, who won a second successive world junior title in April before claiming an impressive gold medal at the Korea Open last month, sits second behind Russia’s Anastasiia Kosmycheva in the women’s +67kg category with 60 points.
Elsewhere in the women’s rankings, Nahid Kiani, who won Iran’s first women’s Olympic silver medal in taekwondo at Paris 2024, is ranked 42nd in the -57kg class with 12 points.
In the men’s -58kg division, reigning world champion Abolfazl Zandi and Yasin Valizadeh, who claimed gold and silver, respectively, at May’s Asian Championships, share 22nd place with 20 points each, while Mahdi Hajmousaei, also an Asian gold medalist, is 21st in the -68kg category, also with 20 points.
Olympic gold medalist Arian Salimi shares 15th place in the men’s +80kg division with fellow Iranian Mohammad Hossein Yazdani, with both athletes having 20 points.
World Taekwondo reset the Olympic rankings at the beginning of June, meaning the current standings are based solely on points earned since then.
Iranian athletes’ relatively low positions are largely attributed to their absence from June’s Grand Prix event in Rome due to the war in the country. Their only ranking points so far have come from the Korea Open.
Further appearances at ranking events are expected to improve the positions of Iran’s representatives as they continue their qualification campaign for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.