Paris 2026 World Taekwondo Grand Prix:
Salimi, Zandi triumph as Kiani falters in women’s quarters
Iran’s Arian Salimi and Abolfazl Zandi grabbed gold medals in their respective events at the Paris 2026 World Taekwondo Grand Prix to boost their bids for an Olympic quota for Los Angeles 2028.
Nahid Kiani, meanwhile, having suffered a last-eight setback at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, endured a second disappointing campaign in eight days, crashing out in the women’s -57kg quarterfinals.
A winner of a historic Olympic silver medal at Paris 2024, Kiani had a promising start on Saturday, beating South Korea’s Kim Ga-hyeon 2-0 (19-8, 10-7), and then rallied from behind to defeat France’s Manissa Lakehal-Rollings 2-1 (7-10, 19-3, 10-7) to set up a quarterfinal clash with high-profile Brazilian Maria Clara Pacheco. The reigning world champion emerged victorious in successive rounds (7-0, 11-2) before going all the way to collect her third Grand Prix gold of the season.
Double gold
Salimi capped off his impressive run in the men’s +80kg division with a comeback victory over Caden Cunningham in Saturday’s final, repeating his triumph over the Briton in the final at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
The pair traded scores in a fierce opening round before a head kick helped Cunningham take the lead for the first time at 8-6. Salimi kept chasing, but the Briton held firm to close out the round 14-9.
Despite looking drained after a hectic schedule, which also featured a gold medal at the Asian Games, Salimi responded strongly in the second round, taking it 13-9 to set up a decider.
The 22-year-old Iranian then prevailed 11-7 in the third to secure his second medal in this year’s Grand Prix Series, following his bronze in Muju, South Korea, last month, and collect 60 points in the WT Olympic Kyorugi Rankings.
Salimi began his campaign with a straight-round victory (8-7, 12-8) over fellow Iranian Mohammad-Hossein Yazdani, and then defeated Marat Mavlonov in back-to-back rounds, securing his third successive win over his Uzbek opponent following his victories in the finals of May’s Asian Championships and the Asian Games.
Salimi also outclassed Belarus’ Artsiom Plonis in successive rounds to advance to the semifinals, where the Iranian overcame Seif Eissa, the reigning -87kg world champion, 2-0 in a high-profile meeting, ending the Egyptian’s hopes of back-to-back Grand Prix titles.
In the men’s -58kg, world and Asian champion Zandi, who finished empty-handed at the Asian Games after an injury forced him out in the quarterfinals, bounced back in style, sweeping reigning Olympic champion Park Tae-joon of South Korea 2-0 (7-4, 11-6) in the final.
Zandi also opened with a win in an all-Iranian battle, beating Mahdi Razmian 2-0 (6-0, 12-3), before a 2-0 victory (14-7, 13-7) against Nigeria’s Nouridine Issaka sent him into the semifinals.
Zandi led his last-four clash against Jesus Fraile Rodriguez with a 21-2 win in the first round before the Spaniard withdrew from the second.