Dakar 2026 Youth Olympics:
Iran’s Hakimi settles for silver in men’s judo
Iranian judoka Sobhan Hakimi settled for a silver medal in the men’s -81kg category at the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympics on Monday.
A gold medalist at July’s Asian Cadet Judo Championships, the young Iranian opened his campaign with a victory over Shaku Kargbo of Sierra Leone, followed by a semifinal win against Egypt’s Aly Ealramly, before being denied gold by Slovenia’s Maks Cebulj in the final.
This was Iran’s second medal at the multi-sport event, after Parsa Shahshahani had also claimed silver in swimming on the preceding day.
The 17-year-old Iranian clocked 2:02.74 to finish runner-up in the men’s 200m backstroke. New Zealand’s Ariel Muchirahondo won the gold medal in 1:59.15, with Greece’s Nikolaos Papatheodorou taking bronze in 2:03.23.
The Summer Youth Olympics, staged in Africa for the first time, kicked off with the opening ceremony at the 55,000-seat Abdoulaye Wade Stadium in Diamniadio, 30km from the Senegalese capital, on Saturday.
Iran is represented by 29 athletes across two team events – men’s beach volleyball and women’s futsal – and 12 individual sports at this year’s edition.
The girls’ futsal team makes up the largest contingent, with 10 athletes. Beach wrestling features four Iranian competitors, while taekwondo has two participants – one girl and one boy. Badminton also has two representatives, one of each gender.
The showpiece in the Senegalese capital marks Iran’s fourth participation in as many editions since the event was first introduced at Singapore 2010, where the country secured two gold, two silver and one bronze medal.
At Nanjing 2014, Iran collected three gold and three bronze medals before achieving its best performance to date with seven gold, three silver and four bronze medals at Buenos Aires 2018.