World Taekwondo Junior Championships:
Khodaei wins boys’ gold, takes Iran’s tally to two medals
Mohammad-Erfan Khodaei pushed Iran’s medal count to two at the 15th World Taekwondo Junior Championships, clinching gold on the second day of action in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
Competing in the boys’ -55kg weight class, Khodaei dominated at the Olympic Sports Complex on Monday, winning all six of his bouts without dropping a single round.
In the final, Khodaei was unstoppable against Poland’s Antoni Sokolowski, sweeping the match in consecutive rounds to claim the title.
His campaign began with a commanding 2-0 victory over El Salvador’s Astorga Melgar. He followed that with identical straight-round sweeps against rivals from Malaysia and Albania.
The Iranian prodigy continued his impressive run by defeating Chinese Taipei’s Po-Yu Cheng in the quarterfinals before beating the Kazakh representative to book a place in the final.
Pinar Lotfizadeh had opened Iran’s account on Day 1, settling for a consolation bronze in the girls’ -59kg class after a last-four defeat to her Chinese opponent on Sunday.
Elsewhere on Monday, Khodaei’s compatriots Taha Nazer (boys’ -48kg) and Dina Babarahim (girls’ -55kg) fell short of the podium.
The 15th edition of the competition – featuring 986 competitors from 115 countries – will run for six days.
Iran bagged 11 medals at the previous edition in Chuncheon, South Korea, in 2024, including a remarkable seven golds, to complete a clean sweep of the team titles.