The Army Air Defense Thunder Karate team finished third in the Karate Super League. “Kazem Akbari” “It was very strange,” the team leader told IRNA about the length of the season. The competitions started in 1399 and ended in 1400. Our team changed during this time and our structure changed. We had a number of soldiers in the team who finished their service during this time. There were more athletes in our team but we could not keep them.
He further added: The league was held completely unplanned. It was not clear what was going on. It was scheduled several times and the same schedule was postponed. However, we had a good performance and finished second in our group after Azad University. Then we reached the halves and met the first team of the other group. Kata refereeing was very poor. In the competition hall, the experts who were present said that our kataro athlete was right, but unfortunately, the judges were fellow kataros of the opposing team and gave them a better score.
The head of the Raad Padafand karate team also noted: “Although we won third place in this competition, this was not the main position of our team.” Overall, we had a good team and we defeated good teams. In our group, we fought and put pressure on the Azad University, which had national team members and world and Olympic champions. We defeated Zabihullah Pourshib, the captain of the national team and the recent Asian champion. The problem was that we did not have a kata team and we lost important points in this section. The committee team, however, had a brilliant performance.
He acknowledged the separation of military players from the team: “Our members are soldiers.” When their military service is over, they will be transferred to other teams if they do not wish to continue their cooperation. However, we were the strongest team on our committee. A homogeneous team that was young and motivated. Azad University attracted all the national team members because of its very good financial strength, and this made the league one-sided. In fact, it can be said that the results were already clear.
Akbari clarified about the pass team: One of my criticisms of the league and the organizers is that a national coach should not be present in club competitions. This raises the issue of refereeing and is not good for our league and has an adverse effect on the league level.
“Although the passing team is older than our team, we could have beaten them,” he said. This year, our goal was to become at least a finalist. Unfortunately, the federation does not pay attention to teams that do not have a body.
He continued: “The situation had improved in terms of the beauty of the event as well as the television broadcast, and I must mention that.” But despite the changes in the jury, we still saw mistakes. For example, our athlete Pouria Aghdasi suffered the same incident that Sajjad Ganjzadeh suffered in the Olympic final against his Saudi opponent. But the judges’ decision this time was something else. In other words, we lost 11 points in the pass game due to a referee’s mistake from the very beginning.
The head of Raad Padafand team said: “Our support for our players is not material, but the management of the club and the physical training of the defense try to fully support the athletes professionally.” We try to provide a platform for athletes to continue their professional sports without interruption. For example, Mehdi Ashouri, Mohammad Reza Gilanpour, Sadegh Sangcholi, etc. are examples of people who reached the national team after attending the Thunder Defense. Amir Bahador Tadayon and Mehdi Shahgol are also currently part of our team.
Akbari added: “We expect the Karate Federation to have more support for us with this potential.” However, there are people in the federation who do not like the Raad Padafand team to manage the team in the Super League, because they have a team in this league, and this is an objective example of a conflict of interest that can seriously damage the country’s karate sport in the long run. .
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