According to IRNA, the third day of the 25th World Taekwondo Championship was dedicated to the men’s minus 68 kg and women’s minus 68 kg weight fights, in which Reza Kalhor, the worthy representative of our country’s taekwondo, won the bronze medal in the minus 68 kg weight.
In the first round, Kalhor had to fight against “Ismail Yacouba” from Niger, and this opponent withdrew from the table due to not reaching the weight. He defeated “Iker Casas Garcia” from the host country in two rounds with the results of 10:7 and 17:4 in the second round and in a spectacular fight in front of nearly a thousand Mexican spectators. He won 4-15 and 13-15 in two consecutive rounds and then with a 2-0 victory (14-7 and 17-8) against “Bernardo Pai” from Dominica, he went to the semi-finals.
At this stage, he was ahead of “Bradley Sinden”, the world number one and holder of Olympic silver, gold and world bronze from Great Britain. Kalhor ended the first round of this match with 17:6. In the second round, while the result was 9:4 on the scoreboard, the English rival hit a foul shot in the face, which caused injury to the representative of our country, and this issue disturbed his concentration until the result of this round was 15:8 in favor. “Bradley Sinden” to change.
In the third round, it was the representative of Great Britain who won 16-11, and finally, the representative of our country lost 2-1 despite being injured and settled for the bronze medal of the world, when the referee cleared his 7 points in the third round.
In the summer of 1401, Reza Kalhor, a 17-year-old taekwondo player from Iran, had won two gold medals in the World Youth and Asian Youth Championships.
Also, Ghazal Soltani was the second representative of Iran on the third day. He lost 2-1 against “Ging Zhao” from China in the first match against “Alexandra Caceres Diaz” from Paraguay in minus 49 kg and withdrew from the tournament. Soltani won the first time of this fight 9:5 and in the next two rounds he lost 11:3 and 12:9 to his famous rival.
Before this, Mehran Hashadari won the bronze medal in men’s weight minus 80 kg. Besides, Abolfazl Abbasi, Narges Mirnoorollahi and Zainab Esmaili did not win a medal either.
Iran will have 2 representatives on the fourth day of the tournament on November 26.
In the women’s group, Akram Khodabandeh, with the presence of 24 taekwondo athletes in the weight plus 73 kg, will first fight against “Faith Ugalu” from Kenya, and if she wins, she will face “Lorna Brundel” from Germany and the holder of the first ranking in the world. In the table of captains of the national women’s taekwondo team, there are players from Spain, Chinese Taipei and Brazil.
In the men’s group, Sajjad Mardani, the captain of the men’s national taekwondo team in the extra weight of 87 kg, will first meet “Luis Alvarez” from Venezuela, and then, if he wins, he will play against the winner of the match against Morocco or Ukraine. On the men’s table, there are representatives of Turkey, Australia, Jordan, Gambia and Gabon. Also, 37 taekwondo players have participated in this weight.
The minus 74 kg competition will be held on the fourth day, and due to Mirhashem Hosseini not reaching the weigh-in on the day of the weigh-in, we will not have a representative in this weight.
The women’s national team is led by Mino Madah as the head coach; Neda Zare and Mehroz Saei accompany him as coaches. In the men’s group, Bijan Moqanlou is the head coach, and Masoud Haji Zawareh and Naima Khajovi will be the coaches of the national team.
The World Taekwondo Championship began on Monday, November 23, with the participation of 755 taekwondo players from 120 countries, hosted by Mexico at the “Metropolitan” Hall in Guadalajara, and will continue until Sunday, November 29.