Taekwondokas to Compete in World Cup in Abidjan

World Taekwondo Team Championships in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, December 5-8.

Iran, South Korea, Azerbaijan, Russia, the US, China, Taiwan, the World Taekwondo Demonstration team and the host country are the eight submitted teams for the games.

The cup will be held for both men and women but Iran will only have a men’s team, Varzhesh3 reported.

The eight teams were qualified based on their results at the 6th International Taekwondo Federation (ITF) Taekwondo World Cup and 2017 World Taekwondo Championships in Hungary and South Korea respectively.

  World Championships

A total of 177 countries attended the 2017 event. With three silver medals and one bronze, Iran’s team could not get another place better than 11th at the cup.

A 3rd place for Iran in the world ranking of taekwondo championships, the result was seen  as far from satisfactory.

In all time medal count of the world championships, Iran with 54 medals is in fifth place after South Korea leading the lot with Spain, Taiwan and Turkey in the second to fourth places respectively.

  Among Top Ten

But there is some good news for Iran taekwondo. The World Taekwondo Federation’s top 10 ranking of men taekwondokas for October has been released with six Iranian athletes on the list.

Armin Hadipour is second best in the -54 kg category and Farzan Ashourzadeh maintains his previous third position in the -58 kg division.

Representing Iran in the -74 kg division, Masoud Hajizavareh is placed fifth on the world ranking list while Mehdi Khodabakhshi is eighth in the -80 category.

In the -87 kg group, Ahamad Mohammadi has improved three spots advancing to fourth place. Iran’s heavyweight taekwondo practitioner, Sajjad Mardani, captured the third position in the ranking list for the +87 kg division.

Moreover, Iran’s highest ranking woman taekwondoka in the women’s world ranking list is Kimia Alizadeh, the country’s sole female Olympic medalist in the field, who has been placed  fifteenth in the -62 kg group.