Iran’s Taekwondo team finished runner up at the 23rd Asian Taekwondo Championships in Ho Chi Minh City of Vietnam on Monday.
Adding one silver, five bronze and a late gold medal on the final day to reach a total of 11 medals, the team took second place, according to the website of Taekwondo Federation of Iran.
Amir-Mohammad Bakhshi in the -68kg won the only gold. He stormed into the final clash against a rival from South Korea and thrashed him 28-12.
He defeated another contestant from Hong Kong 26-1 in the group stage. Bakhshi then hammered a Malaysian 24-5. In the quarterfinal match, he humbled his Kazakh rival 24-8. But in the semifinals, the Iranian fought tooth and nail to beat the powerful Taiwanese contender 19-17.
Another member from the Iran team made his way to the finals but won silver. Olympian Farzan Ashourzadeh in the flyweight category of -58kg went on tatami against Kim Tae-hun of South Korea and lost the match to settle for silver.
Finweight Armin Hadipour in -54kg and welterweight Mehdi Khodabakhshi in -80kg, and heavyweight Saeed Rajabi in +87kg won bronze on the final day of the games for the men’s squad.
The women’s team of Iran bagged two bronze medals on the last day. Olympian lightweight Kimia Alizadeh and heavyweight Zahra Pour-Esmaeil won bronze in the -62kg and +73kg classes respectively.
Day One
Taekwondokas from the nation passed the first day with the wind in their sails when they collected three silver and one bronze medals.
Soroush Ahmadi in -63kg had his final clash against a rival from taekwondo powerhouse South Korea. Ahmadi’s effort ended up in winning the silver medal of the category.
Lightweight Mehdi Jalali won the second silver on the first day after losing the finals to an Uzbek practitioner.
The last silver on the opening day went to Nahid Kiani form the women’s squad. Having an intense clash against the South Korean rival, Kiani took second place.
Bronze man of the first day, Ahmad Mohammadi, tied the third place of the -87kg class with South Korean rival after Kazakh and Uzbek players took first and second places respectively.
The total count of medals for Iran was one gold, four silver and six bronze. The overall result brought the second place of the tournament for Iran with 32 points. South Korea was first with 42 points.
The continental tournament in Vietnam brought together 267 taekwondokas from 34 countries, May 26-28. The first to third players of the games earn 40, 24, and 14.40 points respectively to improve their Olympic ranking.
