Asian Championship for Iranian Karateka Girls and Boys with 20 Medals

Iranian karateka girls and boys achieved team championship in Asia by winning ten gold, four silver, and six bronze medals. Members of the Iranian national youth and junior karate teams stood on the top podium with a noticeable superiority over their opponents at the 16th Asian Championship held in Astana, Kazakhstan. This competition is taking place with the participation of 660 karateka from 27 countries in various age categories for men and women. In the youth and junior categories, after Iran, Japan and Kazakhstan secured six gold medals each, and Indonesia followed with one gold. Other countries did not manage to win any gold medals. The golden champions of Iran in the junior category were Hossein Khodari, Erfan Davoodi, and Kamran Basiri. In the youth category, in the girls' team kata, Setareh Khakpour, Arzu Loonji, and Mohaddeseh Naeiji stood on the top podium. In the girls' individual kata, Hadiseh Jamal took first place. In the boys' team kata, Mehdi Shojaei, Pouya Habibi, and Mehdi Rezaei achieved championship. In the kumite competitions, Mohammad Reza Moradi won gold in the 61 kg category, and Barbad Sadaqat in the 76 kg category. Fatemeh Saadati and Ali Karimi also earned gold medals. Majid Vakili, Majid Nikouhamat, Leila Barjaghi, and Mina Yousofi were four silver medalists for Iran at the Asian Championship. Zeinab Al-Sadat Hosseini, Pouria Aghdasi, Amir Hossein Bigdeli, Hadiseh Talebi, Ahmad Reza Mahmoudi, and Mobina Heydari also won six bronze medals. Karate in Iran has had a more successful record than other martial arts over the past two years. This sport has been included in the Olympic program for the first time at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and will have an official status. Despite the decline of taekwondo, consecutive failures in boxing, and the repeated setbacks and controversies in judo in Iran, the situation in karate is different. This sport has achieved successful results in both men's and women's categories across various age groups in global and continental competitions. The head coach of the youth and junior karate teams in Iran stated: 'Karate has become Olympic, and we are witnessing more investment from countries. This attention starts from the youth level. Countries that previously had no voice have shown high-level competitions this year.' Farahnaz Arbab told Mehr News Agency: 'We do not have much time until the world competitions. We need to be more careful in our national competitions to have a more prepared team in the remaining three months, and most importantly, we need to go to preparatory competitions.'