Four Iranians named among 2015 top taekwondo fighters, coaches
Four members of Iran’s men’s national taekwondo team have been named among the world’s top-ranked athletes of the sport, thanks to their awe-inspiring displays of skill and strength at international sports events.
According to the latest classification published by the renowned and Spanish-language Mundo Taekwondo magazine, 24-year-old Iranian taekwondo practitioner Mahdi Khodabakhshi accumulated enough points to be elected as the best male athlete of 2015.
On September 19, Khodabakhshi, who had defeated his Tunisian, Uzbek, Armenian and Iranian rivals in his march to the final competition of the men’s minus 80-kilogram weight class at the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) Grand Prix in Britain, brushed aside British taekwondo athlete Aaron Arthur Cook 13-11 in a stiff challenge, and grabbed the gold for Iran.
The World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) Grand Prix opened in the British city of Manchester on October 24, and concluded on October 26. A total of 237 athletes from 59 countries, including Argentina, Britain, Iran, Italy, Spain, Turkey and the United States, took part in the three-day international taekwondo tournament.
Female Chinese Taekwondo practitioner, Wu Jingyu, was also selected as the best female athlete of the year.
Mundo Taekwondo picked up the head coach of the Iranian men’s taekwondo team Bijan Moghanluo as 2015’s best male coach. French Myriam Baverel was chosen as the best female coach of the year.
The magazine further named the October 16 competition between Iran’s Abolfazl Yaghoubi Jouybari and his Turkish opponent Servet Tazegul at the semifinal round of the 2015 WTF World Taekwondo Grand Prix Series 3 at the Manchester Regional Arena, Britain, as the best male fight of the year.
Yaghoubi Jouybari emerged victorious at the end of the minus 68-kilogram weight division contest, and advanced to the final encounter, where he conceded a 7-16 defeat to his 23-year-old South Korean rival Lee Dae-Hoon and snatched the silver medal.
Moreover, 19-year-old taekwondo practitioner Farzan Ashourzadeh Fallah joined Mexico’s Saul Gutierrez as the best male athlete to progress to the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
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