Underway in northwest Iranian city of Urmia, the international karate event kicked off on Friday with teams from Azerbaijan, France, Malaysia, Georgia, Afghanistan, Russia, Turkey, Macedonia and Iraq in attendance. The tournament is being competed in kata and team categories in senior, junior and cadet weight divisions.
Iran’s representative at -75kg Men’s Kumite , Aliasghar Asiabari downed Turkey’s Serkan Yağcı who is a European bronze medalist in the final showdown. Yağcı suffered a 1-8 loss in the face of the Iranian karateka who stood on top of the podium by performing stunning athletic performances. Asiabari’s compatriots, Milad Bhamani and Hadi Sefieh, jointly bagged silver medal in the same division.
A second gold was added to Iran’s medal tally by Hamoun Derafshipour who paved his path to the finals of -68-kilogram weight group by thrashing four abled rivals from Turkey and Azerbaijan. In his gold-medal debut, the Persian fighter got the better of Azerbaijan Republic’s Rafiz Hasanov. Two karate practitioners from Turkey jointly stood on the third podium.
Final match of -60kg was a neck-on-neck challenge between Iran’s Asian U21 gold medalist, Ali Meskini, and a Kazakhstan’s Gheisar Alfsbai rival. Despite maintaining a 4-3 lead till latest seconds of the fight, the Kazakh athlete bagged one point for the match to end in a draw. The gold medal went to Alfsbai for having earned the first point in the debut. Meskini of Iran therefore finished second.
In order to secure a spot in the finals, Meskini had conquered Milad Tighi, Kaveh Najafitabar, Pouyan Aghaei and Meysam Adhami all from Iran. Bronze medal was also shared by two Iranian karate practitioners, Mahdi Rahimi and Meysam Adhami.
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