Amir Mehdizadeh and Saeed Ahmadi were the two Iranian athletes who won the bronze medals at the Karate 1 Premier League Halle/Leipzig 2017 in Germany.
The Iranian athlete defeated his Russian rival, Vladimir Kalashnikov, at the second-chance event 6-0 to grab the bronze medal of the minus 60 kilogram category.
Mahdizadeh had defeated his rivals from Italy, Egypt, Uzbekistan, and Italy before losing to the Brazilian giant at the semi-final round. He overwhelmed Italian contestant Mattia Pampaloni 3-0 at first. Salama Malek was the Egyptian athlete who came to his knees before Mahdizadeh, and Uzbek competitor Sadriddin Saymatov lost to him 3-1.
The other Iranian medal winner of the tournament was Saeed Ahmadi who overwhelmed Jordan Thomas of Germany 6-0 on Sunday. He received the bronze medal in the men's minus 67-kilogram kumite division.
The Karate 1 Premier League is the most important league event in the world of Karate. It comprises of a number of the most prominent Karate competitions and endeavors to bring together the best Karate athletes in the world in an open championship of unprecedented scale and quality.
Initiated in 2011 with two tournaments held in Paris and Istanbul, the Karate1 Premier League has made exponential progress in terms of magnitude and status of the tournaments as well as the number of participants and countries represented.
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