TEHRAN - Iranian taekwondo athletes concluded the 2026 World Taekwondo Grand Prix Series with overcoming several top international contenders on Sunday.
The final day of the third stage, in the -80kg weight class, Mehran Barkhordari and Amir-Sina Bakhtiari, were eliminated after losing to their respective opponents.
In the -80kg category, Barkhordari first defeated Tomas Sittek of the Czech Republic in two consecutive rounds but subsequently lost 2-0 to Jasurbek Jaysunov of Uzbekistan, marking another early exit following his poor performance since the Paris Olympics.
Bakhtiari defeated Gudmundur Sigurjonsson of Iceland 2-0 and then beat Vinicius Matos of Brazil by the same score. He faced another Brazilian representative, Rodrigues Fernandez, in the quarterfinals but was eliminated after a 2-0 loss.
At the conclusion of the third stage of the 2026 Grand Prix, the Iranian taekwondo team wrapped up its campaign with two gold medals, won by Arian Salimi and Abolfazl Zandi. Additionally, Mehdi Razmian, Muhammad-Hussein Yazdani, Nahid Kiani, Mehran Barkhordari, and Amir-Sina Bakhtiari were eliminated from the competition after losing to their opponents.
Kiani, an Olympic silver medalist and world champion who suffered an early exit at the Asian Games last week, kicked off her campaign in the first round of the Paris Grand Prix with a 2-0 win over South Korea’s Kim Ga-hyeon.
In her second contest, she secured a 2-1 victory over France’s Manissa Rollin. However, she was stopped in her third match by Brazil’s Maria Pacheco, losing in straight rounds (7-0 and 11-2) to bow out of the competition.
Earlier on the opening day of the tournament, Iran’s Abolfazl Zandi and Arian Salimi claimed gold medals, while Mehdi Razmian was eliminated from the event.
The third stage of the 2026 Taekwondo Grand Prix was held with the participation of 253 taekwondo athletes from 54 countries.