Iranian karatekas scoop gold medals in Istanbul league

Tehran, May 19, IRNA – Iranian karate team won six medals in the last day of Istanbul World League Series A on Sunday. Second stage of Karate 1 World League 2019 started in Istanbul on Friday with 813 karatekas from 102 countries in attendance and ended on Sunday. Iranian squad participated in the event in two categories of kata and kumite of men and women. The competitions provided the participants to earn points to book spots for 2020 Olympic. The 2020 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXXII Olympiad and commonly known as Tokyo 2020, is an upcoming international multi-sport event that is scheduled to take place from July 24 to August 9, 2020 in Tokyo, Japan. In the last day of the Istanbul League, Iranian athletes won gold medals. Iranian women karatekas Taravat Khaksar and Hamideh Abbasali bagged gold medals in -55 kilogram and +68 kilograms categories while Parisa Rahmani, Maedeh Nasiri and Mehri Yazdani altogether grabbed gold in team kata against the Australian team. Ali Meskini won bronze in the -60 category against his rival from Kazakhstan. In the -75 category, Bahman Askari defeated his rival from Italy and won gold medal while Mehdi Qararizadeh overpowered his rival from Turkey and grabbed gold. In the +84 kilograms category, Saleh Abazari won gold against the Georgian athlete, winning gold medal, bringing the total number of Iran’s gold medals to six. Follow us @IrnaEnglish