National karate squad en route to Paris

TEHRAN, Jan. 20 (MNA) – Iran’s national karate team will leave for France on Wednesday to take part in the 2016 WKF Karate1 Premier League. France’s Karate1 tournament marks the first phase of WKF Premier League and will be held in Paris from January 22nd to January 24th. A total of eight karate practitioners will represent Iran in the international sports event. The Iranian outfit consists of Amir Mehdizadeh, Hamideh Abbasali, Hamoun Derafshipour, Fatemeh Chalaki, Mahsa Afsaneh, Zohreh Barzegar, Taravat Khaksar as well as Samaneh Khoshghadam headed by Alireza Soleimani who will depart for France tomorrow morning. Previously, Iran’s Karate Federation had deployed Saeid Ahmadi, Sajad Ganjzadeh, Zabihollah Pourshib and Bahman Asgari to attend the sports camp held in Paris prior to Karate1 event. The camp saw the presence of athletes from Turkey, Georgia, Ecuador, Brazil, France, the US and Kazakhstan. The Karate1 WKF Premier League is the prime league event in the world of Karate and Together with the WKF Karate1 World Cup (WWC), they form a series of world class Karate competitions recognized and supported by the World Karate Federation (WKF) aiming to bring together the best Karate competitors in the world in a series of open championships of unprecedented scale and quality.