Para Taekwondo will be one of the highlights of Paris 2024 Paralympic Games with 121 athletes from 52 nations ready to put up an amazing show of skills, strategy, and grit at the iconic Grand Palais, starting August 29.
There will be also two Individual Neutral athletes and two Refugee athletes, a first in the history of the sport, competing in the sport’s second appearance at the Paralympics. After a successful debut at the Tokyo 2020 Games, the sport will have 10 medals events (four events more than Tokyo) contested over three days in Paris.
Last time, five Asian nations finished among the medals with Iran (2 medals) finishing in the second place among 17 nations. Uzbekistan, China, South Korea, and Thailand ended with one medal each.
This was followed by an amazing show by Iran (3G), China (2G) and Uzbekistan (1G) at the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Para Games.
In Paris, Iran will have their top names in the men’s events hoping to improve their medal count from Tokyo 2020. Asian Para Games champions Alireza Bakht (men K44 -80kg) and Hamed Haghshenas (men K44 +80kg) will aim to put their nation on top once again.
Bakht and Haghshenas will eye their first Paralympic medals.
The men’s -80kg category on the final day, will be a closely contested one. Along with Bakht, South Korea’s Joo Jeonghun and Asadbek Toshtemirov of Uzbekistan will be fighting it out for the top spot. Jeonghun is the Asian Para Games 2022 gold medallist while Toshtemirov is the reigning world champion and Tokyo 2020 bronze medallist.
Mongolia’s Bolor-Erdene Ganbat too will be eager to win his first Paralympic gold after putting up an incredible game at the Asian Para Games in Hangzhou. He has been leading the Asian charge for a while having won World championship four times.
Women’s Stars
In women events, Uzbekistan’s Naimova Guljonoy will be the favourite to win the gold and defend her Tokyo 2020 title in Women K44 +65kg finals. In fact, an exciting contest is expected between her and Great Britan’s Amy Truesdale whom she defeated in the finals 11-10 of the World Grand Prix Finals last December.
Her compatriot Isakova Ziyodakhon should be in the spotlight in Women K44 -47kg. She is the reigning world champion. But Thailand’s Khwansuda Phuangkitcha, the Hangzhou 2022 gold medallist, will be other Asian in the category to watch out for.
China will bank their hopes on Shao Qian (women K44 -52kg) and Li Yujie (women K44 -57kg) to make dazzle on the mats of Grand Palais.
Other Asian women expected to leave a mark in Paris are: Refugee athlete Zakia Khudadadi and Maryam Abdollahpour Deroei (women K44 -47kg), Mongolia’s Surenjav Ulambayar (women K44 -52kg), Iran’s Roza Ebrahimi and Nepal’s Palesha Goverdhan (women K44 57 kg) among others. Khudadadi, who fled from Afghanistan in 2021, became the first Afghan women to compete at Paralympics when she participated at Tokyo. She has been training in Paris since then and is aiming to make history as a refugee athlete on the opening day at Grand Palais.
