CHUNCHEON, Korea (Oct 2, 2024) - It was a golden opening night of the World Taekwondo Junior Championships in Chuncheon, Korea for Parnian Noori and Aynaz Nasiri, who are the latest athletes hoping to make the most of the pathway to senior success provided by this event.
Iranian athletes Noori and Nasiri triumphed in the women’s -52kg and women’s -59kg categories respectively on the first day of competition.
Both impressed throughout their competitions, and for Nasiri her emotions at standing on top of the podium were clear.
“I had a very good feeling because I had very hard exercise in our national team, so I got a very good result. I was very happy and had a wonderful feeling about,” she said.
That was especially the case having followed on from her compatriot Noori.
“We had a very wonderful feeling about that, because on the first day we had two golds and our flag was at the top. We hope we can get more medals in our team,” Nasiri added.
Nasiri had to recover from losing the first round in both her quarter-final and semi-final, and explained how she masterminded her turnaround in the two matches as her determination to win shone through.
“In the first round I had some problems, but I fixed it for the second round. So when I got to the second round I had more energy, and all that mattered was I won, it doesn’t matter how you win,” she said.
For Noori, her attention immediately turned to the future and her ambitions for when she enters senior competition.
“We have to focus more on the future because we go to the senior teams. From now, we are going to make a plan and prepare the training to go to the senior national team,” she insisted.
Eight of the medallists at the Olympic Games Paris 2024 had previously medalled at the World Taekwondo Junior Championships, which has proven its importance in providing experience of high-quality competition for top young athletes against opponents from around the world.
Nasiri highlighted the benefits of competing in such an environment.
“This has been a very nice experience because we had different opponents from many countries. The organisation was different from other competitions, with more than 900 athletes,” she said.
Noori underlined her ambitions to compete at the Olympic Games, and hopes the World Taekwondo Junior Championships can be the start of accumulating the ranking points she needs.
“Yes of course we have goals for the Olympic Games, that is very important for us. We start from now to get ranking points to qualify for the Olympics,” she said.
The World Taekwondo Junior Championships will continue to provide a global stage which serves as a springboard for athletes to succeed in major senior competitions.
