Iran
WT
Iran is one of the absolute powers of world Taekwondo: 8 Olympic medals under the Iranian flag, World Taekwondo member since 1975, and home to one of the largest regional training centers in the world in Tehran. The narrative arc of Iranian TKD is inseparable from Hadi Saei — two-time Olympic champion, national idol and later federation president. But the most complex story is that of Iranian women: Kimia Alizadeh won bronze at Rio 2016 as the first Iranian woman with an Olympic medal in any sport, only to defect abroad in 2020 denouncing the regime's oppression. At Paris 2024, Iran sent 4 athletes to the TKD tournament and all returned with medals.
Origins
The origins — TKD arrives through the army
From the armed forces to WT affiliation in 1975
Taekwondo reached Iran through military channels in the early 1970s. The Iranian armed forces, in the midst of a modernisation programme under the Shah, adopted the discipline as part of their combat training — a pattern mirrored across several countries with Soviet- or American-aligned military structures. Iran affiliated with the World Taekwondo Federation in 1975, among the earliest nations in the Middle East to do so, and immediately began building a competitive infrastructure.
The system developed rapidly. Hadi Saei, born in 1977 in Tehran, emerged as the defining product of Iran's early TKD formation. He won Iran's first WT World Championship gold in Edmonton, Canada in 1999, announcing to the international community that the country would be a force to reckon with at the Olympic level in the years ahead.
“Irán se afilió a la World Taekwondo en 1975 — apenas dos años después de su fundación, uno de los primeros de Asia.”
Legend
Hadi Saei — the man who put Iran in the olympus
Bronze in Sydney, gold in Athens, gold in Beijing with a broken wrist
Hadi Saei is the defining figure of Iranian Taekwondo. At the Sydney 2000 Olympics he won bronze, Iran's first Olympic medal in the sport. Four years later, at Athens 2004, he took gold in the -68 kg category. At Beijing 2008, competing with a fractured wrist, he won gold again in the -68 kg division — a feat of physical resilience that became one of the most celebrated stories in Iranian sports history. He is the only Iranian athlete to have won two Olympic gold medals in any individual sport.
Beyond the medals, Saei distinguished himself through a gesture of extraordinary humanity: after the Bam earthquake of December 2003, which killed an estimated 26,000 people in southeastern Iran, he auctioned his World Championship medals to raise funds for the victims. The act elevated him from sporting icon to national moral figure, and he remains one of the most revered athletes in Iranian history.
“Ganó el oro en Pekín 2008 con la muñeca fracturada desde el primer combate.”
· Relatos del equipo iraní en Beijing
Infrastructure
The Tehran centre — Iran builds its TKD temple
World Taekwondo Center + the world's first TKD university in 2010
In 2010, Iran opened the World Taekwondo Center in Tehran — one of the largest and most comprehensively equipped TKD training facilities in the world. In the same period, Iran established the first university in the world dedicated exclusively to Taekwondo, cementing its commitment to treating the sport as both an elite performance discipline and an academic field. These investments reflected the ambition of Shamseddin Pouladgar, who served as president of the Iranian Taekwondo Federation for 21 years.
The infrastructure paid competitive dividends almost immediately. At the 2011 WT World Championship in Gyeongju, South Korea, Iran claimed three gold medals — its strongest World Championship performance to that point. The combination of world-class facilities, long-tenured leadership, and a deep national talent pipeline had made Iran one of the two or three most powerful TKD nations on the planet.
“En 2010, Irán inauguró la primera universidad del mundo dedicada exclusivamente al Taekwondo.”
Rupture
Kimia Alizadeh — medal, oppression and defection
Iran's first female Olympic medallist; she left denouncing the regime
At the Rio 2016 Olympics, Kimia Alizadeh Zenoorin won bronze in the -57 kg category, becoming the first Iranian woman to win an Olympic medal in any sport. She was 18 years old. The achievement was celebrated across Iran, but the politics of her position as a woman in the Iranian sporting system were never simple — she competed in full hijab and was used extensively in state propaganda while having almost no control over her own image or career.
In January 2020, Alizadeh defected, leaving Iran and releasing a statement condemning the regime: "I am one of the millions of oppressed women in Iran." She later competed at the Tokyo 2021 Olympics representing the IOC Refugee Team — where she faced Iranian athlete Nahid Kiani in the quarter-finals. At the Paris 2024 Olympics she competed under the Bulgarian flag, winning bronze. Her trajectory is one of the most politically charged stories in the history of the sport.
“Soy una de los millones de mujeres oprimidas de Irán con las que han jugado durante años.”
· Kimia Alizadeh, enero de 2020
2024 Generation
Paris 2024 — all athletes, all medals
1 gold, 2 silvers, 1 bronze: the perfect delegation
At the Paris 2024 Olympics, Iran delivered its finest collective Taekwondo performance in Olympic history: four athletes entered, four medals won. Arian Salimi took gold in the +80 kg category. Nahid Kiani claimed silver in the 57 kg division, becoming the face of the new generation of Iranian women in the sport. Mehran Barkhordari won silver in the 80 kg category. Mobina Nematzadeh, just 19 years old, won bronze in the 49 kg category — one of the youngest medallists at the entire Games.
The result cemented Iran's status as a structural TKD superpower, capable of fielding elite athletes across multiple weight categories simultaneously. Four athletes, four medals — a collective efficiency that only a handful of nations in the world have ever achieved at the Olympic level in Taekwondo. The Paris 2024 delegation is already regarded as the benchmark against which future Iranian TKD generations will be measured.
“4 atletas. 4 medallas. París 2024 fue la actuación olímpica perfecta del TKD iraní.”
Taekwondo in Iran
- ›Oro olímpico Atenas 2004 (68 kg) y Pekín 2008 (80 kg con la muñeca rota)
- ›Bronce olímpico Sídney 2000
- ›Campeón mundial WT 1999 (Edmonton) y 2005 (Madrid)
- ›Subastó sus medallas para las víctimas del terremoto de Bam (2003)
- ›Presidente de la IRITF 2022–2026
- ›Bronce olímpico Río 2016 — primera mujer iraní con medalla olímpica en cualquier deporte
- ›Campeona JJOO de la Juventud 2014
- ›Defección a Europa en enero 2020, denunciando opresión del régimen
- ›Bronce olímpico París 2024 representando a Bulgaria
- ›Campeona del mundo WT Baku 2023 (57 kg) — primera iraní en ese título
- ›Plata olímpica París 2024 (57 kg)
- ›Oro en Campeonato Asiático 2022 y Juegos Asiáticos 2022
- ›Oro olímpico París 2024 (+80 kg) — primer oro iraní en TKD desde 2008
- ›Derrotó al estadounidense Caden Cunningham en la final
- ›Presidente de la IRITF 2001–2022 (21 años)
- ›Impulsó el World Taekwondo Center de Teherán (2010)
- ›Vicepresidente de la Asian Taekwondo Union 2009–2025
Keep exploring
The history of Taekwondo continues in every dojang, every class, every student.