ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A Kurdish female athlete from Iran's western city of Kermanshah has secured first place at the World Karate Championship in Egypt, earning a historic gold medal after defeating her Chinese world champion opponent.
“The level of the competition was very high, and in each weight category the top 32 karatekas in the world were present,” Atousa Golshannejad told the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).
On Sunday, Golshannejad became Iran’s first-ever female world champion in karate after winning gold in the women’s 61kg category, overcoming China’s Gong Li in the final.
“Nothing is more valuable to me than bringing honor to my country,” she said.
Athletes from 87 countries participated in this year’s championship.
Golshannejad noted that in the group stage she faced opponents from Uzbekistan, Cameroon, and Lithuania, while in the knockout rounds she defeated competitors from Chile, Tunisia, and Belarus.
She expressed deep gratitude to her father for his years of support.
“For 12 years, my father took me to the club every day along a several-kilometer path, waited for my training to finish, and brought me back home," she said, adding her father used to tell her all the time that she would "become a world champion."
"Now I have achieved it,” she said proudly.
Golshannejad has previously won gold at multiple Asian Championships, including in Almaty, Kazakhstan in 2021, Malacca, Malaysia in 2023, and this year in Tashkent, Kazakhstan
Last year, Arian Salimi, 20, from the Kurdish-majority city of Kermanshah, won gold in the men’s 80+kg taekwondo category after defeating Britain’s Caden Cunningham 2–1 in the final.