TEHRAN (Iran News) – A total of 58 Olympic berths have been secured by Iranian athletes in 12 sports so far, and there are still more spots to grab for the country at Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
Iranian wrestling freestylers booked three more Olympic berths as Amirmohammad Babak Yazdani Charati, Younes Emami, and Mohammad Hossein Mohammadian stormed into the final of Asian Olympic qualifiers in Almaty, Kazakhstan on Sunday.
Iran plans to send a larger delegation to the Tokyo 2020 than Rio 2016 and 58 athletes have so far secured their places in the Games.
Amidst the country’s lockdown due to covid19 pandemic, the athletes who are vying for spots in Tokyo 2020 are allowed to continue their training.
Before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Iran had secured 52 Olympic spots. After the restart of the qualification games, the number of athletes who have joined the Iranian delegation in Tokyo has reached 58.
The list of Iranian athletes who have booked Tokyo Olympics quota places is as follows:
*Archery: One spot for the country
*Athletics: Two spots – Hasan Taftian (Men’s 100m), Ehsan Haddadi (Men’s discus throw)
*Basketball: 12 quota places
*Boxing: Two spots- Danial Shahbakhsh (men’s featherweight) and Shahin Mousavi (men’s middleweight)
*Cycling: One spot – men’s road race
*Fencing: Four quota places – men’s team sabre
*Karate: Four karatekas – Bahman Askari (men’s 75 kg), Sajjad Ganjzadeh (men’s +75 kg), Sara Bahmanyar (women’s 55 kg), and Hamideh Abbasali (women’s +61 kg)
*Shooting: Six quota places: Mahyar Sedaghat (Men’s 50 m rifle 3 positions), Javad Foroughi (Men’s 10 m air pistol), Najmeh Khedmati, and Armina Sadeghian (Women’s 10 m air rifle), Fatemeh Karamzadeh (Women’s 50 m rifle 3 positions), Hanieh Rostamian (Women’s 10 m air pistol)
*Table Tennis: One spot – Nima Alamian (Men’s singles)
*Taekwondo: Two quota places – Armin Hadipour (Men’s -58 kg) and Mirhashem Hosseini (Men’s -68 kg)
*Volleyball: 12 quota places
*Wrestling: 11 spots – six in the men’s freestyle and five in the men’s Greco-Roman
There are still more spots to grab for Iran’s Olympic delegation in sports such as shooting, boxing, gymnastics, canoeing, athletics, weightlifting, Greco-Roman wrestling, archery, and table tennis. The National Olympic Committee of the Islamic Republic of Iran fielded a team of 63 athletes, 54 men and 9 women, across 15 sports at the 2016 Rio Games. Now the country hopes to increase the number of its athletes in Tokyo to more than 70.
