Afghan taekwondo athlete drops out of Tokyo Olympics

The second Afghan athlete dropped out of the Olympics after the South Korean Taekwondo athlete IN Kyo Don was defeated by his Macedonian rival Dejan Georgievski in the semi-final of the event on Tuesday.

Farzad Mansouri, the Afghan national taekwondo athlete, was beaten on Tuesday morning by his Korean rival, and he missed to fight for the bronze medal following IN Kyo Don’s defeat.

The points tally ended at 13-12 in Korea’s favor.

Mansouri took part in the 80+ kg weight category. The Afghan was ahead of this rival until the last seconds few seconds of the event.

Should the Korean make it to finals in this weight category, Mansouri will have a chance to battle it out for the bronze medal.

On Sunday Mahdi Yavari, scored 601.4 points in the first round of the 10-meter rifle shooting event at the Olympics but failed to make it through to the next round.

Shooters from China, United States, Slovakia, Turkey, Russia, Hungary, and China advanced to the final eight.

A new Olympic record was however set by the Chinese contestant who scored 632.7 points. The previous record was set by Italy with 630.2 points in 2016.

This was the first time that Afghanistan has taken part in the shooting event.

The Tokyo Olympics opened on Friday afternoon with a ceremony reflecting a Games like no other, walking a fine line between celebrating the feats of the world’s best athletes while acknowledging the global hardship caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The Games run until August 8.

About 11,000 athletes from 204 national Olympic committees are expected, including a team of refugee athletes. Afghanistan is represented by five athletes and another three Afghans are part of the refugee team.