TEHRAN – Iranian taekwondo athletes Matin Rezaei, Melika Mirhosseini Vakili and Mehran Barkhordari won three bronze medals in the 2022 Asian Games on Wednesday.

Rezaei won a bronze medal in the men’s 68kg after beating Kyrgyzstan’s Eldar Kurmanaliev 2-0 and China’s Chenming Xiao 2-1 but he was defeated at the hands of Jordan’s Zaid Abdulkareem 2-1 in the semifinals.

In the men’s 80kg, Mehran Barkhordari seized a bronze medal, losing to his South Korean rival Woohyeok Park 2-1 in the semifinals.

He had previously defeated Afghanistan’s Omid Sahak 2-0 and the Philippines’ Dave Cea 2-0 in his previous matches.

Melika Mirhosseini Vakili also won a bronze medal in the women’s -67kg.

She defeated Nepalese Indira Basent 2-0 and Jordan’s Alsadeq Julyana 2-0 but lost to Uzbekistan’s Feruza Sadikova 2-1 in the semifinals.

Iranian taekwondo athletes had already won two silver and two bronze medals in the Games.

Mahdi Hajimousaei in the men’s 58kg and Alireza Hosseinpour in the men’s -63Kg had claimed two silvers as well as two bronze medals won by Mobina Nematzadeh in the women's -49Kg and Marjan Salahshouri in the women's Individual Poomsae.

With more than 12,000 competitors from 45 nations and territories, the 2022 Asian Games has more participants than the Olympics.

Iran has sent 289 male and female athletes to the Games in 34 sports events.