Merve Dinçel Kavurat took the gold in the women’s -53kg (Photo World Taekwondo)
Türkiye’s Merve Dinçel Kavurat took the gold in the women’s -53kg weight category at the World Taekwondo championships in Wuxi to add to the -49kg gold she won two years ago.
Earlier, Uzbekistan’s Najmiddin Kosimkhojiev took the men’s -74kg gold.
Dinçel Kavurat’s gold also sealed her country’s place at the top of the medal standings with three gold.
Türkiye’s third gold was secured through Dinçel Kavurat’s victory over top seeded Dunya Ali Abutaleb of Saudi Arabia in the final, with Egypt’s Jana Khattab and China’s Chuling Zhang taking bronze.
Kosimkhojiev won the final match of Wuxi 2025, sealing Uzbekistan’s first gold against Brazil’s Edival Pontes. Individual Neutral Athlete (AIN) Magomed Abdusalamov and Iran’s Amir Sina Bakhtiari earned the bronze medals.
Dinçel Kavurat pinched the first round from her opponent, striking with a flurry of late points to win 6-2. She then produced a controlled display in the second, preventing Abutaleb from scoring and winning 2-0.
Dinçel Kavurat had beaten Olympic bronze medallist Mobina Nematzadeh of Iran in the quarter-finals and the second seed Jana Khattab of Egypt in the semi-finals.
In the other half of the draw, Abutaleb overcame Zhang in the semi-finals. Abutaleb earned Saudi Arabia’s first medal of Wuxi 2025 with her silver, while Zhang took China’s medal tally up to nine at their home World Taekwondo Championships, of which eight were bronze.
In the men’s -74kg, Kosimkhojiev’s debut at the World Taekwondo Championships produced the perfect result as he overcame the Olympic bronze medallist Pontes to win gold.
The final featured two closely fought rounds, but Kosimkhojiev edged them both 4-2 and 5-3 for victory.
He had earlier won a thrilling semi-final against AIN Abdusalamov in three rounds, while Pontes beat Bakhtiari in two rounds. Pontes’ silver matched his result from the Guadalajara 2022 World Taekwondo Championships.
In a hotly contested weight category, the top three seeds all missed out on the podium – Zurab Kintsurashvil of Georgia was defeated in the round of 64 by Dominican Republic’s Bernardo Pié, Victor Rodrigues of the USA lost in the quarter-finals to Abdusalamov, and Serbia’s two-time World Taekwondo Championships medallist Stefan Takov was beaten in the round of 32 by Egypt’s Rami Eissa.
