A tournament from the series Karate 1 Premier League, in which Azerbaijani athletes also participated, has ended in Istanbul.
Our team won four medals – silver and three bronze. Firdovsi Farzaliev (60 kg) defeated rivals from Kazakhstan, Turkey, Albania and North Macedonia on the way to the final. But in the decisive fight he lost to the Turk Erai Samdan and was content with silver.
Irina Zaretskaya (68 kg) and Asiman Gurbanli (over 84 kg) won bronze. Zaretskaya defeated rivals from Slovakia and Ukraine, but in the semifinals she was weaker than the Italian. In the duel for bronze, our athlete defeated Belgian Nezrin Bugrin and took 3rd place.
Asiman Gurbanli defeated karate fighters from Turkey and Curacao, but lost to the representative of Ukraine. In the battle for bronze, Asiman was stronger than Herolind Nishevchi from Kosovo.
Azerbaijan won another bronze in the team kata (complex exercises). Rovshan Aliyev, Tural Baljanli, Ismail Guliyev defeated the Turkish team in a decisive confrontation.
The legend of Azerbaijani and world karate Rafael Agayev (75 kg), after victories over rivals from Croatia and Turkey in the quarterfinals, lost to another Turkish karate fighter Erman Eltemur and finished his performance.
In total, about 600 athletes from 72 countries performed in Istanbul.
It is also worth noting that recently an international karate tournament was held in Poland, the winner of which was the Azerbaijani kata master Neda Rezai. He turned out to be stronger than 11 opponents and won gold in a tournament with more than 500 karatekas.