Aristidis Nikolaos Psarros climbed to the top of the world in the youth taekwondo championship. The member of the national team established by the Hellenic Taekwondo Federation, won the -51 kg category in the event hosted for the 3rd day in Chancheon, South Korea, continuing his personal streak of winning gold medals in major events.
Indicatively, in 2022 he was first in the European children’s championship held in Pembroke, while last year he was on the highest step of the winners’ podium, in the corresponding youth event, in Tallinn, Estonia. In his maiden appearance at the World Championship, he managed to win the gold medal, which is the fourth overall for Greece in the history of the event.
It was preceded by the firsts of the late Alexandros Nicolaidis in 1996 in Barcelona and those of Charalambos Panagiotidis and Nikolaos Papaggelis in 2002 in Heraklion, Crete. From the rest of the Greek entries of the first three days, Melina Georgiou’s 5th place at -46 kg naturally stood out.
On the way to the gold medal, Pssarros had to achieve some great victories, with the first and best one against the Korean Seo (round of 32), from whom he even lost the only set in the competition (1-2 / 6-18, 22-14, 12-14). He qualified for the quarter-finals after a 0-2 (2-14, 9-12) victory over Britain’s Serrat, while with the same score (0-2 / 2-15, 2-15) he overcame the resistance of the Egyptian Yahya Mohamed El Sayed thus entering the category medals.
Without relaxing competitively even for a minute, in the semi-finals Pssarros defeated the Iranian Nasirahmadi 0-2 (13-15, 17-23), while in the final – and with his psychology at the height – he literally… walked against the Moldovan Roska, whom won 2-0 (12-6, 12-0). On the winners’ podium, he seemed to not believe what he had achieved, although the truth is that the writing samples he had shown both in the European championships and in the graded events of recent years, testify that this particular success is not just by chance!
Melina Georgiou also had an excellent performance in the -46 kg junior category. The “bronze” European junior champion and 5th this year in the European women’s, scored two wins in three races that brought her one breath away from winning a medal. In the round of 32, the No-1 in the European ranking in juniors, prevailed 2-0 (12-0, 16-4) of the Italian Bebi, while in the round of 16 she won with the same score (2-0 / 16-15 , 12-1) Alravasdeh from Jordan. The way to her coveted medal was cut off by the Korean Yumin Lee with a score of 2-0 (15-8, 14-5), with the Asian a little later winning the gold medal of the category.
Source: Hellenic Taekwondo Federation
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