2022 World Taekwondo Championships: Things we learned and results

There were upsets galore as the best taekwondo athletes gathered in Mexico, with crucial Paris 2024 Olympic points at stake.

Young and upcoming talents dealt a huge blow to some of the pre-event favourites targeting maximum Olympics qualifying points in Guadalajara.

Olympic and seasoned world medallists couldn't last long as they competed at the Centro Acuatico CODE Metropolitano, while some of the stars from the 2022 Grand Prix had their winning streaks broken in Mexico.

Here are a few things we picked from the weeklong competition.

2022 World Taekwondo Championships: Watch out for Mexico

Hosts Mexico had one of their best ever World Championship, winning three gold, and a total of six medals, their highest ever from one major global tournament.

Before the 2022 event, the South Americans had won only won four medals in 24 previous World Championships, including that of legendary Mexican fighter Maria Espinoza who lined up for the final time in Guadalajara.

The Olympic and world champion nicknamed the ‘Fist of Fury’ announced her retirement during the event aged 34 and will be pleased by the rise of the youngsters looking to emulate her success in the sport.

One of those is Leslie Soltero García, who thrilled the over 5,000 fans packed in the Centro Acuatico Code Metropolitano arena, clinching Mexico’s first gold in Guadalajara, in the women’s 67kg.

It was the career highlight for the 21-year-old, who won bronze at the Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympic Games and is a two-time medallist in the Pan American Games.

Barely 24 hours later, the crowds roared again as Daniela Paola Souza Naranjo, who had edged out Olympic and world champion Panipak Wongpattanakit of Thailand, beat China’s Qing Guo, for the women’s 49kg title.

Naranjo, 23, was also the Championships Most Valuable Player (women).

Carlos Sansores delivered the third gold for Mexico in the men’s 87kg after holding off Spain’s top-ranked Ivan Garcia Martinez in the final.

The hosts topped the medal standings with three gold medals, a silver and two bronze medals ahead of the People’s Republic of China and South Korea.

2022 World Taekwondo Championships: South Korea still reigns supreme

After a Tokyo 2020 Games nightmare and mixed results in the taekwondo circuit, the most successful nation in Olympic and World Taekwondo Championships history, South Korea, showed some progress in Mexico.

The Koreans did not win any gold in Tokyo and in what could be an indication of what to expect in Paris, they ended the tournament with two gold medals from Doyun Kwon, winner of men’s 68kg, and Park Woo-Hyeok (men’s 80kg).

It was a resounding victory for the 2019 bronze medallist from Manchester Woo-Hyeok, who had only reached the podium twice this season, when he finished third at the Furaijah Open and the Grand Prix in Rome.

As he eyes a ticket to the Paris Games, the 22-year-old says there will be more Korean victories in the category to come as he seeks “to write a new history”.

The two are part of the new generation of Korean fighters hopeful of filling the gap vacated by some of the legends in the sport and led by Dae-hoon Lee, the three-time world champ who retired after Tokyo.

And you can never write off the People's Republic of China.

The well-rounded Chinese team won gold in the men’s 63kg with Yushua Liang as in-form Luo Zongshi claimed her first 57kg world title.

Zongshi has been in stellar shape this season winning the Grand Prix in Rome, Paris and Manchester.

The reigning Asian gold medallist beat Lo Chia-ling of Chinese Taipei in the final after a hard-fought battle against Britain’s double Olympic champion Jade Jones in the semi-final.

The Chinese star was one of a handful of pre-event favourites who reached the podium. Italy’s Vito Dell'Aquila added the 58 kg category gold after winning the Olympic gold in Tokyo while his teammate Simon Alessio was among the biggest casualties at the event.

Alessio, who recently won gold in Manchester, was knocked out in his opening bout of the men’s 80kg.

Tokyo Olympic gold medallist Anastasija Zolotic was stopped in the semi-finals while Jordanian hero Saleh El-Sharabaty was knocked out in the last 16.

READ MORE: Italy’s Simone Alessio on his hunger for fame and medals: “I love to be the centre of attention"

2022 World Taekwondo Championships: A world of many firsts

From Belgium’s Sarah Chaari writing World championship history to Dunya ali m Abutaleb, who blazed a trail for Saudi women at the Worlds, there were many firsts in Guadalajara.

17-year-old Chaari made taekwondo history by winning both the Junior and Senior World Championship titles in the same year.

She won the World Juniors title in Sofia last August and added the women’s -62kg senior crown at the Centro Acuatico CODE Metropolitano.

“It was incredible!” Chaari told World Taekwondo.

“I came here to enjoy and to do my first World Championships at senior level. I expected to win one or two matches – but that is all!”

READ MORE: How to qualify for taekwondo at Paris 2024.

Abutaleb, the first female athlete from Saudi Arabia to medal at a World Taekwondo Championships, was also delighted with her bronze. The 26-year-old trains with and against male athletes as there are no female sparring partners back in her home country.

“I wanted to change my medal from Asian Championship to World Championships,” said the Saudi who also became her country’s first woman to medal (bronze) at the 2022 Asian Taekwondo Championships in Chuncheon, Korea.

There was more history made on the mats at the arena in Guadalajara by Mahdi Khodabakhshi. He became the first Taekwondo athlete to win two World Championship titles for two countries.

The newly minted men’s -80kg is an ex-Iranian international who became Serbia’s first-ever male world champion.

More upsets and shocks are expected at the Grand Prix Finals in Saudi Arabia in December, another crucial event to earn 2024 qualifying points.

2022 World Taekwondo Championships: All the gold medallists

Women

-57kg

Zongshi Luo (China)

-62kg

Sarah Chaari (Belgium)

-67kg

Leslie Soltero (Mexico)

-49kg

Daniela Paola Souza (Mexico)

+73kg

Svetlana Osipova (Uzbekistan)

-53kg

Makayla Greenwood USA)

-73kg

Nadica Bozanic (Serbia)

-46kg

Lena Stojkovic (Croatia)

Men

-80kg

Woo-Hyeok Park (South Korea)

-87kg

Mahdi Khodabakhshi (Serbia)

-68kg

Doyun Kwon (South Korea)

-74kg

Danile Barrera Quesada (Spain)

+87kg

Carlos Sansores (Mexico)

-63kg

Yushuai Liang (China)

-54kg

Gergely Omar Salim (Hungary)

-58kg

Vito Dell’aquila (Italy)