Ezedin TLISH

Ezedin Tlish made his international taekwondo debut at the 2003 Military World Championships, and followed this up with an appearance at that year’s African Championships, where he lost in the final to Egypt’s Tamer Salah. This result was good enough, however, to lead to his selection to represent Libya at the 2004 Summer Olympics in the flyweight division. He fought Chu Mu-Yen of Chinese Taipei, the eventual gold medalist, in the opening round and was knocked out after one minute and fifteen seconds, which left him unable to compete against Spain’s Juan Antonio Ramos in the repêchage. Nonetheless, his joint-7th overall in the tournament, alongside Oleksandr Shaposhnyk of Ukraine, remains, as of 2016, Libya’s best result at the Olympics.

Tlish had better luck at the 2007 World Championships after moving up in weight, defeating Hungary’s Attila Juhasz in the opening round before falling to Croatia’s Filip Grgić, the eventual gold medalist. He earned his ticket to the featherweight tournament of the 2008 Olympics by winning the African qualifier against Nigeria’s Isah Mohammad, having lost the world qualifier to Peter López of Peru. He was slated to fight Uzbekistan’s Dmitry Kim in round one, but failed to show up for the weigh-in and was disqualified. His last major tournament was the 2009 World Championships, where he was defeated in the opening round by Kevin Fernald of Suriname.

Tlish was still competing actively in 2010, when he took bronze in the featherweight division at the Arab Military Sports Games, but soon got caught up in the turmoil of Libya’s Civil War and became a civilian casualty of the August 2011 Battle of Tripoli. His brother Mohammed was also a taekwondo practitioner and attempted to qualify for the 2012 Summer Olympics, although he was not successful ultimately.