The Iran men’s national kata judo team has collected five medals, including two gold ones, at the 6th edition of Asian Kata Judo Championships, and been crowned as the champion of the continental sports event.

The Iranian athletes stood atop the podium in the Thai capital city of Bangkok, having won two gold and three silver medals.

The Japanese team won two gold medals and one silver to stand second. Thailand ranked third with one gold and one bronze medal.

The Iranian nage-no-kata outfit, comprising Fattollah Azizi and Hamid Reza Karimi-Naser, scooped the top honor. The Vietnamese team finished as the vice champion. The Hong Hong squad settled for the bronze medal.

Nage-no-kata is an illustration of the various concepts of throwing techniques in judo, and is used both as a training method and as a demonstration of understanding.

Moreover, Mehdi Azimi and Fakhreddin Rezaei collected a gold medal for Iran in the kata-mono-kata. Japanese and Vietnamese judokas won the silver and bronze medals in this category.

The Iranian pair of Mohammad Hassan Najafi and Alireza Karimi competed in the Kodokan Goshin Jutsu contests, and grabbed a silver medal.

Japanese competitors were awarded the gold medal, and athletes from Vietnam picked up the bronze.

Kodokan Goshin Jutsu is a set of prearranged self-defense forms in judo. It incorporates techniques from aikido through the influence of Kenji Tomiki, and is the most recent kata of judo, dating back to 1956.

Kime-no-kata judokas Mohammad Reza Khosravi and Pouriya Najjar Nameghi collected another silver medal for Iran on Sunday. The Japanese athlete came first, and contestants from Chinese Taipei finished third.

Kime-no-kata is composed of 8 techniques from a kneeling posture, and 12 techniques from a standing position. Both sets of techniques contain defenses for both armed and empty-handed attacks.

Iranian judo practitioners Mohammad Mehdi Darvari and Seyyed Sina Mousavi snatched the silver for the Islamic Republic in the ju-no-kata. They stood behind representatives from Thailand. Vietnamese athletes bagged the bronze medal.

The 6th edition of Asian Kata Judo Championships was held on November 26, 2017.