Rahman Hatamov: Squad limitation and injuries affected the number of medals

The VI Islamic Solidarity Games continue in Riyadh. The fight for medals in some sports has not yet begun, while in others it has already ended.

One of the sports in which the first results for the Azerbaijani national team can be summarized was karate. Idman.Biz learned the opinion of Rahman Hatamov, Vice President of the Azerbaijan Karate Federation, about the team's performance.

According to Hatamov, the last few months have been extremely tense for the team:

"Our schedule has been very busy for the last two months. First the CIS Games, then the World Championship license tournament, now the Islamic Games, and at the end of November there is the World Championship in Egypt".

He emphasized that the team should have gone to the Islamic Games with a full squad, but the decision of the organizing committee caused serious changes:

"We were planning to go with a full squad - five men and five women in kumite, and one athlete in kata. But then the organizing committee changed the rules and we had to reduce the squad by half. Considering that the main rivals in karate are Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan, the fight became twice as difficult".

Hatamov also spoke about the loss of personnel that affected the team's medal chances:

"The absence of the team captain, Asiman Gurbanli, was greatly felt. He was injured at the beginning of the competition. Therefore, we won fewer medals than planned. In addition, Madina Sadigova and Roman Heydarov clearly unfairly lost in the semifinals. And Turgut Hasanov already faced the world's number one ranked opponent from Jordan in the first fight".

Concluding the team's performance, Hatamov noted that the result could have been much higher:

"We won only three medals - one gold and two bronze. However, as I said, we could have gotten more".

Idman.Biz