Taekwondo Athlete Park Tae-jun Wins Silver at Paris Grand Prix

Park Tae-jun (Kyung Hee University), the gold medalist in taekwondo at the 2024 Paris Olympics, claimed the silver medal at the 2026 World Taekwondo Grand Prix in Paris.

Competing on the 9th (local time) in the men's 58kg final at the Palais des Sports Marcel Cerdan in Levallois-Perret, near Paris, France, Park was defeated 0-2 (4-7, 6-11) in round scores by Abolfazl Zandi of Iran.

With this silver medal, Park secured back-to-back runner-up finishes in the Grand Prix series.

Zandi, who won this weight class at the Wuxi World Championships last year, has been notoriously strong against South Korean athletes, earning the nickname "Korea Killer."

Park previously faced and lost to Zandi in the Round of 16 at the 2023 Paris Grand Prix and in the semifinals of the Asian President's Cup in August of this year.

Park gave up the initiative late in the first round after conceding a head kick and struggled against Zandi's counterattacks in the second round, ultimately falling short of the title.

Song Da-bin, who captured the sole gold medal for South Korea's kyorugi team at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, lost 0-2 (0-4, 2-7) in round scores to Luana Márton of Hungary in the women's over-67kg quarterfinals held that day.

Having triumphed successively at the Muju Grand Prix and the Asian Games, Song failed to secure a medal in this tournament.

Kang Sang-hyun (Ulsan City Council), an Asian Games bronze medalist, was eliminated in the Round of 16 of the men's over-80kg event after losing 0-2 (2-12, 3-13) in round scores to Artsiom Plonis of Belarus.

(Photo courtesy of World Taekwondo, Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.