Hadi Saei Bonehkohal

Hadi Saei Bonehkohal medal table
Hadi Saei 2008
Taekwondo (men)
Iran
Olympic Summer Games
gold	2008 Beijing	80 kg
gold	2004 Athens	68 kg
bronze	2000 Sydney	68 kg
World championships
gold	1999 Edmonton	73 kg
gold	2005 Madrid	73 kg
silver	2003 Garmisch-Partenkirchen	73 kg
bronze	2007 Beijing	73 kg
Asian Games
gold	2002 Busan	72 kg
bronze	2006 Doha	72 kg
Asian Championships
gold	2006 Bangkok	72 kg
silver	2002 Amman	72 kg

Hadi Saei Bonehkohal (born June 10, 1976 in Tehran ; Persian هادی ساعی بنه‌کهل) is an Iranian taekwondo athlete and participant in the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney , 2004 in Athens and 2008 in Beijing .

After winning the bronze medal in Sydney in 2000 in featherweight , Saei was Iran's first Taekwondo Olympic champion in 2004 at the Athens Games . It was the second Olympic gold medal for Iran after Hossein Rezazadeh's victory in weightlifting . In Beijing, Hadi Saei competed in the welterweight division and won the gold medal again. He is thus the most successful Iranian athlete to date at the Summer Olympics (2 gold, 1 bronze).

In the weight class up to 72 kilograms he became world champion in Edmonton ( Canada ) in 1999 and lost in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 2003 in a very controversial final battle against Korea and won the silver medal. At the World Cup in Madrid in 2005 he was again world champion. Furthermore, Hadi Saei is a four-time world cup winner in Taekwondo. A similarly successful athlete is the American athlete Steven Lopez , the two-time Olympic champion in Sydney in 2000 and in Athens in 2004.

During the world championship in Madrid from April 13th to 17th, 2005, the multiple world champion Saei was elected World Taekwondo Athlete of the Year 2005 and honored by the World Association WTF .

When the city of Bam in his home town was devastated by the earthquake in 2003, Saei auctioned his entire collection of medals, including a. also his Olympic bronze medal at the time to support the numerous victims (several 10,000 families) with the financial proceeds.

Saei received his training at the Physical Education Faculty in Tehran. In his free time he also devotes himself to other sports and a. Horseback riding, tennis and soccer. He started his Taekwondo training in Iran at the age of seven, and his father Saeed Mohaimen was also his first coach . At the turn of the millennium he received the national award "National Sportsman of the Year 1999/2000" of his country.

Hadi Saei is a welcome guest speaker at Taekwondo events in Europe. With many years of experience, he is a trainer and consultant for numerous clubs and national associations. His main goal is to pass on his knowledge and to support young athletes on their “way of life” ( Do or Tao ).

Web links

• Hadi Saei in the world rankings ( Memento from March 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
• Participants in the 2004 Olympics in Athens ( Memento from September 2, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) (English)