Emir Hamdan
Jordan’s three titles, Marie Sarr’s home gold and a mixed-team medal debut lead a complete wrap of Dakar 2026, including every champion and podium.
Jordan left Dakar with three taekwondo golds, but the host nation had a champion of its own to celebrate. Marie SARR’s W-55kg victory and Jordan’s closing-day mixed-team title defined a five-day Youth Olympic programme in which nine countries shared the ten individual gold medals.
At the Complexe Iba Mar Diop from 8–12 November, Jordan was the only delegation to win twice in the individual events. It then added the inaugural Youth Olympic mixed-team title, giving Abdulla Al ZAWAHREH and Ahmad DAHAMSHEH two gold medals apiece. Senegal finished with Sarr’s gold and bronzes for Aida TOURE and Ameth DIOP.
For Marie SARR, the hardest passage came before the medal rounds. Jordan’s Laean ALRAWASHDEH took her to a deciding round in the W-55kg quarter-final, but Sarr won 2–1 and never conceded another round.
She beat the United States’ Karlee VOGEL 2–0 in the semi-final, then gave the home crowd the finish it wanted against Tunisia’s Yasmine HAOUANI. Sarr took the final 8–4 and 11–3 to secure gold on 10 November.
Touré’s W-63kg bronze made it a two-medal day for Senegal. Diop added a third the following day in M-73kg, reaching the semi-finals before losing to Azerbaijan’s Adil KAZIMLI. The hosts could not extend that run in the team event: Jordan beat Senegal in the quarter-finals, and Germany ended Senegal’s repechage campaign.
Abdulla Al ZAWAHREH began Jordan’s run on 10 November, beating Mexico’s Guillermo Manuel Cortes LABASTIDA 2–1 in the M-63kg final for the country’s first Youth Olympic gold. He had won his opening three bouts 2–0; Cortes was the only opponent to take a round from him.
A day later, Ahmad DAHAMSHEH went through M-73kg without dropping a round. Victories over Türkiye’s Ercan Berk IMAMOGLU, Germany’s Christos PAPATHANASIOU and Mexico’s Jorge Octavio Martíinez MARTÍNEZ set up a final against Kazimli. Another 2–0 win gave Dahamsheh eight rounds out of eight.
The pair returned alongside Laean ALRAWASHDEH and Zainab BUSILA for the mixed-team competition on 12 November. Jordan beat Senegal, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye by the same 2–0 score to take the eleventh and final title. For Alrawashdeh and Busila, gold followed individual quarter-final exits; all four members of Jordan’s squad finished the Games as champions.
The team event also gave Türkiye a silver after individual bronzes for Ayse ISIK and Ibrahim Efe DUZEL. Mexico recovered from a quarter-final defeat by Türkiye, beat Saudi Arabia in repechage and defeated Germany 2–1 for bronze.
It was the first time mixed-team taekwondo awarded Olympic medals, following demonstration appearances at Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024. Its debut turned two individual winners into double champions and gave athletes whose individual campaigns had ended another route to a medal.
Germany’s Luna FELLINGER came through a different kind of test in W-63kg. She lost the opening round of her first bout against Mexico’s Vania MONDRAGON, then recovered to win 2–1.
From there, Fellinger won three successive bouts 2–0, beating Fatemeh JAMI, Türkiye’s Ayse ISIK and Iran’s Asal GOLTAPEH. Her final victory came on the same day that Nikolai Yuma SPARRE took M-63kg bronze, giving Germany two individual medals.
Croatia’s Petra UGLESIC brought a world Cadets title and a world Juniors bronze to Dakar, then added W-44kg gold on the opening day. She beat Russia’s Elina TKHAMOKOVA 2–0 in the final, having also won her quarter-final and semi-final in straight rounds.
Egypt’s Youssef Hassan KAMAL won the other title on 8 November, defeating France’s Maxence BOTTA 2–0 in M-48kg. Morocco’s Abdellatif LADIMAT and Moldova’s Dmitrii BALAGULA completed that podium.
The next day produced another straight-round champion and a final that went the distance. South Korea’s Siwoo LEE won all three of her contested bouts 2–0, finishing against Australia’s Mackenzie MACDONALD in W-49kg. Chinese Taipei’s Po-Yu CHENG had to win a deciding round against Uzbekistan’s Asadbek SAMANDAROV to take M-55kg gold.
Those divisions also brought two bronzes for Niger, through Ousseina Zada MAMOUDOU and Issifi Mamoudou Abdoul AZIZ, while Cyprus’ Ioanna KONSTANTINOU and Bolivia’s Alejandro Tordoya AYAVIRI reached their respective podiums.
Iran’s junior world champion Benyamin SOLTANIAN added M+73kg gold, beating Spain’s Ivan Lysenko SERRANO 2–0 in the final on 11 November. Russia’s Bashir ADZHIEV and South Korea’s Jun Won JANG took bronze.
Serbia’s Ema ZECIROVIC, a silver medallist at this year’s World Taekwondo Junior Championships in Tashkent, went one better in Dakar. Her 2–0 win over Czech Republic’s Alice BINOVA secured W+63kg gold, with France’s Meriem BENYOUB and Kazakhstan’s Lyubov YUN completing the podium.
With Jordan’s Dahamsheh winning M-73kg that day, all three final individual titles were settled in two rounds. Across the four-day individual programme, only the M-55kg and M-63kg finals needed a third round.
The week’s significance extended beyond the medallists. Lourance NUMUKIZA represented the first Refugee Olympic Team to compete at a Youth Olympic Games, after carrying the Olympic flag at the opening ceremony alongside sprinter Rachid Rochene.
Numukiza, who grew up in Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp, competed in W-49kg. Her campaign ended with a 2–0 quarter-final defeat by eventual bronze medallist Konstantinou. She was the six-athlete Refugee Olympic Team’s sole taekwondo representative.
Scores in the report refer to rounds won unless individual round points are specified.
Explore the Dakar 2026 individual results, brackets and athlete profiles on TAEKWONDO.TV.
