The South Koreans came in second in their national martial arts sport.
Iran sent eight athletes to the championships—one in each of the weight divisions—and came home with six medals.
The taekwondo championships have been held every other year since 1973. The South Koreans placed first19 straight times, until last week. Iran was the runner-up in five of the previous world championships.
Taekwondo, an Asian martial art in which both the feet and hands are used, has taken the world by storm in recent decades. In fact, 149 countries sent teams to this year’s championships, held in South Korea.
Iran pulled down three gold medals to South Korea’s two. Thailand, Spain and Turkey each took one of the remaining three golds.
Iran also won one silver and two bronze medals. And the two competitors who did not win medals still did well enough to earn points.
The Iranian team came in first with 74 team points, followed by South Korea with 61 points and Turkey in third place with 48 points.
Canada came in 12th with 25 points and the United States tied for15th with 22 points.
Iran’s gold medallists were Yousef Karami, Ali-Reza Nasr Azadani and Farzad Abdullahi.