Nesar Ahmad Bahawi (), born March 27, 1984, in

Kapisa Province Kapisa ( ; Dari and Pashto: ''Kāpisā'') is the smallest of Afghanistan, Afghanistan's thirty-four provinces of Afghanistan, provinces and is located in the north-east of the country. It has an estimated population of 523,201 people and an area ...

) is an Afghan

Taekwondo Taekwondo (; ; ) is a Korean martial art and combat sport involving primarily kicking techniques and punching. "Taekwondo" can be translated as ''tae'' ("strike with foot"), ''kwon'' ("strike with hand"), and ''do'' ("the art or way"). In ad ...

practitioner. He won the silver medal in the lightweight category (72 kg) at the

2007 World Taekwondo Championships The 2007 World Taekwondo Championships were the 18th edition of the World Taekwondo Championships, and were held in Beijing, China from May 18 to May 22, 2007. Medal table Medal summary Men Women Team ranking Men Women References ...

, edging out 2004 Olympic Champion Hadi Saei in the semifinals. Nesar won the bronze medal in the lightweight category at the

2006 Asian Games The 2006 Asian Games (), officially known as the XV Asiad or 15th Asian Games (, and commonly known as Doha 2006 (), were an Asian multi-sport event held in Doha, Qatar, from December 1 to 15, 2006, with 424 events in 39 sports featured in the ga ...

, and represented Afghanistan in the -68kg category at the Beijing Olympics, where he also acted as flagbearer in the opening ceremony. Nesar won the gold medal in the 2009 Asian Martial Arts Games for taekwondo in the 72 kg weight range category. In 2010, he won the silver medal in the men's under 80 kg category at the

2010 Asian Games The 2010 Asian Games (), officially known as the XVI Asian Games () and also known as Guangzhou 2010 (), were a regional multi-sport event held from November 12 to 27, 2010 in Guangzhou, Guangdong, China (although several events commenced ear ...

. Nesar acted as flagbearer for Afghanistan again at the

2012 London Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012, were an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

, where he competed in the -80 kg category. On August 10, while suffering from a leg injury, he advanced from the preliminaries to the quarterfinals where he was defeated by

Sebastián Crismanich Sebastián Eduardo Crismanich (born 30 October 1986) is an Argentine taekwondo athlete. He won the gold medal in the men's 80 kg division at the 2012 Summer Olympics. Sebastián has the distinction of being the second individual athlete to win ...

of Argentina. As Sebastián advanced to the gold medal match, Nesar advanced to the bronze medal match, where he lost 0–4 against Mauro Sarmiento of Italy.Reference 2

References

Nesar Ahmad Bahawi's profile at BBC Sports

External links

* * 1984 births Living people Taekwondo practitioners at the 2008 Summer Olympics Taekwondo practitioners at the 2012 Summer Olympics Afghan male taekwondo practitioners Olympic taekwondo practitioners for Afghanistan Asian Games silver medalists for Afghanistan Taekwondo practitioners at the 2010 Asian Games Asian Games medalists in taekwondo Taekwondo practitioners at the 2006 Asian Games Asian Games bronze medalists for Afghanistan Medalists at the 2006 Asian Games Medalists at the 2010 Asian Games World Taekwondo Championships medalists People from Kapisa Province {{Taekwondo-bio-stub