Nesar Ahmad Bahawi , born March 27, 1984, in

Kapisa Province Kapisa (Pashto/Dari: ) is the smallest of Afghanistan's thirty-four provinces and is located in the north-east of the country. It has an estimated population of 496,840 people and an area of , making it the most densely populated province apar ...

) is an Afghan

Taekwondo ''Taekwondo'', ''Tae Kwon Do'' or ''Taekwon-Do'' (; ko, 태권도/跆拳道 ) is a Korean martial arts, Korean form of martial arts involving punching and kicking techniques, with emphasis on head-height kicks, spinning jump kicks, and fast k ...

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 summary Men Women Medal table Team ranking Men Women Referenc ...

, edging out 2004 Olympic Champion

Hadi Saei Hadi Saei ( fa, هادی ساعی, born June 10, 1976) is an Iranian councilor and former taekwondo athlete who became the most successful Iranian athlete in Olympic history and the most titled champion in this sport by winning 9 world class titl ...

in the semifinals. Nesar won the bronze medal in the lightweight category at the

2006 Asian Games 6 (six) is the natural number following 5 and preceding 7. It is a composite number and the smallest perfect number. In mathematics Six is the smallest positive integer which is neither a square number nor a prime number; it is the second small ...

, 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. 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) was 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 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 {{Taekwondo-bio-stub