Jordan joins continent’s nations at 19th Asian Games

AMMAN — Jordan joins 12,000 athletes from 45 countries at the 19th Asian Games which opened in Hangzhou, China, on Saturday and runs until October 8.

The Kingdom’s  delegation includes 79 athletes competing in  15 sports: Archery, athletics, badminton, basketball, boxing, fencing, golf, gymnastics, ju-jitsu, karate, shooting, taekwondo, weightlifting, triathlon and e-games.

Jordan’s 2018 Asian Games gold medalist taekwondo’s Juliana Al Sadiq, who won bronze at the 2023 World Championship and boxing’s Mohammad Abu Jajeh, who won bronze at the World Championship,  carried Jordan’s flag at the opening ceremony

The Kingdom missed the Beijing Games in 1990, and returned to the 12th edition in Hiroshima, Japan in 1994 where Jordan won two silver and one bronze medal in taekwondo.

At the last 18th edition in Indonesia in 2018,a record total of 12 medals were won, including two gold, one silver and nine bronze medals. Taekwondo’s Juliana Al Sadiq secured gold and Ju-Jitsu’s Haidar Al Rasheed another. Ju-Jitsu added a silverin addition, 9 bronze medals were won of which 3 came in taekwondo — includin gone by Saleh Sharabati and another by Ahmad Abu Ghaush, another 3 in ju-jitsu,2 in karate and 1 in boxing.

Two of the medal winners went on to win Olympic medals later on, including Abu Ghaush, the first ever Olympic gold medallist at the 2016 Games Rio de Janeiro while Sharabati won silver at the 2020 Tokyo Games where Abdul Rahman Masatfa won bronze in karate.