Al-Jaafar aims for karate history at World Championships

Mohammed Al-Jaafar could become the first ever Jordanian to secure a senior World Karate Championship medal after reaching the semi-finals in Budapest, Hungary.
Al-Jaafar will compete for the bronze medal on Saturday against Japan’s Rikito Shimada, in the -84kg weight category.
He has been in brilliant form, starting his campaign with a win over Kenya’s Christopher Amboah, and then defeating North Macedonia’s Petar Spasenovski.
His dominating displays continued in the last 16 with a win over Turkey’s Ugur Aktas, but his winning run ended against Serbia’s Mahdi Khodabakhshi, who went on to reach the final, meaning that Al-Jaafar moved on to compete for the bronze medal division.
There, he beat Bosnia’s ‘Mehir’ to book his all-or-noth bout with Rikito.
In the +84kg weight, Yusuf Nofal was lost to Slovenia’s Tomaz Kos in the early rounds.
The Jordanian national team will continue its participation today (Wednesday) with the following players in action: Noor Nasser (-61kg), Abdullah Hammad (-60kg), Afif Ghaith (-67kg), and Hassan Msaarwa (-75kg).