TEHRAN – Iranian woman karate practitioner Hamideh Abbasali says that she is training hard to keep her fitness levels up for the Olympic Games.

The Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics were supposed to take place last summer but were rescheduled to this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’ve been trying to keep up my fitness with hard training during the COVID-19 pandemic. All athlete will do their best to stand atop the podium in the Olympics,” Abbasali told IRNA.

“The best karate practitioners will gather together in Tokyo.  It means we have a difficult task ahead to win a medal,” she added.

Abbasali suffered a knee injury at the Karate 1-Premier League event in Salzburg, Austria in March 2020. She underwent a successful surgery last year in Hannover, Germany.

“I’ve participated in three training camp since my surgery and I will take part in the fourth training camp in the next few days,” Abbasali stated.

Abbasali won a quota place for the Tokyo Olympic Games last year but the Iranian women karate practitioners have also chance of winning two more quota places in the upcoming Karate 1-Premier Leagues.