TEHRAN -- Alongside other sporting fields, the taekwondo competitions of the 14th Asian Games ended Monday in Pusan, South Korea.

The taekwondo team of Iran comprising six athletes snatched three medals -- one gold, one silver, and one bronze.

Hadi Saei took the coveted gold and his teammates, Behzad Khodadad and Majid Aflaki, bagged a silver and a bronze respectively.

The three remaining, Youssef Karami, Hadi Afshar, and Omid Gholamzadeh, failed to stand on podiums.

At the first glance, the number of medals can be regarded as a success for a six-member team but if the status of the country's taekwondo in the world and its results in the recent years' international tournaments are put into consideration, then a clutch of three medals in the 2002 Asian Games is in fact a failure.

The interesting point is that in five weights out of six categories the main rivals of the Iranian players were the Koreans and just Hadi Saei, who is an exceptional and a phenomenon in the world succeeded in defeating his Korean opponent in final, taking the gold medal.

Representing Iran in the -72kg category, Saei won the gold as he defeated Lee Sae Shin of South Korea 5-3, bringing the fourth gold for Iran.

But the other four players of Iran lost to their South Korean contestants.

In the second weight final, Khodadad was beaten by a Korean and Aflaki lost to his Korean rival in the semifinal clash of the sixth weight, winning a silver and a bronze respectively.

The other representatives of the country were eliminated by the Koreans in the preliminary rounds.

Unfortunately, the officials justifying the Iranians' losses have always blamed misjudgment, Koreans' influence, change in regulations, and other off-the-tatami issues and they have never studied the reasons behind the losses to find a solution.

No doubt, the Koreans are the undisputed taekwondo champions of the world. But the country's officials should review their plans and study whether they have done something to outpace the Koreans, said IRNA.

Now some questions arise: What have we done to prevent the Koreans from exerting influence on judges if misjudgment is the problem? Why have we not hired the top Korean coaches to acquire the latest taekwondo skills? Why have we not made expert and psychological studies on our failures? Why have we not asked our world-class taekwondo player, Hadi Saei, to explain his method of fighting against the Koreans and to teach his teammates how to win? It seems the Iranian taekwondo players have a phobia about competing with the Koreans.

The officials of Iran's Taekwondo Federation are to see to it and explore the ways to help the Iranian taekwondo players get rid of the fear.

But the fact is that whenever the in-form Iranians have competed in the taekwondo contests, nobody was able to defeat them.