Iran finished sixth at the Aichi-Nagoya 2026 Asian Games with a total of 52 medals — 19 gold, 18 silver, and 15 bronze. The men's volleyball team won a fourth consecutive Asian Games title by defeating Japan 3–1 in the final, while wrestlers, taekwondo athletes, and weightlifters also contributed multiple gold medals. China, Japan, and South Korea led the overall medal table.
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A sixth-place finish at the Aichi-Nagoya 2026 Asian Games saw Iran accumulate a haul of 52 medals — drawn from 19 gold, 18 silver, and 15 bronze — placing the country among the upper tier of the overall standings.
On Saturday, Iran's men's volleyball team secured a gold medal by taking the final against Japan four sets to one. A run of four unbroken Asian Games volleyball championships has extended Iran's overall gold medal count at the competition to 19. Twenty-two points came from Esmaeilnezhad's efforts as he led the Iranian roster through the championship match. Defeating Japan without a single loss across the entire tournament, the Iranian men's volleyball side closed out a perfect run. Five opponents — Kyrgyzstan, Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea, and Pakistan — were cleared away on the road to the final, where a 3–1 result over Japan secured the title for Iran.
Wrestling has consistently delivered a substantial share of Iran's gold-medal haul across Olympic and international competition. A gold-medal bout in the men's freestyle 74kg category ended with Yones Emami holding off Japan's Yoshinosuke Aoyagi by a 9–5 scoreline to claim the top podium position. That result placed the country's gold medal tally at 17 up to that point in the competition. A gold medal in the men's 97kg freestyle wrestling event went to Amirali Azarpira not long after, extending his haul at the top of the podium. Poyonov of Uzbekistan was held to a 10–0 scoreline against Azarpira in the title bout, a result that brought Iran's gold medal tally to 18.
Two freestyle gold medals had been collected before those bouts — one by Mohammad Nokhodi in the 86kg category and another by Amirhossein Zare competing at 125kg. Two gold medals in the Greco-Roman discipline were added through Alireza Abdeval, competing at 77 kilograms, and Amin Mirzazadeh, who stepped onto the podium at 130 kilograms.
A 2–0 scoreline in the final bout against Uzbekistan's Marat Mavlonov secured Arian Salimi the gold medal in the men's +80kg taekwondo category. That result brought the total count of gold medals credited to Iran at the Games to sixteen. Moradi had already claimed the 67kg taekwondo title on the women's side, adding another gold medal to the country's total in the discipline.
Gold medals in the 110kg and 95kg men's weightlifting events went to Ali Davoudi and Ali Alipour, respectively, adding to the collection of top-step finishes for Iranian lifters at the championships. In the men's -66kg kurash event, Vahid Barimanlou, Majid claimed the top step of the podium, taking home the gold.
Three gold medals were distributed across two rowing disciplines — the women's lightweight double sculls, where Kimia Zarei and Zeynab Norouzi took top honours, and the women's lightweight singles sculls, where Fatemeh Mojallal claimed the top podium position. Gold-medal finishes at the Games also came from Mohammadreza Tayebi competing in men's shot put, the Nemati brothers — Morteza and Mahmoud — in karate, the esports contingent, and Soheil Mousavi on the wushu floor.
Medals came Iran's way across a broad spread of disciplines — padel, kabaddi, boxing, fencing, gymnastics, canoe sprint, shooting, climbing, and 3x3 basketball among them. Competitive achievement across multiple disciplines has featured in the country's sporting record.
Tallying 19 golds, 18 silvers, and 15 bronzes across the competition, Iran's delegation of 52 total medallists has positioned the country near the upper tier of the overall standings at Aichi-Nagoya 2026. Where outstanding events have yet to conclude, the overall order of finishers remains subject to revision.
Three nations from East Asia command the uppermost tier of the Asian Games standings — China leading the way with 169 gold medals, followed by Japan on 83 and South Korea on 39. China's gold-medal count spans a wide range of disciplines, while host nation Japan has assembled a considerable overall tally of its own. South Korea has held a place among Asia's foremost sporting powers at the continental level. Where Japan competes as host, its athletes have recorded a run of results that placed the country among the defining narratives of these Games.
Across wrestling, volleyball, and taekwondo, Iran has maintained a competitive presence against the leading Asian nations, while contests with China and South Korea have played out across a range of other disciplines. At the prior edition of the competition, a seventh-place finish accompanied a medal haul of 13 gold, 21 silver, and 20 bronze for the Iranian squad.
India finished fourth at the 2026 Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, with 85 medals — 21 gold, 27 silver, and 37 bronze — the country's second-highest tally in the event's history. The campaign featured historic firsts in golf, archery, pole vault, mixed martial arts, hockey, and squash, as well as title defenses in cricket and kabaddi. India also secured Olympic quotas in archery and hockey for the LA 2028 Games.
