Taekwondo Beauty World Champion KUBRA DAGLI New Photos

Kübra Dağlı (1996-) is a Turkish Taekwondo world champion in the freestyle duo Poomsae category. She won a gold medal in the over-18 section with partner Emirhan Muran in the 10th World Poomsae Championships held in Peru in 2016. She has also been a gold or silver medalist at every national championship in the category between 2018 and 2020.

Following her victory, she received extensive media coverage for days, particularly for her practicing taekwondo while wearing a hijab. She wrote on social media, "They don't speak of my success, but of my headscarf. I don’t want this. Our success should be discussed." Milliyet newspaper columnist Asu Maro documented the two sources of criticism Dağlı faced – Muslims who saw taekwondo itself as improper for women and secular organizations that wanted her to remove her hijab during competitions. She condemned both groups as holding "sexist ideologies" that are harmful to her and other Muslim female athletes.

Headscarves are permitted by taekwondo's international governing bodies, though Dağlı said she did have to wear a bandana instead of a hijab once, in 2013. Her mother and her father, a boxing coach, have been supportive of her athleticism. After trying karate, she switched to taekwondo at the age of 13. At first, she was trained by her uncle, a taekwondo coach. She has been training with her partner Emirhan Muran since 2014.

• DATE OF BIRTH
  17 February 1996
• PLACE OF BIRTH
  Isparta
• CAREER START
  2009
• DISCIPLINE
  • Taekwondo

A world champion martial artist from Turkey.

Hard work and dedication have paid off for Kübra Dağlı, who landed the gold medal in the Poomsae team category of the 2016 World Taekwondo Championships in Lima, Peru, alongside Emirhan Muran.

Currently, not on the Olympic program, Poomsae is a non-sparring event that sees individuals or teams perform a "sequence of movements arranged in a meaningful order in response to attacks from multiple imaginary assailants".

"Every morning at 5am I go to training, I practice twice a day and prepare for the tournament in front of me," says Dağlı.

She continues: "You're most afraid of failure, and for this reason, I won't give up this hard work."

And she has her sights set on winning gold at the Olympic Games in the future.

"If Taekwondo Poomsae becomes an Olympic sport, I have my eyes on the title," she says. Until then, Dağlı is dominating various editions of the Turkish Taekwondo Poomsae Championship with serial wins and runner-up finished each and every year.