The first edition of the Grand Slam series, consisting of eight tournaments, will be held in Wuxi on December 23 and 24 and continue through to early 2018.

The seven participants that Iran are sending to the competition are a mixture of male and female athletes.

Nahid Kiani and Zahra Pouresmaeil are scheduled to compete in the women’s event.

Sajjad Mardani, Farzan Ashourzadeh, Abolfazl Yaghoubi, Armin Hadipour and Ebrahim Safari will be Iran’s male representatives.

Ashourzadeh is the highest profile of the athletes, having a World Championship gold medal in the 58 kilogram category at Chelyabinsk in 2015. 

Mardani and Hadipour are both World Championship silver medallists, having finished runners-up in the 87kg and 54kg categories at Puebla in 2013 and Muju in 2017. 

World Taekwondo have announced that the Grand Slam will feature a Rio 2016 gold medallist, two gold medalists from the 2017 World Taekwondo Championships, a champion of the Grand-Prix final in December 2017, three winners of the Grand-Prix series held earlier in the year and a winner from the 2016 Grand-Prix final.

Each of the gold medalists at this year’s Grand Slam series, which will see 12 athletes take part in each weight category, will take home $70,000 (£52,500/€59,000),

The silver and bronze medalists will collect $20,000 (£15,000/€17,000) and $10,000 (£7,500/€8,500) respectively.