Ron Atias

Atias, who started in the sport at the age of seven, trains in Ramla, Israel, which is his hometown. His club is Sharabi Martial Arts.

In 2008, he won a gold medal in the Youth Croatia Taekwondo Open in Zagreb. In 2009, Atias won a gold medal at the Cadet European Taekwondo Championships, in 2010 a gold medal at the senior Austrian Open in Innsbruck, and in 2011 a silver medal at the Junior European Taekwondo Championships. He was picked by the Olympic Committee of Israel as the best 2011 Israeli Young Athlete.

Atias then won gold medals at the youth 2012 Austrian Open and the 2013 senior Austrian Open. In 2014, as a senior, he won bronze medals in the Spanish Open, Israel Open, Serbia Open, and Croatia Open. In 2015, Atias won bronze medals in the Greece Open and the Israel Open.

In 2016, he won the gold medal in the 2016 European Taekwondo Olympic Qualification Tournament, in Istanbul, Turkey, over silver medalist Jesús Tortosa of Spain, who was world junior champion in 2014 in the under 51 kg division. That year Atias also won a silver medal in the under-58 kilogram event at the 2016 European Taekwondo Championships, which was held in Montreux, Switzerland, losing in the finals to world No. 2 Rui Braganca of Portugal.

Olympics

Atias represented Israel at the 2016 Summer Olympics on August 17 in taekwondo in the under-58 kilogram category. Atias is the first-ever Israeli male taekwondo athlete to compete in the Olympics. Former female Olympic taekwondo competitors for Israel were Maya Arusi (Athens, 2004) and Bat-El Gaterer (Beijing, 2008).