Ela Aydin

Ela Aydin (born 12 January 1999) is a German taekwondo athlete. Her greatest achievements are a bronze medal at the 2022 Grand Prix in Paris and two bronze medals at European Championships.

Junior
Ela Aydin began practicing taekwondo at the age of five and participated in her first competition at age six. When she was 14, she was selected to represent the German national team at her first U15 European Championship in Bucharest in 2013, where she won a bronze medal.

In the years following, Aydin took part in several competitions such as the taekwondo Youth World Championships and several European Championships. In 2016, she tore a cruciate ligament in her knee and due to undergoing surgery had to take a break from competing.

Senior
In 2017, Aydin won a silver medal at the U21 European Championships in Sofia. In 2018, she participated in the European Championships in Kazan but lost in the prelims against the eventual European Champion Kristina Tomić from Croatia. She also competed in the Grand Prix series of 2018.

The following year, Aydin won a bronze medal at the 2019 Military World Games in Wuhan and a silver medal at the Extra European Championships in Bari. In both competitions, she participated in the Olympic weight class of 49 kilograms. She also competed in the 2019 World Championships in Manchester, where she finished in ninth place, as well as the 2019 European U21 Championships and two Grand Prix competitions.

In early 2021, Aydin won a bronze medal at the European Championships in Sofia. A few months later, she narrowly missed out on qualifying for the 2020 Olympics Games, losing to Israeli fighter Avishag Semberg in the semifinals of the tournament. Qualifying for the final would have meant being allowed to participate in the Olympic Games in Tokyo.

In September 2022, Ela Aydin won a bronze medal at the Paris Grand Prix - she is the first woman of the German national team to have won a medal at a Grand Prix competition. She also won a bronze medal at the 2022 European Championships in Manchester. She took part in the 2023 World Championships in Baku. She won her opening match but lost to Dunya Abutaleb from Saudi Arabia in her second match (round of 16).

In March 2024, Aydin participated in the European qualification tournament for the Summer Olympics in Paris, where she won the round of 16 against Zemfira Hasanzade (Azerbaijan) 2:0, but lost to Ilenia Matonti from Italy in the quarter-finals. She therefore did not qualify a quota place for the 49 kg weight category at the Olympic Games, as this would have required her to reach the final. In April 2024, Aydin underwent another cruciate ligament and meniscus surgery.

Personal life
In 2017, Aydin graduated from school with a General Certificate of Secondary Education. In the same year, she joined the sports promotion group of the Bundeswehr (German: Sportfördergruppe der Bundeswehr) and completed her basic training by the start of 2018. She has been a Soldier-Athlete (German: Sportsoldat) ever since.