Iraq’s athletes put up a valiant effort in the wheelchair fencing competition but eventually departed the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games after two quarterfinal losses at Makuhari Messe Event Hall on Thursday morning.

In the category A men’s epee individual competition, Zainulabdeen Al-Madhkhoori won three of his six Preliminary Pool 2 matches in the day’s early sessions to advance to the round of 16.

He started his campaign with 5-1 win over Ryan Rousell of Canada and followed that up with victories over Maurice Schmidt of Germany (5-2) and Hakan Akkaya of Turkey (5-3).

The three wins meant that, despite three ensuing losses to Emanuele Lambertini of Italy, Tian Jianquan of China and Maxim Shaburov of the Russian Paralympic Committee, the 30-year-old Iraqi progressed to the knockout rounds.

In his last-16 match, he once again defeated the German Schmidt (15-13) to advance to the quarterfinals, where he would meet Shaburov for a second time.

Sadly for Al-Madhkhoori, there would be no change in the outcome as he lost 15-7 to the second seed to exit the competition.

Meanwhile, his compatriot Ammar Ali recovered from a poor start to reach the quarterfinals of the category B men’s epee individual tournament. He lost his opening two matches in Preliminary Pool 1 to Alexander Kuzyukov of the RPC (5-2) and Dimitri Coutya of Great Britain (5-2).

After that, the 36-year-old went on a four-match winning streak, overcoming Pierre Mainville of Canada (5-2), Michinobu Fujita of Japan (5-3), Yohan Peter of France (5-0) and Anton Datsko of Ukraine (5-2).

In the quarterfinal, the Iraqi’s quest for a medal was ended when he lost 15-10 to Jovane Guissone of Brazil.