LONDON (AFP) ― World taekwondo officials claim they still have the best fighters at the Olympic Games despite having several world champions missing.

Taekwondo has been rocked by scandals in recent times, not least British taekwondo’s decision to pick world No. 59 Lutalo Muhammad instead of the top-ranked fighter in the world, Aaron Cook.

Another issue is that while there are 16 divisions (eight each for men and women) at the World Championships, there are only half that number at the Olympics and each country can select a maximum of two men and two women in total.

For a country like Iran, that means under-74 kg and under-80 kg world champions Alireza Nasr Azadani and Farzad Abdollahi have not been picked as under-87 kg world champion Yousef Karami has come down a weight division to claim the under-80 kg spot.

World silver-medalist Mohammad Bagheri has been selected at under-68 kg, his regular category. French over-73 kg world champion Anne-Caroline Graffe is only fighting at over-67 kg because her compatriot and world champion at under-73 kg Gwladys Epangue is injured and cannot compete.

Either way, it wasn’t possible for both to take part. But the World Taekwondo Federation insists they still have the cream of the crop.

“We have all the best athletes here,” insisted WTF secretary-general Jean-Marie Ayer. “Sometimes we’ve had federations that had to make decisions because they were lucky enough to have several athletes at the top level (in the same category). We have the best athletes here. We could have had others but this is it.”