Mexican Taekwondo Federation President Francisco Raymundo González Pinedo is delighted with the performance of his team in Guadalajara ©ITG

Mexican Taekwondo Federation President Francisco Raymundo González Pinedo believes the medal-winning exploits of his rising stars at the World Taekwondo Championships here proves they can "count on the new generation" for the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Leslie Soltero captured the women’s under-67-kilogram crown before Daniela Souza clinched women’s under-49kg gold at the Centro Acuático CODE Metropolitano in Guadalajara.

Bryan Salazar also picked up men’s under-87kg bronze to put Mexico at the top of the medal table after three days of competition.

The success in Guadalajara comes after Mexico failed to pick up a single taekwondo medal for the first time in its Olympic history at Tokyo 2020.

González Pinedo said his team had already exceeded expectation with half of the tournament remaining.

Leslie Soltero celebrates after winning Mexico's first gold at this year's World Taekwondo Championships ©World Taekwondo
Leslie Soltero celebrates after winning Mexico's first gold at this year's World Taekwondo Championships ©World Taekwondo

"We have a situation where we have a very young generation and quite an experienced generation," González Pinedo told insidethegames.

"I was questioning whether there was a lack of experience and it was below the optimal age but I had a feeling we could get three medals.

"That was my prediction.

"I am very happy that are beyond our hopes and still have quite a lot of athletes that have yet to compete.

"Mexico is a taekwondo country and have a lot of medals in our history.

"Tokyo was very bad for us.

"Not just for us as some great countries didn’t get medals but it was difficult to live with this.

"I think we are going in the right and this is a good answer to adversity."

Mexico failed to get a medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics ©Getty Images
Mexico failed to get a medal at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics ©Getty Images

González Pinedo said the success of 21-year-old Soltero and 23-year-old Souza can “inspire” the 5,000 athletes in Mexico’s grassroots taekwondo programme and boost preparations for Paris 2024.

"We have the same strategy as all the country,” said the Mexican official.

"We have the direct and indirect qualification process [for Paris 2024].

"For the direct qualification we are in a good way as we want to keep that and for the regional qualification we have to keep on working really hard because we want to present in Paris with a full amount of people.

"As you can see, we have very experienced fighters and then we have the young generation. 

"What has happened here is that the young generation is producing results which is a really strong signal for us in our strategy that we can count on the new generation."

Mexico has claimed seven Olympic taekwondo medals since the sport was added to the programme at Sydney 2000.

The country’s best performance came at Beijing 2008 when María del Rosario Espinoza and Guillermo Pérez topped the podium.