Interview
The deputy manager of Iran’s swimming federation in an interview with Shirzanan
We have to be more cautious
Shirzanan:Fereshteh Movahed /translated by Roja Najafi: it is summer and the session for water activities. In most countries around the world people with different social status are engaged with water sports as amateurs and professionals. Swimming is one of those water activities. But in Iran because of the socio-cultural conditions the professional female swimming is very limited.
Except for swimming, many other branches of water sports are new in Iran and they need to have better conditions. Some time ago when the Islamic swimsuit was designed fro women there was a hope of participating in the international competitions for women’s national swimming team. But is it only wishful thinking or? We are having an interview with Fatemeh Salami, the deputy of Iran’s swimming federation on women’s division.
What was your main goal for women’s swimming in Iran and how successful were your plans?
From the beginning we had two goals in mind: to have more progress in both professional and public swimming. In some aspects we were more successful; we could changed some parts of the traditional views on women’s swimming and the fact that learning how to swim is a life saving necessity, besides its many other benefits.
We also held coaching classes in different cities in all provinces to help with the education of swimming. These were the progresses in public level and in the professional level we started the female national swimming league. We are having the third league in October. Also we started the women’s national water polo team, women’s diving team and we are working to develop synchronized swimming.
did you have national competitions in diving and water polo for women?
Yes, this is the third year that we are having the national competitions for these two. Also we organized a new series of third degree water polo coaching class.
what about the synchronized swimming? Does Iran have the women’s national synchronized swimming team?
This branch has started from six years ago. Many foreign coaches and trainers came to Iran for basic training courses. Their number has increased over the past coupe of years. Also the clubs had entered this branch in the list of their activities. We will have the fifth national synchronized swimming competitions this year.
We has selected a group but we won’t from a team unless there is an invitation for a competition from another national team. Then we will have preparation camps. For now the qualified group are practicing with their clubs.
How do you see the improvements of women’s national swimming team in the past couple of years?
We did quiet well in quality level in the past two years; which means we had good records and we broke many of Asia’s records. But until now there were no match between our swimmers and theirs. We need to work on our speed.
The covered and Islamic swimsuits are a great obstacle in the progress of women’s swimming in Iran; do you have any plans for that?
the cultural and religious condition of our country requires us to be more careful and move more cautiously. We need to choose clothing that is appropriate and suitable with our culture. We were not that successful in this area and our swimmers could only evaluate themselves on the competitions of Islamic countries.
Other Muslim countries use the same Islamic swimming outfit, was there any action in making it an official Muslim women’s swimming suite?
a Muslim woman from Australia designed This Islamic swimming suite. And swimmers used it in the West Asian games. We did not talk about it on the international swimming federation level. But we have discussed it with the national federation. We need to be patient and hopeful.
