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by Mahnaz Mohammadi

There are 45 foreign films shown in this festival. 42 women filmmakers as well as 172 men filmmakers are among the filmmakers for this festival. There were only two films with the focus on women’s sports in this festival, which is rather a low number; Reza Nezam and Karim Dini were the creators of the two films on women’s sports.

Mahdieh Montazeran, a member of women’s national fencing team, will also be present in these competitions. She said, “ I have practiced a little so far but I will start my regular practices soon.”

Shah Mohammadi, the deputy of Iran Karate Federation said, “ The team is preparing itself for Japan’s world championship, but unfortunately their visa’s are not ready yet.” She continued, “ Azad University Karate team has not been able to get visa for Japan so far and the national karate team is waiting as well, that’s make us worried.”

Nejatizadeh, the deputy manager of volleyball federation said, “ Organizing athletic Olympiads needs lots of planning and it requires more studies. The goal of these Olympiads is to find the most talented sportswomen, but sometimes the side stories create problems.”

Now Iran women’s basketball team gets one step closer to being able to participate in international official games. “We also need FIBA’s approval but we are hopeful.” said Karamzadeh, the head of Iran’s basketball federation.

She continued, “ We want to choose the best and the most outstanding Judo participants out there.”

There are 10 players in the team. Sahar Zamanian said, “Our coach is Miss Jalalian. In Russia Badminton Open all of our opponents where from Europe. We performed well. We won most of our games in three games and with high scores.”

Hosseini said, “These competitions in Germany will help me to compare myself with my other young opponents in Olympics.”

should she accept the offer? 8 people voted yes;

we had two no votes,

also we had 6 votes for It is better to accept the offer and

7 votes for it is good but she shouldn’t accept it.

..... Hence the authorities criticism the passive role of media is women’s sports is understandable.

These complaints is somewhat relevant given the fact that the statistics published by the center of media studies and research as well as the journalism department of Iran’s guidance culture, shows that in the first three months of the previous year (2007) women’s sports was only 1.1 percent of the sports news published on Iranian media; 76 percent of the report has covered Iranian sports and 24 percent was dedicated to international sports. Although in the current year the percentage of women’s sports news presented in media has increase, mostly because of women’s revolutionary performances in various athletic fields, this progress is highly unlikely to continue.

In general Iranian media’s lack of interest on women’s sports is embedded in couple of issues:

The popularity of women’s sports: Press and media directors mostly believe that women’s sports is not a popular and hot topic and the readers are not interested on it; this assumption is based on the long history of Iran’s media in relation to women’s sports, where the news has often been represented without photos, and it was mostly contained interviews with the officials who complain about budget rather than sportswomen that can be more exciting. Everyone who is involved with Iranian women’s sports needs to ask oneself that why there is no one else besides us (even close relatives) following women’s sports? Women’s sports can only attract audience and become popularity by transforming into entertainment activity in families.

When there is not news people don’t get notified about women’s sports events, but they are interested if we let them know: as an example Shirzanan covered an interview with a female spectator in the national Olympic teakwondo trial between Sarah Khoshjamal and Fatemeh Nemati, in which the female audience has come a long way with her two daughters to watch another match which was canceled and she was so happy to see Sarah-Fatemeh’s competition which she didn’t know about.

Today her two daughters’ and she are among the readers of women’s sports news. Iran’s Physical Education Organization requires from media to help with making sportswomen and women’s sports champions known to public, but the PEO itself doesn’t do much to help Iran’s media to do so.

Taking photos from women’s sports events is a never-ending problem. And it is very important to overcome this problem since images make people interested and also gives faces to the printed names in the news. The sports photographers are not allowed in most of the women’s sports events, matches and competitions. If they get passed the front gates and take photos they get questioned after wards by the federation and authorities, for “why in your photo the wrist of that sportswomen is shown or …?” someone needs to remind the authorities that if someone’s wrist is not covered, it is not the photographer’s responsibility to cover it. These authorities with the traditional believes also question the sportswomen and prohibit them to give any interviews to journalists.

The physical education organization and other sports officials need to honestly ask themselves if they want the national media’s attention on women’s sports. And if the answer is yes, the PEO need to open the many closed doors to the sports journalists and photographers, so they can be informed and present when there are any women’s sports competitions. Also the sports authorities need to protect both sportswomen and the journalist from the obstacles of traditional believes.

.... Maryam Barzegar, the swimming coach, who has been working with the deaf swimmers for years approves the lack of facilities and budget for disabled sports and says, “ the deaf sports cannot make any money, thus it should be supported by PEO and other governmental organizations.” She continues unfortunately deaf female athletes are in worst shape because they have a very little budget so women are only active in a few fields of deaf sports. The sports authorities should think of a solution.”

What is the deaf sports? Some may not consider deaf sports is not as real sports; and think it is something that is neither public sports nor professional sports; if so hear I need to emphasize some facts about the deaf sports for the readers. The international federation of deaf sports has a 72 years of experience and the national federation of deaf sports is 53 years old. Also the National deaf sports federation is going to participate in 2009 deaf Olympics in Taiwan. Parviz Siroos, the head of Iran’s deaf sports federation says, “We are making ourselves ready for the 2009 deaf Olympics and before that we will participate in the deaf volleyballworld championship in Argentina, the deaf wrestling championship in Armenia and deaf track and fields in Turkey.”

The deaf Asian game is once every three years and the deaf Olympic games is every four years. After the Islamic revolution Iranian deaf athletes were actively presents in all international deaf sports events in 1989,1993, 1997, 2001 for Olympics and in 1992,1996, 2000 for Asian games. Overall Iran’s deaf athletic teams won 17 gold medals, 9 silver medals and 4 bronze medals in international event. Despite all these it seems that the deaf sports federation in Iran is not as active as it should be on women’s deaf sports; they are only active in Chess, volleyball and table tennis in national level.