Sara khoshjamal - Fateme Nemati taekwondo match

by Mahnaz Mohammadi

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Shirzanan: Dear readers, Shirzanan Weakly will be in summer vacation next week. We will be back on August 9th. Wish you a warm and happy summer. See you soon.

Shirzanan: Leila Ebrahimi, a national team female runner said that they are looking for new talents among youngsters for track and fields. Shirzanan reports that Leila Ebrahimi explained, “ From 8 month ago Track and Field federation has started a program to look for talented young runners.

The goal is to raise new and well trained athletes in order to increase our abilities in professional track and field.” Leila Ebrahimi who was recovering from leg injury is planning to compete in the national league in September.

Shirzanan: “Most of Iran’s female lifeguards are not insured and their salary doesn’t cover any retirement fund.” Says an official from the swimming, diving and water polo federation. This official explains, “ Lifeguards are under loads of responsibilities for what they do, but unfortunately they don’t have any rewards when it comes to their own lives.”

Shirzanan: The fourth national primary speed skating league, ended with no new records; the national team invited the highest speeds to the female skating team. 10 teams were competing in 300m, 1000m, and 10000m roller skating race. Although no new records was established the quality of the fourth national league showed many improvements.

Shirzanan: Iran women’s national Futsal team was deployed to Jordan to attend the West Asian Futsal games. Iran’s team left earlier to hold their last camps in Jordan. Farideh Shojaie said, “ The team is ready.”

Shirzanan: the deputy manager of cycling federation told Shirzanan, “After the national cycling championship we will have one round of practice sessions for the national team. But this also depends on the availability of dormitory and cycling piste.”

About their future plans she said, “ Unfortunately we don’t have any future planning. We don’t have nay invitations for international races and until we get to a better shape financially we cannot invite foreign teams to come to Iran.”

Shirzanan: A grass succor field is getting build for women’s football in Tehran. Masoud Karbasian, the city construction deputy from Tehran city hall, confirmed this news and told Shirzanan, “ One of the reason for the delay in opening another women’s park on the south of Tehran is this grass field.

This grass field is compatible to the soccer field in Azadi stadium in Tehran. It is the first soccer field dedicated to women’s soccer in Iran.

Shirzanan: The women’s national Ping Pong team’s trip to Singapore was canceled. This cancellation was a result of a budget shortage that was caused after Iran women’s ping-pong team went to United States for US Open Table Tennis, says Shirzanan.

The Ping Pong federation decided to save some budget by canceling women’s team trip to Singapore; at the same time they are sending male’s young table tennis team to the same games.

Shirzanan: Three new national record was achieved in the third day of women’s swimming Olympiad in Iran. 28 teams were competing in the Iranian swimming Olympiad in Enghelab pool in Shiraz.

The new records was set for females 15-17 age, on 100 meter Breaststroke, 150 meter free style and 100 meter team free style. Donya Hosseini set a record of 51: 23:1 second in 100 meter breaststroke.

..... After the Islamic revolution the image of woman engaging in sports activity was associated with an unveiled woman wearing shorts, which is an anti-Islamic image. Hence many athletic clubs and facilities did not provide any services to women. Back then Faezeh who was 16 was invited by Mr. Adibi to register in a public gymnasium. Being the daughter of Hojat al-Islam Hashemi Rafsanjani and being part of a well-respected and influential family in the Iran’s governments, Faezeh’s present helped the women’s division of that public gymnasium to stay in business.

Women were only a few sports in those years and for instance swimming was one of the most problematic sports; even with the pools being used in separated shifts for men and women. Faezeh played basketball with headscarf and Mantua and that helped the public image of women’s sports.

In 1981an organization called, “Women’s Sports’ Management” started to work under the supervision of Kobra Khalighipour to educate and train female coaches for the new Islamic republic; this gap were caused by the firing and threatening of many old school trainers and sports coaches by the radical revolutionaries. On the same year the government decided to separate women’s sports from men’s sports. Many of the coaches were religious and had family ties to the government. After Mrs. Faezeh Hashemi became skilled in a couple of sports and after getting trained in the Women’s Sports Management organization she proposed the idea of Sorts for Muslim Women.

In 1989 Faezeh became the deputy manager of the National Olympics Committee; as her first step she introduced the proposal for Muslim women games to the head of international Olympics committee, Mr. Samaranch. And he approved Faezeh’s ideas. On 1990, this project got its final approval from the head of Asia Olympics committee and was called the Muslim Women’s Sports Congers. In 1991, 23 countries participated in the first Muslim women’s games. By then Faezeh’s father was Iran’s president and she was harshly criticized for being anti-Islamic.

On 1995 Faezeh Hashemi was chosen for parliament candidate, she had the second highest vote of Tehran. One of the most important factors in her election was her position on women’s cycling permits: on 1993 in an air pollution and city terrific committee use of bicycles were proposed as an environment friendly alternative for transportation. On that committee Faezeh has commented that if the cycling is going to be used, as the means of transportation there should be banned for women cycling. Although in the election year two years later her opponents used this comment to weekend her position it worked opposite and she got elected because of it.

On 1998 Faezeh Hashemi took yet another progressive step for women’s sports by publishing Zan Newspaper (woman); this was inline with Faezeh’s believe on providing equal opportunities for women. Although Zan Newspaper had a short life and soon was banned from publication, it has broke many taboos regarding women’s sports in its sports page. The most important one of which was the images and photographs of women’s athletic activities got published on Zan.

So far Faezeh Hashemi has organized four of the Women’s of Islamic Countries Games and now She is busy with organizing and finding more sponsors for the fifth Muslim Women’s Games, which will be held shortly, with the hope to flourish women’s sports in Iran so that women’s sports can come out of coma forever.