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Khoshjamal won her Moroccan opponant in her first match and in her second match there was a tie, which made the match to go into golden time, where Sara Khoshjamal lost her match to her opponent from Chinese Taipei. This lost put Sara in the second rank group and eliminated her from the games. About Sara’s match, Mino Madah said, “ Sara was in control of the match and it was great to see her do all she can in order to win.”

Shirzanan: Karimi who advanced to semifinals is scheduled to compete with Marian Mariano from the Philippines in the semifinal on Saturday August 23. Some 128 athletes from 43 countries and regions have participated in the event to compete for 15 gold medals.

Shirzanan: The Skate Hockey competitions of the Ramadan Cup is supposed to start from the beginning of the coming month, but no team has signed in for the competitions yet.

Nazanin Farzin, the gate keeper for the skate hockey team says, “ everything is ready to send the winning teams to the Hung Kong world competitions, but since we don’t know which teams are competing yet in the national league we cannot be sure about the outcome.”

Shirzanan: “If the sport authorities and officials back us up we will qualify for Olympics.”

Said the head coach of Iran’s female Judo team, Janet.S. She mentioned the three female Olympians from Iran and says, “There are enough potentials in female athletes which needs support and care to flourish.”

Shirzanan: Farideh Shojai, the deputy manager of Iran’s football federation on women’s affair, met with Mohammad Bin Hammam during the Wets Asian games in Teharn.

In this meeting Bin Hammam stressed his support of women’s football in Iran and promised the support of the AFC from women’s football in Iran. He said, “ Women’s football has become active in Iran, but it has a long way to go to get to first rank Asian women teams and we hope with our support they can become better and better.”

Shirzanan: The possibility of having women referees in 2009 Asian karate games is rising.

18 female referees will attend Asia’s referee clinic in Malaysia. Shahmohammadi, from the Karate federation explains, “ This is a two day program and some of the Iranian referees are attending for the first time. The main goal is to gain the international certificate.

Shirzanan: The women’s national basketball championship will start in two of Iran’s provinces, for three days.

Fatemeh karamzadeh, the deputy manager of basketball federation, said, “ the two host provinces are not finalized yet, although this won’t be a problem. These games will have four groups: Mini, Youngsters and rank one and two of for adult.

..... The deputy manager of Iran’s Wushu federation, Jhaleh Sharifi, also was satisfied with the preparatory camps and the team practices; she acknowledged the positive influence of the Chinese coach on the team and said, “ Obtaining medals is very hard but not impossible.” About the overlapping Wushu competitions and Olympic games she explained, “ The world Wushu competitions will be at the same place as Olympic games. There will be 125 qualified athletes participating in it. Zahra won the gold medal in 2007 Wushu competitions in China and Farzaneh won the bronze medal in the same competitions, so they both got qualified for the games this year.”

Sharifi mentioned the undersized budget of female Wushu and said, “ Keeping in mind our girls’ high potentials if the federation increase our budget winning medals become more definite.”

Wushu is both a performance and a full-contact sport derived from traditional Chinese martial arts. Although today wushu is considered an international sport through the International Wushu Federation (IWUF), which holds the World Wushu Championships every two years (the first World Championships were held in 1991 in Beijing), Wushu still has not been approved to be part of Olympic events. The Chinese attempt to have Wushu world championship this year along with Olympic games was an effort to open the Olympic doors to wushu.