By Maryam Majd/ Please see photo report here

Please watch and listen here

Attention: The file is in Persian.

Shirzanan: Leila Ebrahimi, the Asia’s medal holder in track and field, said, “In the national league that I ran for 10 thousand meters, my leg injury and the hard surgeries I had."

She continued "My practices are going well and I hope to do better in the third round of the national league. Although I will prepare myself for the Asia trail running championship in Bahrain, my main plan this years is to do mild exercises.”

The deputy manager of the skating federation said, “The national team qualification camp has started from 16th of September and finally three adult Skaters and 4 skaters in the youth level were chosen. They are now in the preparatory camp.” There will be 8 teams competing in Thailand competitions.

Shirzanan: Khairkhah, the deputy manager of Iran’s Ski federation talked about the possibility of deploying women’s ski team to international competitions.

Khairkhah told Shirzanan, “After the month of Ramadan, we will begin the women’s team practices. We will carry on the practice sessions until the first snow storm and then we probably will send the team to an international competition.”

Shirzanan: After the qualification games for compound archery before the month of Ramadan, no future plans were set, thus the women’s archery team is called off.

“10 archers had been chosen in the qualification competitions and they were supposed to be invited for the national team camp; but so far there is no camp planed” said Akram Shabani, the deputy manager of archery federation.

Shirzanan: Kazakhstan’s youth volleyball team, which was invited for a preparatory camp to Iran canceled its trip.

Hajar Nejati, the deputy manager of Iran’s volleyball federations said, “ We had the promises of the Kazakhstan’s volleyball federation for this trip; they canceled it without any explanation. Of course we also invited women’s youth teams from Turkey and Serbia.” She said that the national camp for Iran’s women’s volleyball team has started last since week and 15 volleyball players are attending the camp.

Shirzanan: The women’s national badminton team are getting ready for the international competitions in Jordan.

Sahar Zamanian, one of the players going to Jordan says, “ The Jordan competition will help us to elevate our ranking in the world ranking chart. We are practicing very hard for over two months now. My teammate is Negin Amiripour.”

Shirzanan: Khadijeh Zeinalzadeh, The Wushu participant in 48Kg, is going to the finals in the Harbin world cup. Zeinal-Zadeh managed to beat her Myanmar rival Naw Mar Tun in two consecutive rounds in the women’s 48 kg category on Friday. The Iranian athlete will now face her Vietnamese opponent. Another female Iranian athlete Farzaneh Dehqan made do with the bronze medal when she lost to her Chinese rival in the under 52kg category.

Shirzanan: Two national players from the women’s national Futsal team are due to give some explanations to the disciplinary committee. Fars reports that the Futsal players were both participating in the Iranian athletic Olympiad; Paria Nourozy and Sepideh Zarrinkafsh are due next week to appear for some explanation.

...... Sahar looks at me apologetically, as if says, “Sorry I will come as soon as I am done with this one.” Finally she comes and w escape the crowded reception area and go to the darkroom of the atelier. Everyone is looking at us know, investigating my laptop and video camera.

Sahar starts, as we talked on the phone by introducing herself, “When I was in the high school one of my classmates were playing taekwondo, she was third dan, she was very charismatic and independent and that really made me interested in taekwondo.”

She speaks very fast, as if it is the only chance she has to talk about her hobby, taekwondo. I ask her about her families reaction to her choice of sport, she says, “Fortunately my family didn’t have any problems with me exercising, but in our taekwondo club there were some girls who sneaked out of their homes to come to the class.” She continues, “Our coach was a wonderful young and athletic lady. After a while she did not come to the classes, we heard she got married and her husband doesn’t allow her to work.” I ask her how the other people reacted to her taekwondo exercises, she says, “People occasionally made fun of me; the teenage boys in out neighborhood made fun of me and called me Wild.”

Sahar is calm, she explains the level of taekwondo education is very low in local clubs; once they got together and wrote a request letter to the taekwondo federation and asked for a coach, she says, “ we asked for a good coach for younger players - players under 7 years old. They dismissed our request.”

Sahar talks about the unfair and unequal opportunities among boys and girls and about the hardship some of her friends have to struggle with in order to practice taekwondo. Sahar has to go, someone is calling her name. I have to go aw well. I gather my things together, before leaving I ask her is it was worth it, and she says laughing, “I love taekwondo.” I want to get out of the shop as fast as I can so I can avoid those gazes behind me, the first thing that caught my eye among all the male photo portraits covering the shop’s walls is a portrait of a young boy with a soccer ball and a fade smile.

..... Tarama Zolkina (56), a Russian coach, was invited to be the coach of women’s national handball team, she does not speak English so during the interview she feels like an stranger from another planet. The Russian coach will stay in a trial basis in Iran until the end of the second camp and then the federation decides about hiring her as the head coach.

Karimian says, “ last year we had sent the women’s youth team to Kazakhstan, they were very nervous. I think this will cause problem for us. They don’t put enough efforts on women’s team; we have a competition on December and this is our second day in the camp; this should be our 20th day at the camp. The men’s team is in a better shape, they have more budget thus they get better planning.”

Mr. Rahimi, the head of Iran’s handball federation, is busy in his room. The room is a cozy place with simple furniture. I asked him why the women’s team is not ready for the Asia’s qualification games? Whey the federation thought of them in the last minute? Why they don’t have a coach yet? And why the team’s technical crew is not ready yet? He explains, “ I admit that we were late about the national team, but the players were playing in their league and their club teams so they are not out of practice. We were busy with the youth national league and the Student league, and unfortunately we didn’t do enough for the women’s national team.” This year Iran’s men’s national handball team were qualified for the men’s world handball championship consequently all the attention is on them.

Ghazaleh Nazem, one of the oldest members of the women’s national team, says, “ The last time we had a preparatory national camp was in 2005 for the Islamic countries championships. After that the team scattered. I think it was because of the budget shortage.” Azadeh Gilani, another player, adds, “ they don’t want to invest on the adult team; the federation told us that the women’s national team is old and they want to invest on the youth team. We need a good technical crew; we don’t have a bodybuilding trainer or a nutritionist. Our head coach should do all these.”

With the federations investing on the men’s handball team they are coming out victorious. The head of the federation says, “We don’t have any lined in our budget and we try to give the women’s team enough money for their plans. Since we cannot show the women’s team games on TV we cannot advertise for it so naturally there are less money for them verses men’s team which has many sponsors.”

Rahimi, who acknowledges the shortcomings regarding the women’s deployment to Thailand competitions says, “ The handball federation is the first federation in Iran that deployed its women’s national team to West Asian competitions. I got the approval for their outfits from the International federation. We have a national league, which is very important, and we are working on finding new talents to rebuild the women’s national handball team.”