Shirzanan: Part II by Maryam Majd. Please see the pictures HERE

Kheirkhah told Shirzanan, “ We met with our French head coach and we selected our final members.” She said, “ Marjan Kalhor, Fatemeh Kiadarbansary, Samira Zargary, Samira Rajabbalokat, Mitra Kalhorm Samaneh Shemshaki, were the team members. They worked for one months with Henry Passron and finally Marjan Fatemeh and Mitra were chosen for the deployment.”

While everyone expected for the Sepahan team and Naft Tehran to get to the first place, Ararat team won the championship.

Shirzanan: Iran’s head coach objected to the result of the draw for the 2010 Asian Cup; the object was due to the fact that five of the teams from last round were counted automatically in without passing any qualification or primary matches.

These teams are Japan, North Korea, Australia, China and South Korea. Iran is in the same group with Thailand.

Shirzanan: The head coach of Iran women’s Table Tennis team is a technical member of the international committee in ICP.

Moj reports that Zahra Youssefy started from 2004 and was trained as a technical supervisor in Egypt. Later she passed a workshop in Serbia on disabled Ping Pong.

.... The cancellation of Isteghlal the women’s soccer team caused many arguments among every sports fan all over, even among the Iranian bloggers. Neda Fazly, wrote on her blog, Baran, “ It was an unexpected news. I was shocked. This is the most severe punishment that the club’s officials could do. If it was a mistake, the mistake was done by both teams; why women’s team is the only one who is getting punished for it.”

Alaviyeh Khanoom, sarcastically writes on her blog, Vellengary, “ Afarin, ‘good job’ to Isteghlal club management. They erased the problem. Everyone knows the best solution is to erase the problem.”

Ali also writes in his blog Saghi, “ The cancellation of omen’s team is only ignoring the problem. This decision made it clear that they want this story to end as soon as possible. They erased the problem just to escape from accepting any responsibility for it. They didn’t want to answer for their own mistake.” One of the readers of Tabnak Site left a comment saying, “Like always a hurried decision; like any penalty, banding for some period or suspending the team could have been a better punishment, but cancellation of the whole team is irrational. This issue has two sided in it, but they are only canceling women’s team.”

Despite all these reactions Isteghlal’s club office of Public Relation called the cancellation news a rumor. Isteghlal Club states, “ Isteghlal Tehran club doesn’t have an official women’s soccer team. Only Sa’diyeh Naderpour the head coach of the youth female team had a contract with the Marghobcar Salon.” The club says , “ we cannot use the word cancellation for the women’s soccer team, since there is no official team, there is no contract and there was no legal agreement between the club and the team.”

We should not forget that in the past year during the 2008 Beijing Olympics the international community criticized the countries, which had no female athletes in their Olympic caravan. Iran had 3 female athletes in Beijing Olympics.

.... Other statements are true; it is way harder to be engaged in an athletic activity while wearing a full Hijab. If you want a proof of that you have to have an athletic competitions with men wearing women’s Islamic athletic garment and see the result. It won’t be so hard to guess the outcome of such a match; like may other competitions this one also won’t get to the end.

The only thing that no one should forget is that Iranian girls were successful in their competitions many times. These girls are the role models for the future generations Muslim women everywhere in the world. The international media also help this progress. But in order to stay successful in the progress of women’s sports in Iran, we should become professionals. A young medalist female athlete should not get disappointed if her progress. The officials should be supportive of her; if not how can she be convinced that Hijab is not a limitation or an obstacle of her freedom and success. So everyone from the government, sports officials and national media should help the development of women’s sports in Iran.

The truth is that women’s sports in Iran have changed into a very complex problem and most of this complexity is the result of our own paradoxical beliefs regarding the Women’s Sports. Those women who became this or that federation’s deputy managers without believing in women’s sports; A male editor in chief of a sports magazine who thinks women’s sports is a joke; An athlete who begged for her rights and an sports fan who did stayed enthusiastic for his/her county’s national team … It really doesn’t matter what is the sports and what is the gender.

Women’s sports in Iran has come a long way and now we can call it youth rather than an infant. Women’s sports has grown older and stronger with the help of many hands involved in women’s sports. But this ability and stage needs a necessary evaluation. We need to evaluate ourselves and every sports officials in every rank and position so we can find out who is not working properly. We all need to review our beliefs on women’s sports in Iran.