Interview
Elaheh Arab Ameri in an interview with Shirzanan
The press is hostile towards us
Shirzanan:Freshteh Movahed-translated by/Roja Najafi: Iran’s women taekwondo team was the main topic in press and media before their departure for Manchester’s qualification competitions. The reason was that the overtly hopeful statements by the authorities in Taekwondo Federation about the results of these competitions kept the public’s hope high. Although the authorities had false expectations the team members were more realistic in their assumptions; they knew that it is harder to predict a result for a match against an unfamiliar opponent. At the end Iran’s women team was eliminated in the first round of the qualification matches. We are having a talk with Elaheh Arab Ameri about these issues:
What is the reason behind the early elimination of Iran’s women team in Manchester competitions?
Unfortunately we were in a very tight schedule in Manchester. The overall atmosphere was awful. Their bad arrangements caused many problems for all participants. The worst was that they did not inform us properly about our opponents after the draws.
When did you actually get the result of the draws?
Sorry to say that we did not have the chart until midnight and even then we had to argue with them in order to get hold of it. And of course these arguments and bad arrangements caused stress and anxiety in our team.
How did the team play? Are you satisfied with them?
Our girls did their best. Their opponents were way better and stronger than them.
What will you do in the future?
In the past 7 years that we have had Taekwondo for women in Iran we did what we could to get into international games and tournaments. When Taekwondo first came to Iran it was already an Olympic sport and we did not have enough time to built the needed background for it. We recently started to work on junior levels in order to build a firm foundation for taekwondo. We are going to Vietnam next to attend the qualification completions for Asian championship.
And what are the main obstacles for now?
We need to train more coaches for our women team. Don’t get me wrong we have very good coaches but because they are always in different camps they cannot attend new classes and learn new techniques. And of course the Press is very hostile toward us. Their harsh criticism is more destroying rather than constructing.
