The iranian women olympians who either were pioneers in their field or came close to win a medal in previous olympic games.

Under the pretext of Olympic 2024

Mostafa Sarabzadeh [WomenSportPress] The importance of women's sports has increasingly been under the spotlight in recent years so that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has announced the slogan of gender equality in the Olympics Games in France. Paris 2024 will be the first Olympics in history to gain numerical gender parity on the play field, with the same number of female and male athletes being participated.

Iran has participated in 18 Olympics with one of the 76 Olympic medals being achieved so far, is dedicated to women—Kimia Alizadeh, the first and only Iranian female athlete who won a medal in the 2016 Olympic. The situation is the same in the Paralympics with 7 of 158 iranian medalists being women. While the number of iranian women athletes qualified for the Olympics games has all been increasing in the last decade, the number of women medalists is still tremendously at an alarming rate. Having one medalist while there could be so much more if the National Olympic Committee of Iran would have worked better in terms of investing more on women sport talents.   

1.       Najmeh Abtin

The first iranian women archer who won the Olympic quota and went to the 2008 Olympics. Being qualified per se for the first time in history of iran’s archery, not only was not less than a gold medal, but also could resemble biting down on it, according to the reports of archery experts in the time. 

2.       Elaheh Ahmadi

Another iranian women archer who reached the final in the women's 10 metre air rifle in London summer olympics 2012, and ranked 6^th later on in Rio de Janeiro olympic 2016, but only ended up her sport career with 7 asian championships and 5 world cup medals and the regret remains for the rest of her life.

3.       Maryam Toosi

An Iranian sprint athlete who specializes in the 100 metres and 200 metres and also a record holder in the 100 m, 200 m, 400 m and 4×400 m relay with two gold, two bronze and one silver asian championship medals, recently won two other gold medals in the women’s 100m and 200m of the ASA Athletics Grand Prix 2. This amazing comeback to the peak level at the age of 35 after two to three years of being taken away from elite sport, shows how our Wind Girl (this is what Maryam has always been known by for her high speed in the athletic performances) could have been one of the most deserved athletes to take an olympic medal home, although it may still be likely to happen for this unbeatable and unstoppable Maryam in the upcoming olympic qualification games, where she has all recently been preparing for.

4.       Hamideh Abbasali

An Iranian karateka who is a 2-time world championship and 6-time asian championship medalist, was one of the nearest iranian women athletes to reach an olympic medal, but has nothing of its kind beside other her amazing honours for many reasons. I dare to say many karate masters are still in shock how Hamideh lost her last chance to be the first ever iranian women gold olympian in Tokyo as predicted. But sometimes an injury that happens at 30-years-old, like an old anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury Hamideh suffered from prior to the most important sporting event of her life, could ruin all the long-lasting plans to reach a life-long goal.

5.       Nazanin Malaei

An iranian rower who competed in the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, where for the first time in history of Iran’s men and women rowing, a member of Iran's national rowing team advanced to the B final. It could not be happened unless through a historical performance being done by Nazanin. For those who want to know how much this achievement means to, not only her country, but also the world of rowing as a whole,  we’d better to back in olympic history where we see only China’s name as the only Asian boat reached to all the A and B finals. So it was the first time another Asian boat rowed at this level of the olympic and that is why Nazanin’s performance was formally admired in a meeting by the head of the International Olympic Committee. 

6.       Elahe Mansourian

Even though wushu is not yet listed in the olympic games, Elaheh’s pioneering, incredible and eye-catching performances for over a decade in the sanda 52 and 65 kg divisions, would be enough to end every article focused on Iran’s women athletes with remembering the fact that olympic games would always owe Elaheh a medal if wushu could have been in. She is just now retired but held the world title in 2013 and 2017 and 2019 and won three medals at the Asian Games. Her sisters Shahrbanoo and Soheila Mansourian are also world champions in wushu who are still on the way and maybe fulfill what has always been Elaheh’s dream.