September 3, 2021
The Olympics were pretty quiet this year as the coronavirus meant there were no fans in the stands and hence no applause for the athletes. Iran came away with fewer medals than usual, but it won three golds one in karate by an Iranian who got knocked out, another to a Pasdar shooter, whom some suspect is a Pasdar sniper, and a third to a Greco-Roman wrestler, but none in freestyle the first time since 1992 that Iran has not gotten a gold in freestyle.
The Islamic Republic qualified 69 athletes in 16 sports. But it only sent 66 to the games. World karate champion Bahman Asgari missed the games after being given a one-year ban for doping. Parisa Jahanfekrian, the first-ever Iranian woman weightlifter, reportedly dropped out for health issues but later said other reasons prevented her from going to Tokyo, while giving no details. Iranian discus thrower Ehsan Hadadi missed the 2020 Olympic Games due to the spinal injury. He won a silver medal in the 2012 Olympics.
Iran qualified mainly for individual sports. In team sports, however, it qualified both its volleyball and basketball teams. Neither emerged from the group round.
The basketball team lost all three of its matches and was squashed by the Americans 120-66. It came in 12th of the 12 teams.
In volleyball, Iran ranked 9th of the 12 teams.
As usual, Iran got most of its medals five of the seven in wrestling and weightlifting. But Iran won its first medals ever in shooting and karate and both of those medals were golds.
As per usual, many of the athletes Iran sent just barely qualified to get into the Olympics—and quickly departed. The entrant in men’s archery, for example, ended up 63rd of the 64 competitors, beating out only the archer from Malawi.
Iran had 10 female athletes at the Games. The best finish by a woman was in rowing where Nazanin Molaei came in 11th.
No Iranian expats qualified for the American team for this year’s Olympics, but two Iranians were on the Azerbaijani team: Milad Beigi, who won a bronze in taekwondo at the 2016 Olympics; and swimmer Maryam Sheikh-alizadeh.
Other stories on the Olympics appear on this page. For a story on the controversy over the Pasdar shooter who won a gold medal, see the last issue of the Iran Times.