November 22-2013
The Iranian wushu team came in second in the biennial World Wushu Championships held this month in Malaysia, with the woman’s team coming up with four of Iran’s 10 medals.
It was a dramatic surge by Iran in a sport largely unknown in Iran.
Wushu is a Chinese martial art that has only recently gained strong interest around the world. It is still dominated by Chinese—not just by citizens of China but by Chinese ethnics from Malaysia, which placed third in the World Championships, Macao (sixth), Hong Kong (eighth), Singapore (13th) and Taiwan (17th). (Three Americans won medals and two of them had Chinese names.)
China came in first this year (as always) with 17 of the 46 gold medals, followed by Iran with seven and Malaysia with four.
Iranian men won four of the gold medals while Iranian women won three.
Women are welcome in the sport in Iran because the uniform of wushu is loose and covers all the skin but the face, hands and feet.
Asian martial arts have drawn substantial interest in Iran in the last two decades. After an Iranian won a gold medal in tae kwon do at the Olympics, greater interest was sparked—not just in tae kwon do but also in all other martial arts. That shows most dramatically in Iran’s performance this month at the 12th biennial World Wushu Championships.
Modern wushu was systematized only after the Communist Party took power in China in 1949. The World Championships only began in 1991.
Wushu is divided into two parts: a combat section called sanda where two competitors square off as in wrestling, and a display of techniques and maneuvers called taolu that is scored somewhat like the scoring in figure skating.