Olympics
IRAN’S ONLY FEMALE OLYMPIC MEDALLIST DEFECTS
Iran’s only female Olympic medallist Kimia Alizadeh says she has defected from the country after criticising the regime’s “hypocrisy, lies and injustice”.
The taekwondo star made history at Rio 2016 when, aged just 18, she captured bronze in the women’s under-57 kilograms division.
Her success generated many headlines but Alizadeh claimed Iranian authorities had since used her achievement for political gain.
She said they linked the Olympic medal to Iran’s law which makes wearing the hijab compulsory for women.
Iran has faced severe criticism from the west for alleged human rights abuses with Amnesty International claiming that the situation has “severely deteriorated”.
Women are said to face “entrenched discrimination”.
Alizadeh posted on Instagram in Farsi, alongside a black and white photograph of her at Rio 2016.
She said that she was in Europe, but had not received an offer to go there.
“Let me now freely introduce my censored identity,” she wrote.
“I am one of the millions of oppressed women in Iran.
“They took me wherever they wanted, whatever they said I wore.
“Every sentence they ordered I repeated.
“Whenever they saw fit, they confiscated me.
“They put my medals on the obligatory veil and attributed it to their management and tact.
“I didn’t care, none of us care about them, we are tools.
“Only those metal medals are important to buy political exploitation at whatever price they themselves have set.”
Alizadeh, who has two World Championship medals and won gold at the 2014 Summer Youth Olympics in Nanjing, said she faced comments such as “the virtue of a woman is not to stretch her legs”.
She was selected to be Iran’s flagbearer at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang but withdrew from the event amid long-standing injury problems, which some feared would cause her retirement.
“My troubled spirit does not fit into your dirty economic channels and tight political lobbies,” she added.
“I have no other wish except for taekwondo, security and a happy and healthy life.
“Dear Iranian people, I did not want to climb the stairs of corruption and lies.
“No-one has invited me to Europe and I haven’t been given an offer.
“But I was suffering from the hardship of homesickness because I didn’t want to sit at the table of hypocrisy, lies, injustice and flattery.
“This decision is even harder to win than the Olympic gold, but I remain the son of Iran wherever I am.”
Mahin Farhadizadeh, a deputy Iranian Sports Minister, said he had not read the Instagram post, according to the ISNA news agency and Reuters.
“As far as I know she always wanted to continue her studies in physiotherapy,” he said.
Alizadeh’s decision is the latest high-profile defection to hit Iran after judoka Saeid Mollaei joined the Mongolian team.
He was ordered to withdraw from the World Championships in Tokyo last year, where he was defending his under-81 kilograms title, to avoid the possibility of facing Israel’s Sagi Muki.
Threats were reportedly made to himself and his family and he initially sought asylum in Germany.
The news also comes at a time of high political tension in Iran following the assassination of top general Qasem Soleimani in a strike ordered by American President Donald Trump.
More than 50 people died in a stampede at his funeral and 176 people were killed when the Iranian military, who fired back at American airbases in Iraq, mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane.
-insidethegames
Roy Jones Jr has been handed the Olympic gold medal he was controversially denied in 1988 in an extraordinary act of sportsmanship by the South Korean fighter who beat him.
Hall of Fame boxer Jones shared a video on Wednesday from two years ago that showed Park Si-hun visiting the American’s ranch in Pensacola, Florida to present him with the light middleweight gold medal.
“I had the gold medal, but I want to give it back to you. It belongs to you,” Park said in the video through his son, who translated.
Jones, who was overcome with emotion by the gesture, covered his face with his hand before saying: “Wow, that is crazy.”
Their match at the Seoul Olympics remains one of boxing’s most contentious moments as Jones appeared to dominate the fight but lost to Park by a 3-2 decision that drew instant criticism and sparked enduring controversy.
Despite losing the gold medal match, Jones was selected as the Val Barker Trophy winner as the best boxer of the 1988 Olympics.
Jones went on to become a four-division world champion and is regarded as one of the sport’s best pound-for-pound fighters of all time.
“In 1988, I was robbed of the gold medal in what became one of the biggest controversies in boxing history,” Jones wrote in his Instagram post.
“By the grace of God, a couple of years ago, the man who won that medal made the trip from South Korea to my home to return it to me, feeling it was rightfully mine.
“I hope you enjoy this moment as much as I did.”
-Reuters
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U.S. President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Tuesday creating a White House Olympics task force to handle security and other issues related to the 2028 Summer Olympic Games, an administration official told Reuters.
The task force, made up of members from Trump’s cabinet and government agencies, will coordinate federal, state and local government work on transportation, the official said.
It also will “streamline visa processing and credentialing for foreign athletes, coaches, officials, and media,” the official said in an email.
The United States will host the Olympics in Los Angeles in three years. Trump, a Republican who lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden, has expressed pleasure that his second term will coincide with the Olympics and the World Cup.
“During his first term, President Trump was instrumental in securing America’s bid to host the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The president considers it a great honor to oversee this global sporting spectacle in his second term,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement on Monday.
Last month organizers of the Los Angeles games released the first look at the Olympic competition schedule . The city had also hosted the Olympics in 1932 and 1984.
“The creation of this task force marks an important step forward in our planning efforts and reflects our shared commitment to delivering not just the biggest, but the greatest Games the world has ever seen in the summer of 2028,” Casey Wasserman, the chair and president of LA28, said in a statement.
–Reuters
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By DAVID LEE
Home is many places for swimmer Adaku Nwandu, who was born in China, lives in Singapore and wears the Nigeria flag on her swimsuit.
And it is at her current home in Singapore that the 17-year-old is making her debut at the World Aquatics Championships (WCH).
In the second heat of the 100m freestyle at the WCH Arena, the teenager, who has a Nigerian father and Chinese mother, led at the turn before finishing third in 1min 0.89sec – she eventually placed 59th out of 82 athletes overall.
After her race, Adaku shared with The Straits Times that she was born and raised in Shanghai, and started swimming when she was eight. Interestingly, it was ice cream that kept her in the sport.
Adaku, who still has the 50m freestyle heats on Aug 2, said: “At a school competition, I didn’t do so well and I asked my dad if we could make a deal. He said if I do better, he would buy me ice cream once every week, and that’s a promise we have kept with each other. And that’s what brought me here.”
In 2023, the family moved to Singapore due to her mother’s work posting. With her fluent Mandarin and love for Asian and spicy food, it did not take long for her to pick up Singlish and enjoy local delights like chicken rice and chilli crab.
She said: “We came here mainly because of my mother’s work, and also because the swimming scene back where I lived in China was a little bit toxic, so she also thought Singapore would be a new experience and better for my swimming.”
By then, she had already committed to representing Nigeria after its aquatics association contacted her after the National Sports Festival in Asaba, where the then 16-year-old was part of the national record-breaking women’s 4x200m freestyle relay team.
But Singapore is where she has been honing her swimming skills, as she has set her 50m and 100m freestyle long- and short-course Nigeria national records at meets here.
Noting her improvements, Singapore swimming coach and performance director Gary Tan said: “Adaku has been participating in our system for a while, and we hope it helps her develop as a swimmer and achieve what she wants while training in Singapore with her school (German European School Singapore).”
For someone who is inspired by Olympic champions David Popovici, Caeleb Dressel and Adam Peaty for “their dedication and the way they are able to take breaks for themselves to improve and get back to the water”, qualifying for Paris 2024 on ranking points was a dream come true.
Her Olympic debut was also unforgettable as her swimsuit ripped 20 minutes before her 50m freestyle heat, but she managed to finish second in her heat and 33rd out of 78th overall in 26.62 seconds, just 0.03 of a second off her personal best.
Back in Singapore, Adaku, who is in the International Baccalaureate (IB) programme at her school, realised that she needed more of such resilience to reach her goals.
The swimmer, who also plays for the school’s volleyball team, said: “I had a lot of improvement the first year I came to Singapore. But this past year has been especially hard for me with family problems and also school. The workload in my first year of IB made it hard to balance training and school.
“Especially in the next year, I want to focus more on swimming and try to get some new personal bests because this year I just plateaued. I’m looking forward to training harder and preparing for my next competition and hopefully qualify for the next Olympics.”
-Strait Times, Singapore
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