Iran’s women canoe polo team won gold at Jakarta Asian Games, August 18-September 2. After returning to the country, one of the team members has revealed that they used rental boats to make glory in the games.
Saba Rahmati of the national team told ISNA on Wednesday that as their boats did not meet the standard (quality) determined by the organizers of the games, they had to rent boats to compete in the continental tournament.
The team rented Malaysia national team canoe boats which had the required standards.
Iran’s women team beat Singapore 5-2 in the final showdown to win gold.
Yet another bitter fact is that the women’s team had to share the required equipment with the Iranian men’s team.
Rahmati said some of the gear was shared with men’s national team in a way that when each of the men’s games was over the women took the tools from them and started their own game.
Play to Honor
She recalled that the team held training sessions without receiving any payment with only one hope: to earn glory in the games. That is what they achieved.
Seemingly their gold medal was not of importance to the officials as they were not welcomed like the other medal winners and individuals when they returned home.
Canoe polo was among the demonstration games at the multi-sport event and its medals were not counted in the medal table. However, all the teams from Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia, came with power to with the title.
Each sporting event on the way to be officially added to the Asian Games should spend one or few editions in trial mode.
Iran women’s team has so far won Asian Canoe Polo Championships five times.
The 2018 Asian Games was the 18th edition of the pan-Asian multi-sport event held in the Indonesian cities of Jakarta and Palembang.
Iran ended the games with 20 gold, 20 silver and 22 bronze medals taking the sixth place. China was crowned as the top medal winner and was followed by Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and Uzbekistan which finished second to fifth respectively.
