In a week when three American weightlifters are making a historic sporting visit to Iran, plans have been announced for a groundbreaking women’s international match between Iran and the US later this year.
The likelihood is that the match will take place in Turkmenistan, host nation for this year’s International Weightlifting Federation World Championships in November, Insidethegames.biz reported.
Details will be discussed in Ahvaz, Khuzestan Province, southwest of Iran, in the next few days by Ursula Garza Papandrea and Ali Moradi, presidents of USA Weightlifting and the Iran Weightlifting Federation respectively.
Papandrea, the highest-qualified female coach in the US sports, is “honored beyond words” to be in Ahvaz this week, alongside American technical official Sally Van De Water and national 62-kg champion Derrick Johnson.
Johnson, 33, coached by Garza Papandrea, is competing in the third Fajr Cup, an international invitation competition that for the last time is open to only men (women’s section will be added from next year).
Johnson is the first American weightlifter to compete in Iran since 1965, the last time the IWF World Championships were held there.
Despite the popularity and international success of weightlifting in Iran, it has until now been a men-only sport.
Moradi spoke of his plans for women to be allowed into international weightlifting at the IWF World Championships in Anaheim, California, last December, when he had productive meetings with the Americans.
Last year, Iran Weightlifting Federation was given permission to go ahead with the women’s program provided the athletes wore approved clothing and sports hijab.
“Our joint goal is to see Iran competing in women’s weightlifting at the World Championships,” said Phil Andrews, chief executive of USAW.
Moradi hopes Iranian women will compete at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
Road to Success
This week Papandrea, in coaching, and Van De Water, in officiating, will give advice at a women’s camp in Ahvaz, timed to run alongside the Fajr Cup.
“It is a great honor to be able to run this camp for these fellow women athletes,” said Papandrea, a vice president of IWF. “I look forward to meeting and helping them on the road to success.”
“We at USA Weightlifting are very proud of Ursula and Sally. Their historic work will place sports above politics and, we hope, continue to assist Iran’s women’s program,” Andrews added.
In a statement through USAW, Papandrea said before flying to Iran that sport was partly “about representing your country and making your country proud on the international stage”.
She said: “It’s about seeing the world, learning about people and cultures and expanding your viewpoint so that you don’t live in a myopic mindset. So I am extremely humbled and honored to be a guest and to learn about Iran and the Iranian culture. And I am honored to be selected to spend time with the Iranian women weightlifters. I cannot wait to see how the sport progresses in Iran.”
She added that given the amazing success of Iranian men’s weightlifting, it won’t be long before an Iranian woman stands atop an Olympic podium.
On February 4-5, Iran Weightlifting Federation held the first-ever round of competition for women to select the best for the national team, which is taking shape for the first time in the country.
It was last March that the federation started training women weightlifters and it took less than one year for the federation to officially launch the games with permission from the Ministry of Sports and Youth.
Female weightlifters from across the provinces took part in the competition and the selected ones will take part in training camps to get ready for international tournaments.
