Parisa Jahanfekrian should have been the first Iranian to compete in the Olympics in women’s weightlifting. But his criticism of the country’s sports authorities cost him dearly.
The Iranian athlete shocked the country in mid-May when she announced her departure for Germany on her Instagram page. “Farewell my Iran”she wrote, again challenging officials.
Silence ! Girls don’t scream! That’s what they kept whispering in our ears. I silenced my cry and silently hid my tears. […] I am the forgotten half of Iran. I was born among the humbled and limited half of society. […] But I’m from a generation that […] does not accept humiliation and restriction. And I left to denounce all these restrictions.”
Two days before this statement, Yekta Jamali, a 17-year-old weightlifter from Iran, left the national team hotel in Greece, where the world junior weightlifting championship was taking place. Jamali, the first Iranian woman to win a weightlifting medal, has applied for asylum in Germany, according to Iranian media.
In one week, Iran has lost two of its weightlifting champions, one of the most practiced sports in the country.
“They shattered my dream”
“I had been planning to emigrate for weeks and came to Germanytells Parisa Jahanfekrian at IranWire. After the Olympics, exercising was not easy for me. Everything became difficult and after a while I felt that I had no place in my pa