2024-01-04T09:06:50+00:00
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/ Iraqi climber, Tarifa Faridoun, confirmed today, Thursday, her quest to represent Iraqi climbing in international championships and compete with players from different countries, while she attributed the lack of the elements for the success of mountain climbing to the lack of financial support and sports interest in the game.
“Iraq has all the ingredients for success in the sport of climbing, especially in the Kurdistan Region, which is surrounded by a series of towering mountains, but unfortunately we see that its practice is limited and restricted to amateurs due to the lack of a sports body that is committed to and sponsors the sport of climbing and includes it with other sports,” Faridoun, the assistant head of the “Climbers’ Group” in Sulaymaniyah, told Shafak News Agency.
She confirmed that she “established a specialized academy that embraces talents of boys and girls, the first in Iraq, but she was shocked by the reality and the lack of support and financial capabilities, especially since mountain climbing equipment requires huge sums of money and high-level trainers in addition to a large headquarters that accommodates trainees.”
“The practice of climbing has expanded in Kurdistan, and the female element is increasingly popular,” said Tarifah, stressing that “we have high-level female players in Sulaymaniyah who compete among themselves in events and championships held by the climbers’ group on a limited scale on different occasions. We have female climbers who compete fiercely in every championship, and among the prominent names are: Delsoz, Banaz, Media, Hisho, Zhila, Payman, and Zino.”
The player attributed the lack of popularity of climbing and the absence of an Iraqi team for the event to “its newness in Iraq and the Middle East, and because it is a free sport consisting of seven events and there is no sports organization committed to it.”
Tarifah Faridoon Ali holds several positions and tasks, including Director of the Women Empowerment Department in Sulaymaniyah Governorate, Accounts Manager, Member of the Sulaymaniyah Tennis Federation, Assistant to the President of the Climbers Group, and the first female sports broadcaster and presenter in Iraq and Kurdistan.