Iranian Refugees on the Olympic Refugee Team
By Alyssa Kristeller
Link to International Olympic Committee (IOC) Refugee Team promotional video: https://youtu.be/XdT0WXB5K8U
The Refugee Olympic Team is participating in the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games with 29 athletes, from 11 different countries, competing in 12 sports. Out of these 29 athletes, 5 are refugees from Iran. [1] These are their names and stories.
Dina Pouryounes Langeroudi is a refugee from Iran who currently lives and trains for taekwondo in the Netherlands. [2] After fleeing Iran in 2015, Pouryounes found solace and community in her sport, as well as lots of success. [3] She was the first refugee athlete to compete in the World Taekwondo Championships in 2017, she was ranked fourth in the world for her weight class in June 2021, and she has won 34 world-ranking medals to date. She competed in the women’s -49kg taekwondo competition on July 24 and lost to Jingyu Wu of China. [4]
Hamoon Derafshipour was born in Kermanshah, Iran, and began Karate training when he was seven years old. [5] He met his wife, Samira Malekipour, formerly a coach for the Iranian women’s karate team, in 2010 and the couple married and opened their own karate school in Iran in 2017. [6] Derafshipour left Iran for Canada in 2019 and worked at a local martial arts academy until the pandemic forced the gym to close, after which he worked for an automotive company and raised money for his Olympic training through a GoFundMe page. Watch him in his first competition on Thursday, August 5th in the men’s -67kg karate match where he will take on Steven da Costa of France to see if Derafshipour will add an Olympic medal to his collection! [7]
Javad Mahjoub began training for judo in 2007 in Chenaran, Iran, and has since dedicated his life to the sport. [8] He fled his country for Canada where he continues to train rigorously and he has won a total of 14 internationally ranked medals and even missed the birth of his first child in 2018 while competing at a Grand Prix event in Turkey. Mahjoub’s Olympic appearance came on July 30 in the men’s +100kg judo competition when he first beat Johannes Frey of Germany with the clock at 3:58 and then lost to Lukas Krpalek of the Czech Republic who won the gold medal for the weight class below in the 2016 Rio Olympics. [9]
Kimia Alizadeh Zenozi was a bronze medal winner for Iran in the 2016 Rio Olympics for taekwondo and came back to the Olympics in Tokyo as a member of the Refugee Team. [10] She is from Karaj, Iran, and fled the country for Germany where she trains with the support of the IOC Refugee Athlete Scholarship. [11] Her performances on July 25 in the women’s -57kg taekwondo competition were both powerful and heartbreaking. Alizadeh first beat Nahid Kiyani of Iran, her home country. [12] Then she went on to beat Jade Jones of Great Britain, the first woman to ever win three consecutive Olympic gold medals for taekwondo and who Alizadeh beat for the bronze at the 2016 Rio Olympics. In the quarterfinal, she beat Lijun Zhou of China and continued to the semifinal where she beat Tatiana Minina of the Russian Olympic Committee. She narrowly missed bringing the first Olympic medal to the Refugee Team and lost in the bronze medal contest to Kubra Hatice Ilgun of Turkey.
Saeid Fazloula is a flatwater kayak and canoeist from Iran who fled his country in 2015 after receiving threats because of a photo he posted on social media. [13] He sought refuge in Germany and, with the aid of his local canoeing club, was able to settle into the new community. [14] Fazloula has competed in major international competitions under the Iranian flag and hoped to compete in the 2016 Olympics, but finally realized his dream when he was chosen for the 2020 Tokyo Refugee Team. He competed in the men’s kayak single 1000m race on August 2nd and made it as far as the quarter-final race in which he placed fourth.
Sources
Photo: Tokyo Opening Ceremonies