Sole Iranian Woman to Win Olympic Medal Defects - and Lashes Out
Since the 1979 revolution all women in Iran have been required by law to cover their hair and wear loose clothing.
(Bloomberg) -- Iran’s sole female Olympic medalist has accused officials of manipulating her success to promote restrictive laws while questioning her “virtue” for a leg-stretching warm-up routine, in a blistering attack after announcing she’d defected.
Kimia Alizade, who won a bronze medal for taekwondo at the 2016 Rio Games, said she was “one of millions of oppressed women in Iran.” She tore into coaches and sports authorities for linking her achievements to a willingness to don the mandatory hejab head-covering.
“They took me wherever they wanted me to go. I wore whatever they told me to. I did whatever they ordered me to do,” she said on Instagram. “I wasn’t important to them. None of us are important to them, we are tools.”
Since the 1979 revolution all women in Iran have been required by law to cover their hair and wear figure-obscuring loose clothing, as defined by Islamic authorities. Those in the public eye, particularly athletes and actors, are often heavily scrutinized.
Alizade’s broadside against official deceit will chime with many of the anti-government protesters who took to Iran’s streets this weekend as the ruling elite admitted -- after days of denials -- that security forces had shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet, killing all on board.
Iranian women have sporadically protested the hejab as frustration has grown over the pace of change more than six years after President Hassan Rouhani was first elected promising greater freedoms.
Several athletes have left Iran in recent years to pursue careers elsewhere because of strict rules, which include a ban on athletes competing against Israel. Last August, judoka Saeid Mollaei moved to Germany after he faced pressure from sports officials in Tehran to pull out of a match against an Israeli.
The semi-official Iranian Students’ News Agency reported that Alizade had moved to the Netherlands. In her Instagram post, she denied moving after receiving an invitation from a European country, and signed off with a final barb.
“Hello to the innocent people of Iran, goodbye to the noble people of Iran, and condolences to the constantly grieving people of Iran,” she said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Benjamin Harvey in Istanbul at bharvey11@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lin Noueihed at lnoueihed@bloomberg.net, Mark Williams, Karl Maier
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