It’s 2021, in Konya, Turkey, on the fifth version of the Islamic Solidarity Video games.
Farzaneh Fasihi’s coronary heart races as she bends into place firstly line, the lingering results of a COVID-19 an infection nonetheless sporting her down.
Her chest is tight, however she’s decided to compete.
The starter’s gun goes off, and he or she lunges ahead as swiftly as she will, her legs churning sooner than ever earlier than.
When she crosses the end line, she collapses; not from exhaustion, however from the overwhelming emotion of breaking her personal 100-metre dash report, clocking a lightning-fast time of 11.12 seconds to win the silver medal.
“On the night time earlier than a race, reminiscences of my life gush by way of my thoughts. All of the hardships I’ve endured and all my successes cross earlier than my eyes like a movie reel,” Fasihi advised Al Jazeera, talking in a Zoom interview from Belgrade, Serbia. She is at a coaching camp forward of the Paris 2024 Olympics, which kick off July 26, and the place Iran’s quickest feminine runner of all time will compete in her favorite occasion, the 100-metre dash.
Fasihi is not any stranger to challenges, however a powerful assist system in her private life has seen her by way of all of it.
“I didn’t need to do it’
Born in 1993 in Isfahan, Iran, Fasihi, 31, hails from an athletic household. Her father was a volleyball participant, and her brother a swimming and diving champion.
“Earlier than I bought married, my father attended all my coaching classes,” she remembers. “My mom additionally attended all my competitions. With out their assist, I couldn’t have succeeded.”
From age 5 to 12, Fasihi did gymnastics. She remembers how her first foray into aggressive sprinting was extra by probability than design.
“In center college, my health club instructor compelled me to take part in a operating competitors. I didn’t need to do it,” Fasihi remembers. That day, she broke the Isfahan provincial report, igniting her ardour for monitor and discipline.
In 2016, she made her worldwide debut.
Fasihi’s group carried out nicely above expectations, profitable the silver medal within the 4×400 metre relay on the Asia Indoor Athletics Championship in Doha, Qatar.
However her standout efficiency didn’t catapult her sprinting profession to new heights. With little assist from the Iranian monitor and discipline federation, she left all of it behind and have become a private health coach.
That each one modified in late 2018, when she determined to present aggressive sprinting a second attempt.
A yr later, that call led to an sudden final result: she married certainly one of her coaches, Amir Hosseini, who has been her staunchest supporter.
![Farzaneh Fasihi Iranian sprinter](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/GettyImages-1486731652-1719229025.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513)
![Farzaneh Fasihi Iranian sprinter](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/GettyImages-1486731665-1719229036.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513)
In 2020, with a assist construction now firmly established with Hosseini, Fasihi’s profession actually took off.
She participated within the World Athletics Indoor Championships, the place the comparatively unknown runner scorched the monitor with a sensational entry report time of seven.29 seconds within the 60-metre dash held in Belgrade, Serbia.
Not solely had Fasihi come out of nowhere to submit a quick time – however she had additionally created historical past by turning into the primary Iranian lady to compete on the championship. Her shock efficiency in Belgrade was the place she was first given the nickname “Jaguar,” a testomony to her ferocious pace off the beginning block.
A yr later, in 2021, she signed with the Serbian athletics membership BAK, turning into the primary feminine legionnaire – which successfully means a membership indicators and sponsors a international athlete to relocate and compete for them – in Iran monitor and discipline historical past.
“Turning into a legionnaire was a brand new path. It was an incredible danger, however I felt deep inside that I needed to do it,” she stated, hoping that it might encourage different feminine Iranian athletes.
Setting the report straight – this one’s ‘for the folks’
In 2023, Fasihi would then go on to win gold on the 60-metre race on the Asian Indoor Athletics Championships in Astana, Kazakhstan, clocking a scintillating time of seven.28 seconds.
As excellent and celebratory as that personal-best efficiency was – the setting of a brand new Asian 60-metre sprinting report would ordinarily be trigger for wild celebrations – the day can be remembered for one thing way more profound.
As Fasihi walked to the rostrum, she turned on to the digicam and shouted: “For the folks of Iran. For the happiness of the folks of Iran!”
Her second of protest went viral on social media, with Fasihi declining to hold the Iranian flag and as an alternative bowing her head as she shed silent tears, refusing to sing the nationwide anthem on the victory dias.
This was her assertion, or method, to specific the tragedy of the younger Iranian lady Mahsa Amini, who in 2022 collapsed and died, allegedly after she was detained by Iran’s morality police for sporting an “improper hijab” (scarf).
Amini’s demise made worldwide information headlines and galvanised feminine activists everywhere in the world by way of the “Ladies, Life, Freedom” motion.
![Iranian sprinter Farzaneh Fasihi.](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/2021-07-01T000000Z_336378173_RC2WBO9GKCJJ_RTRMADP_3_OLYMPICS-2020-ATHLETICS-IRAN-1719233878.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513)
Olympic dreaming
Two years earlier, Fasihi had already taken step one in direction of her Olympic dream when she was chosen by way of the so-called universality placement to take part in Tokyo 2020.
Universality placement is a coverage set by the Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC) permitting athletes from underrepresented nations to take part, even when they haven’t met the usual qualifying standards. The coverage exists to make sure broader international illustration and inclusivity on the Olympic video games.
In Tokyo, Fasihi competed within the 100-metre dash, marking Iran’s return to this occasion after a 57-year hiatus. Within the 1964 Summer time Olympics, additionally in Tokyo, Simin Safamehr had made historical past as the primary lady athlete to signify Iran on the video games, coincidentally competing within the 100-metre dash, in addition to the lengthy soar.
Fasihi positioned fiftieth in Tokyo, all of the whereas dealing with scrutiny over her hijab, triggering a firestorm of debate within the Iranian social media area as some claimed the strict costume code slowed her down, hindering her efficiency and limiting her media publicity and sponsorship alternatives.
However the Tokyo Olympics was additionally a chance for her to satisfy her sprinting idol, Jamaican monitor and discipline celebrity Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce. “I appreciated her much more after we met. Her life-style is spectacular as she is each knowledgeable athlete, a spouse and mom, and helps many charities.“
For Fasihi, her efficiency in Tokyo was beneath her greatest – but it surely solely fueled her ambition to do higher subsequent time.
“What makes Paris [2024 Olympics] totally different is that I’ll compete by myself benefit – not by way of universality placement,” Fasihi advised Al Jazeera.
![Women sprinter Farzaneh Fasihi leading race.](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/AP21211022431166-1719249143.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513)
Regardless of the systemic challenges, particularly the dearth of official authorities assist for elite feminine athletes in Iran, Fasihi stays steadfast in reaching her objectives. She self-finances her coaching, participates in competitions and is working to safe modest sponsorships.
Fasihi believes that in depth investments in sport by nations like China, India, and Japan will yield spectacular leads to Asian athletics, however notes the disparity in assets throughout the continent.
“In Qatar, for instance, athletes work with American trainers and the federation invitations analysts, physiotherapists, and sports activities drugs physicians from world wide. Even China and Japan coordinate coaching camps in Florida [in the United States],” she stated.
In Could 2024, Fasihi competed within the Doha Diamond League’s 100-metre race, however got here final within the ultimate in opposition to a star-studded line-up of sprinters from the US, United Kingdom, Hungary, and Jamaica.
On the Paris Olympics, she’s going to face off in opposition to the world’s greatest athletes. She isn’t somebody who harbours unrealistic expectations. She solely focuses on what she will management – and that’s her efficiency.
“Competing on the Olympics is a giant problem,” Fasihi stated. “My objective is to compete with myself. I need to beat my very own report.”
![Farzaneh Fasihi Iranian sprinter](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/GettyImages-1486731650-1719229012.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513)