Iran’s Country Profile

Official country name: Islamic Republic of Iran
Area: 636,296 sq miles (1,648,000 sq km)
Population: 70.1 million (2006 est.) Median age: 25.8
Ethnic Groups: Persian 51 percent, Azeri 24 percent, Gilaki/Mazandarani 8 percent, Kurd 7 percent, Arab 3 percent, Turkmen and others, 7 percent
GDP and GDP per capita: $204 billion and $2,910 (2006 estimates)
Read a complete country profile of Iran

Iran’s Olympic History

First time represented at Summer Olympics: 1900
Gold medals won: 10
Silver: 15
Bronze: 21
Medals at 2008 Beijing Olympics: 0

Iran’s Olympic Playbook

Iran's weightlifter and great national hero, Hossein Rezazadeh, known as the "Iranian Hercules" to his compatriots, won gold in Sydney, won gold in Athens, and won gold two years ago at the Asian Games in Doha, Qatar. Last year, he got into a traffic accident (conservative in so many official ways, Iranians have far more liberal driving habits) and injured his knee. His doctors have advised him to stay home. So he won't be in Beijing. Rashid Sharifi will take his place, one of the 57 Iranian athletes going to China--the largest contingent since the 1976 games in Montreal (the Associated Press' count is 53, but my list below tops that by four).

Will we see the same kind of shenanigans at these games that we did in 2004? Back then, you may remember, we had the unseemly spectacle of Arash Miresmaeili, two-time world champion in judo, carrying the Olympic flag in the opening ceremonies in Athens only to refuse to engage Ehud Vaks in competition.

Why? Because Vaks is Israeli, and Miresmaeili allegedly wanted to show solidarity with the people of Palestine by not competing against an Israeli. One fails to see how an atholete is showing solidarity with a cause by not competing with an opponent, especially one giving him the chance to be thrashed in front of more than a billion people. In reality, Miresmaeili was just overweight: he failed the weigh-in at the required time. Blaming Israel was, as so often in Middle Eastern habits, just a dismal reflex.

Well, good old Miresmaeili is back for another show in Beijing, presumably more fit, this time, in body and sportsmanship, especially since the people of Palestine have their own Olympic delegation to cheer and do their solidarity business for them.

But let's not have Iran's great Olympic tradition be tarnished, either by the silliness of the occasional athletes or, more to the point, the more recurrent absurdities of the Iranian regime. Iranian athletes have brought home no less than 46 medals since their first Olympics in 1900 (held in Paris that year).

One of those Iranian Olympians of old? Emmanuel Agassi, Andre Agassi's father. Andre Agassi won the gold in tennis for the United States in 1996. His father was on Iran's 1948 and 1952 Olympic boxing teams before emigrating to the United States. Who knows which of the 57 athletes at the Beijing games will one day be known as the father or grandfather of an American athlete, though these days immigration from Iran to the United States isn't what it used to be.

Iran’s Athletes at the 2008 Beijing Olympics

Archery
Najmeh Abtin

Badminton
Kaveh Mehrabi
Hojjatolah Vaezi

Basketball
Saaid Davarpanah
Ali Doraghi
Hamed Afagh Eslamieh
Amir Amini
Javad Davari
Hamed Hadadi
Mahdi Kamrany
Moussa Nabipoor
Mohammadsamad Nik Khah
Ohin Sahakian
Hamed Sohrabnejad
Iman Zandi

Boxing
Mehdi Ghorbani
Ali Mazaheri
Morteza Sepahvandi

Cycling
Hossein Askari
Ghader Mizbani
Mehdi Sohrabi

Judo
Masoud Akhondzadeh
Hossein Ghomi
Mohammed Reza Rodaki
Hamed Malek Mohammadi
Ali Malomat
Arash Miresmaeili

Rowing
Homa Hosseini
Mohsen Shadi

Swimming
Mohammad Alirezaei

Taekwondo
Sara Khosh Jamal
Reza Naderian
Hadi Saei

Table Tennis
Afshin Noroozi

Track & Field/Athletics
Ehsan Hadadi
Ehasan Mohajershojaei
Sajad Moradi
Amin Nikfar
Abbas Samimi
Hadi Sepehrzad

Weightlifting
Mohsen Biranvand
Asghar Ebrahimi
Rashid Sharifi

Wrestling
Saeid Abrahimi
Abbas Dabbaghi
Mohammed Ghorbani
Masoud Hashem Zadeh
Meisam Joukar
Fardin Masoumi
Ali Mohammadi
Seyedmorad Mohammadi
Hamid Soryan Reihanpour
Ghasem Rezaei
Reza Yazdani
Mehdi Taghavi
Saman Tahmasebi