Relaxed but focused on the gold medal. These are the goals for Paris 2024 of wrestler Iman Mahdavi, one of the two athletes living in Italy who will be part of the Olympic Refugee Team.
‘Given the situation in Iran, I decided to follow my dreams elsewhere. That is why I left the country and entered in Turkey. After twenty days, I took a flight to arrive in Milan, in November 2020,’ he says.
He grew up in the province of Māzandarān and started wrestling at the age of fifteen: ‘I was born in a region where everyone is a wrestler. My dad loved wrestling a lot, everyone in the family practices the sport, so I started at a very young age, when I weighed only 32 kg’, he says.
When Iman arrived in Italy, he started training at the Seggiano Wrestling Club: ‘I told myself that the only thing I knew was how to fight and I continued on this path. My biggest dream in life, to participate in the Olympics, has come true. I am grateful to the International Olympic Committee because with the refugee team they have given this chance to all the athletes who live elsewhere, alone, far from their families and homes’.
Iman’s goal is to return to Milan with a medal and, in recent months, he has deci- ded to move to Moldova: ‘Approaching the Games, you have to intensify your training. I came here where there are high levels of wrestling. I decided to move because they have even more intensive programmes and I am training with them every day. I follow the advices of my coaches and I am thinking about gold medal. I have to do my best, there are many people who have done so much for us,’ he says.
For him, the Olympic Games are also a personal victory: ‘Besides the medals, I want to experience the true feeling of the competitions. Athletes from all over the world arrive in one place with friendship and peace without feeling superior to others. That is what the Olympics are for’.
In his family, the first to hear about his qualification for Paris 2024 was his brother: ‘He is very active on Instagram and he saw the photos. He showed the photos to our mum and told her I was going to the Olympics. She called me right away and told me she was very happy for me but also worried. I reassured her by telling her that from now on I was part of a new family,’ he says, highlighting that he can’t wait to see her again.
Iman is emotional, his eyes shine when he talks about his participation in the Olympics: ‘Every person is happy to wave the flag of his country, of his homeland, and being proud of it. Unfortunately, this opportunity no longer exists for me. I will participate with the refugee team and wave my flag with the delegation. I hope that one day everyone will be able to wave the flag of their country in peace and quiet’.
