Kimia Alizadeh Zonouzi ( fa, کیمیا علیزاده زنوزی, Kīmiyā Alīzādeh Zonūzī; born 10 July 1998) is an

Iranian Iranian may refer to: * Iran, a sovereign state * Iranian peoples, the speakers of the Iranian languages. The term Iranic peoples is also used for this term to distinguish the pan ethnic term from Iranian, used for the people of Iran * Iranian lan ...

Taekwondo ''Taekwondo'', ''Tae Kwon Do'' or ''Taekwon-Do'' (; ko, 태권도/跆拳道 ) is a Korean martial arts, Korean form of martial arts involving punching and kicking techniques, with emphasis on head-height kicks, spinning jump kicks, and fast k ...

athlete. Alizadeh won a

bronze medal A bronze medal in sports and other similar areas involving competition is a medal made of bronze awarded to the third-place finisher of contests or competitions such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, etc. The outright winner receiv ...

in the taekwondo 57 kg weight class at the

2016 Summer Olympics ) , nations = 207 (including IOA and EOR teams) , athletes = 11,238 , events = 306 in 28 sports (41 disciplines) , opening = 5 August 2016 , closing = 21 August 2016 , opened_by = Vice President Michel Temer , cauldron = Vanderlei Cordeiro de ...

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

by defeating Swedish athlete Nikita Glasnović. This made her the first Iranian woman to win a medal at a Summer Olympics. She also won a

gold medal A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture. Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have be ...

in the women's 63-kg class at the Nanjing 2014

Youth Olympic Games The Youth Olympic Games (YOG) is an international multi-sport event for athletes between 15 and 18 years old, organized by the International Olympic Committee. The games are held every four years in staggered summer and winter events consiste ...

. She beat London 2012 and Rio de Janeiro 2016 gold medallist Jade Jones at the 2015 World Championship to win a bronze medal. She also won a silver medal two years later at the

2017 World Taekwondo Championships The 2017 World Taekwondo Championships was the 23rd edition of the World Taekwondo Championships The World Taekwondo Championship is held every two years by World Taekwondo. Competitions 1 Wuxi Wuxi (, ) is a city in southern Jiang ...

. In January 2020, Alizadeh announced that she was leaving Iran permanently for Europe. Explaining her

defection In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state in exchange for allegiance to another, changing sides in a way which is considered illegitimate by the first state. More broadly, defection involves abandoning a person, ca ...

, she stated, "I am one of the millions of oppressed women in Iran who they have been playing with for years." She stated she did not intend to compete for Iran in the

2020 Summer Olympics The , officially the and also known as , was an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some preliminary events that began on 21 July. Tokyo was selected as the host city during the ...

, and expressed desire to compete for her current place of residence, Germany. Having been licensed to compete in the Tokyo Olympics, she was finally represented by the

Refugee Olympic Team The Refugee Olympic Team is a group made up of independent Olympic participants who are refugees. In March 2016, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach announced the creation of the Refugee Olympic Athletes Team, as a sy ...

Early life

Kimia was born in

Karaj Karaj ( fa, کرج, ) is the capital of Alborz Province, Iran, and effectively a satellite city of Tehran. Although the county hosts a population around 1.97 million, as recorded in the 2016 census, most of the county is rugged mountain. The urb ...

. Her family are Iranian of

Azerbaijani Azerbaijani may refer to: * Something of, or related to Azerbaijan * Azerbaijanis * Azerbaijani language See also * Azerbaijan (disambiguation) * Azeri (disambiguation) * Azerbaijani cuisine * Culture of Azerbaijan The culture of Azerbaijan ...

origin. Her father is from

Zonuz Zonuz ( fa, زنوز; az, zunuz; also Romanized as Zunus) is a town in the Central District of Marand County, East Azerbaijan Province, Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country l ...

near

Tabriz Tabriz ( fa, تبریز ; ) is a city in northwestern Iran, serving as the capital of East Azerbaijan Province. It is the sixth-most-populous city in Iran. In the Quru River valley in Iran's historic Azerbaijan region between long ridges of vo ...

and her mother is from

Ardabil Ardabil (, fa, اردبیل, Ardabīl or ''Ardebīl'') is a city in northwestern Iran, and the capital of Ardabil Province. As of the 2022 census, Ardabil's population was 588,000. The dominant majority in the city are ethnic Iranian Azerbaija ...

. Until after the 2016 Olympics, her last name was incorrectly recorded as Zenoorin.

Taekwondo career

Alizadeh at 18 years of age won a

in the taekwondo 57 kg weight class at the

by defeating Swedish athlete Nikita Glasnović. Her victory made her the first Iranian woman to win a medal at a

Summer Olympics The Summer Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'été), also known as the Games of the Olympiad, and often referred to as the Summer Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The ina ...

. She also won a

in the women's 63-kg class at the

Nanjing Nanjing (; , Mandarin pronunciation: ), Postal Map Romanization, alternately romanized as Nanking, is the capital of Jiangsu Provinces of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China. It is a sub-provincial city, a megacity, and t ...

2014 Youth Olympics. She beat London 2012 and Rio de Janeiro 2016 gold medallist Jade Jones at the 2015 World Championship to win a bronze medal. She also won a silver medal two years later at the

. She was listed in 100 inspiring and influential women from around the world for 2019 by BBC. During the

, Alizadeh represented the

, defeating Iranian athlete Nahid Kiani and pulling an upset against number one ranked Jade Jones before losing out on a bronze medal.

Defection

On 10 January 2020, Alizadeh announced she was defecting and leaving her birth country, with searing criticism of the regime of Iran. She did not compete for Iran in the

, and considered competing for Germany, but ultimately competed on the refugee team. She wrote an

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

post explaining she was defecting because of constraint of women in Iran, calling herself "one of the millions of oppressed women in Iran who ran's rulershave been playing with for years." "They took me wherever they wanted. I wore whatever they said. Every sentence they ordered me to say, I repeated. Whenever they saw fit, they exploited me," she wrote, adding that credit always went to those in charge. She wrote further that she "didn't want to sit at the table of hypocrisy, lies, injustice and flattery" any longer, nor remain complicit with the regime's "corruption and lies." Abdolkarim Hosseinzadeh, a member of Iran's parliament, accused “incompetent officials” of allowing Iran's “human capital to flee”. In the months prior to her defection a number of top Iranian sports figures had decided to stop representing — or to physically leave — Iran. In September 2019,

Saeid Mollaei Saeid Mollaei ( fa, سعید ملایی; mn, Саид Моллай; az, Səid Mollayi) was born on January 5, 1992, in Tehran to ethnic Azerbaijani parents originally from Khoy. In 2001, at the age of 10, he entered the Persian Gulf Judo Scho ...

, who practices judo and was world champion, left Iran for Germany after Iranian officials allegedly pressured him to throw a match to avoid competing against Israelis.

Alireza Firouzja Alireza Firouzja ( fa, علی‌رضا فیروزجا, ; born 18 June 2003) is an Iranian and French chess grandmaster. Firouzja is the youngest ever 2800- rated player, beating the previous record set by Magnus Carlsen by more than five month ...

, who was Iran's top-rated chess champion, decided to stop playing for Iran in December 2019 because of Iran's informal ban on competing against Israeli players.

References

External links

Official website
*

Additional sources

Kimia Alizadeh Zenoorin and Hedaya Wahba lead charge of Muslim women in taekwondo
''Official website of 2016 Summer Olympics'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Alizadeh, Kimia 1998 births Living people Iranian female taekwondo practitioners Taekwondo practitioners at the 2014 Summer Youth Olympics People from Karaj Taekwondo practitioners at the 2016 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 2016 Summer Olympics Olympic bronze medalists for Iran Iranian Azerbaijanis Iranian emigrants to Germany Sportspeople of Iranian descent Olympic taekwondo practitioners of Iran Olympic medalists in taekwondo World Taekwondo Championships medalists BBC 100 Women Defecting sportspeople of the Islamic Republic of Iran Youth Olympic gold medalists for Iran Asian Taekwondo Championships medalists Taekwondo practitioners at the 2020 Summer Olympics Refugee Olympic Team at the 2020 Summer Olympics 21st-century Iranian women