Canoe Sprint

Backstage: Cuba and Iran

Cuba’s Amazing Comeback in C-2 Men’s 1000m

Long a bastion of Cuban success, in recent years Cuba had lost its way in the C-2 Men’s 1000m event.

After a two-year hiatus from the competition, longtime friends and boat partners Serguey Torres Madrigal and Karel Aguilar Chacon decided they could do better than their career high eighth place finish. So they decided to come out of retirement a year ago and have another run at a title.

After a second place finish in their first heat, the Cubans not only topped their heat in the semi but recorded the overall fastest time of the semifinal round, 3:54.934.
The final starts Saturday at 15:18.

Iranian Women Strive Vow to Continue Quest for First Final

Najme Sajadi, 19, and Sima Oruji, 21, are a lot like other young women athletes. They practice hard at the training facility in Tehran, strive to improve their results each race and hope one day to win a medal.
What unique about these young ladies is their resolve to compete in canoe sports despite being from a country where some religious conservatives argue against women playing sports in public and at least one vocal Ayatollah has said he thinks women winning medals is a “humiliation.” 

The young women explain they were first introduced to paddling by friends. In fact, by their reckoning there are more than 1,000 women paddlers in Iran and women have been canoeing in Iran for some 30 years.
In all, four women are on this year’s Iranian delegation to the 2011 ICF World Sprint Championships. Each abide by the Iranian mandate to keep their heads, arms and legs covered. To do otherwise, risks severe punishment under strict laws enacted in Iran in 1979 to govern women’s sports at home and abroad.

This has been a turbulent summer for the world of women’s sports in Iran, or at least women’s soccer. In June, a women’s sports photographer was arrested en route to cover the Women’s Soccer World Cup. It was also at that same World Cup in Germany that the Iranian Women’s Team were shocked to disbelief and international media jumped on the story when FIFA officials banned the Iranian team from competing because of their headscarves. But such turbulence in soccer doesn’t seem to touch the women’s canoe team.

In fact, according to Oruji and Sajadi the future of women’s canoeing looks bright. Both were clearly excited that an Iranian junior women’s team made it to the finals two weeks ago at the Junior World Sprint Championships in Germany.

And both make it clear they will continue on course in their quest to make their first final.