| AFP is all hearts and flowers as they report on the state of wimminz sports in the wonderful world of Mahdiland |
| Young lady in the pic is going to be hurting real bad when she turns and is blind-sided. |
"In early 2006, Gorgan University advised me to play rugby because of my physical power," said the well-built Shahsavari, who overcame objections from her family who worried about her travelling to training from a Tehran suburb. "Rugby Union was just my thing," she said.
All women most cover their heads and bodily contours in Iran. The rugby field is no exception. The players dart around the pitch wearing the 'maghnaeh', a garment that fully covers the head, shoulders and neck, as well as a loose blue waistcoat, long-sleeved dark T-shirts and loose tracksuit trousers. Hardly uniform designed for a sport like rugby. But the players don't seem to mind, especially when the game allows them to let off steam in a way that is unimaginable elsewhere in their lives.
Iranian women proudly see themselves as the most emancipated in the Middle East but still have to combine their careers and leisure activities with traditional expectations of childbearing, cooking and cleaning. Rugby Union, though, offers the excitement and physical activity that is sometimes lacking elsewhere. "Pass the ball ... tackle her ...catch it!" shout the women as they run and tumble around the field like their male counterparts. "I am extraordinarily interested in rugby and it does not matter what I wear. It is not uncomfortable," said Sahar Azizi, 16, a high school student.
It would have been inconceivable a quarter of a century ago, in the early years of the 1979 Islamic revolution when competitive sports for women were strongly discouraged, for Iranian women to play so physical a sport as rugby. But much has changed since then, even if Iranian women's sports still have a long way to go before they are truly competitive on the international arena.
It was in the 1990s that women in Iran started to play sports again, largely thanks to the encouragement of Faezeh Hashemi, daughter of then-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Initially women mainly took part in stationary sports like archery and shooting but now they compete in a wide range of activities including strength-based disciplines like rowing, martial arts and... rugby.
"This is not a violent sport for women at all, despite what people think. We need to discharge our energy," said Zahra Nouri, the team's captain, who is a student of mechanics at Qazvin University west of Tehran.
The mother of one of the players, the 16-year-old Azadeh, was happy to see the level of physical activity, saying this would make it easier for her to deal with her energetic daughter at home. "It is good for us that she has the chance here to discharge her energy," said Pouran Taherabadi. "I have nothing against it."
However their coach, Alireza Iraj, admitted that their Islamic dress would make it impossible for the women to play against Western teams as "the long sleeves and loose clothes gives the opponents an easy chance to grab them."
"They have to play with Muslim countries who have similar clothes."
As a man coaching a female team, 37-year-old Iraj knows he has to tread a careful line. Advising the team on how to tackle, he keeps a decent distance away from the women and then instructs one of the players to demonstrate how to grab an opponent rather than carrying out the move himself. According to Iran's Islamic rules, members of the opposite sex cannot touch each other unless they are married couples or immediate members of a family.
Bizarrely, the nascent sport of rubgy is integrated into the Baseball and Softball Federation in Iran and Iraj complained that their support for women's rugby had been less than forthcoming. "Some in the federation perceive this is an American game, which it is not. The federation has also some objections about a male coaching the team," he said.
Women are still the subject of sporting restrictions in Iran and are unable to enter stadiums to watch football matches. Iran is now constructing a 40,000-seat women-only stadium at the Azadi sports complex.