“I am One of the Oppressed Women of Iran who They Have been Playing With for Years” – Iran’s Sole Female Olympic Medalist Defects then Tells Off Ayatollah

“Let me start with a greeting, a farewell or condolences,” the 21-year–old wrote in an Instagram post explaining why she was defecting. “I am one of the millions of oppressed women in Iran who they have been playing with for years.” Alizadeh became the first Iranian woman to win an Olympic medal after claiming taekwondo bronze in the -57kg category during the 2016 Rio Olympics. Affectionately known in Iran as “The Tsunami,” Alizadeh announced she was leaving her birth country with searing criticism the regime in Tehran. 

“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. “I wasn’t important to them. None of us mattered to them, we were tools,” Alizadeh goes on to say, explaining that while the regime celebrated her medals, it criticized the sport she had chosen: “The virtue of a woman is not to stretch her legs!”