Payvand: Tehran Mayor, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, inaugurated the Bachokheh wrestling tournament in the city of Esfarayen on Saturday. Free Iran:  Is Qailbaf trying to gain name recognition beyond Tehran for a possible future presidential run? For more than 200 years wrestlers have come to Esfarayen in Northern Iran for Bachokheh. This wrestling competition is unique because it is held in the open air.  Esfarayen is a city in North Khorasan Province in Iran.

Hadi Saei poses for a photo with Mahroz Sae Bonekhohal Photo credit: Art Garcia

Saturday, the National Team of Iran arrived in Tijuana declaring they were ready for the 2010 World Junior Taekwondo Championships as well as the Youth Olympic Qualifying Round. What makes their arrival noteworthy is that in their delegation is Hadi Saei, a two time Olympic Champion and bronze medal winner, and now coach of the Persian team.

The Organizing Committee’s CEO and General Director of the Baja California Sports and Physical Culture Institute, Saul Castro Verdugo welcomed them. “It is a great honor and a pleasure for us to receive such a great athlete and Olympic figure in our country and our city,” said Castro Verdugo. “Please feel comfortable, feel like your at home and we wish you the best in this competition, and hope you have a great and successful one.

Verdugo had an opportunity to meet Saei in Copenhagen during the Senior World Championship, at which time Saei was a judge. “In my experience as student in Germany,” said Verdugo, “I had the chance to know a lot of people from Iran; we shared a lot of things in common like the food and that special flavor that characterizes us as Mexicans and them as very nice people.” Go to Examiner.

Three decades ago, their fates in sports and in life were determined by a tennis match. Bahrami and Madani, who are now 53, were swept up in the political turmoil of the Islamic revolution. Almost overnight, tennis was forbidden, as Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini viewed the game as pro-American, capitalist and decadent. To Bahrami, Madani and the handful of other fledgling world-class players, the edict was a crushing blow. Go to NY Times.

An Iranian national who left his team during an international rowing competition in the Czech Republic says he is seeking asylum, RFE/RL’s Radio Farda reports.

In his first interview after leaving the team, Mehdi Haghshomar, a member of Iran’s national rowing team who traveled to Prague in August to take part in the International Rowing Championships, told Radio Farda on October 12 that he was seeking refugee status.

Haghshomar said that the actions of the team’s head coach led him to leave his teammates and seek asylum. He did not give further details. Go to Radio Free Europe.

IND:  Religious holidays, sporting events, back to school and all other occasions for public gatherings have become a nightmare for the regime.

Live television coverage of an Iranian football match was blacked-out because sections of the crowd were chanting anti-government slogans and waving green emblems in support of the country’s political opposition, it was claimed yesterday.  The premier league match between Esteghlal and Steel Azin took place at Tehran’s Azadi stadium just hours after tens of thousands of green-clad protesters used the state-organised Quds Day anti-Israel demonstrations to voice their opposition to the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is accused of stealing Iran’s recent election.

The game’s scheduled live TV coverage was disrupted apparently after bosses of the state broadcaster, Irib, learned of the presence of protesters inside the stadium. According to Iranian websites, the match was initially broadcast for a few minutes in black-and-white without crowd noise to show that technical problems were being experienced. The transmission then cut back to a studio presenter who said that the problems had arisen because Irib had “sent only one camera to the stadium”.  Eventually the match was shown nearly an hour late, again without sound and with close-up shots focusing solely on the pitch and editing out the 70,000 spectators.

…Suspicions that the broadcast was delayed deliberately were bolstered by reports from listeners who said they heard chants in support of Mousavi during a live radio broadcast of the game. It was the second time on Friday that TV bosses had been blindsided by opposition protests. Hours earlier, Ahmadinejad was publicly embarrassed during a live interview when opposition chants of “Ahmadi, Ahmadi, resign, resign” could clearly be heard while he was speaking.

The incident also exposed the authorities’ sensitivity to expressions of dissent in sporting arenas, especially football, which has an avid following in Iran. Days after the disputed election, four members of Iran’s national team were banned from the game after displaying their support for Mousavi by wearing green wristbands during a World Cup qualifying match against South Korea. Go to Guardian.

…If some questioned the legitimacy of Iran’s 2007 FIBA-Asia title since China sent only its second-tier unit to Tokushima, no one is questioning Iran’s back-to-back championship in Tianjin. Against a Chinese team that displayed the cohesiveness of an NBA Summer League squad, Iran dictated the pace, rotated the ball with ease and scored easy baskets. Go to original article.

Two soccer friendly matches between the Iranian and American national teams are likely to be cancelled, an Iranian football official said on Monday. The two sides were expected to play two matches, one in Tehran on 10 October and another in Los Angeles, California on 14 November. Go to Washington TV.