Forced to flee Iran, Hadi Tiranvalipour achieves taekwondo dream with refugee Olympic team

SINGAPORE – Making his Olympic debut at the 2024 Paris Games was a major milestone for taekwondo exponent Hadi Tiranvalipour.

But what made it even more special was the drastically different path that the 26-year-old took to reach the pinnacle of sports.

Forced to leave Iran in 2022, Tiranvalipour fled to Turkey, then Italy, where the former TV presenter worked as a dishwasher and trained at a public park alone before eventually achieving his dream as part of the 37-member Refugee Olympic Team in Paris.

It was a dream that was 20 years in the making after he was inspired by Iranian taekwondo exponent Hadi Saei’s gold-medal winning feat at the 2004 Athens Games.

Tiranvalipour said: “It (Paris) was really great and emotional for me. I arrived at my goal after 20 years. To create a champion doesn’t just take only one day or one night, you have to never give up...

“It was also really emotional for me when I participated in the Olympics with the Refugee Olympic Team, because this team is different...

“We left everything but we arrived there, so our message to the world was, ‘If you have a target, if you have a purpose, you have to keep going without any excuses’.”

Tiranvalipour was speaking during a media session ahead of the inaugural World Taekwondo Virtual Championships at the OCBC Arena on Nov 16 and 17.

Over 110 athletes, including 12 from Singapore, are participating in the competition.

Growing up in a province near Karaj, Tiranvalipour was a member of the Iranian taekwondo team for eight years, winning multiple national and international competitions.

But he left his homeland in 2022 after he was fired from his job as a TV presenter for voicing his support for women’s rights during the widespread protests sparked by the death of 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa Amini.

As the government clamped down on protests, Tiranvalipour left for Italy via Turkey, spending 10 days in a forest, before living in a two-bedroom accommodation that housed 10 people.

To make ends meet, he washed dishes at a restaurant for a month. Driven by his Olympic goal, he continued to train at a public park on his own.

Tiranvalipour said: “When I arrived in Italy, I said, ‘Okay, now I’ve arrived in heaven, everything is perfect for me. I have freedom’. But actually it was not like this...

“But I never gave up. I thought, ‘Now is difficult for you, but in future, it’s not difficult for you so you have to keep going’.”

Alone in a foreign land, with taekwondo as his “only friend”, he approached the Italian Taekwondo Federation and was allowed to train with the Italian national team before getting to represent the Refugee Olympic Team in Paris.

While his Olympic dream has been fulfilled, Tiranvalipour, who is pursuing a Master of Science in Physical Activity and Health Promotion at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, still has regrets about leaving his parents in Iran.

“But every time I speak with them, my mother tells me, ‘If you are arriving at your goal, if you are happy, I will be happy’,” he said.

Also in Singapore is Angelito Ong, who was raised in a family of martial artists in Manila. At 53, he is the oldest participant of this virtual competition.

In the 2000s, Ong and his wife relocated to the United States, where he set up his first taekwondo school. But it shuttered within a year, with him losing “a lot of money”. 

He said: “We wanted to give up but I said we’re here already. What we learnt in taekwondo is perseverance – we don’t quit, we don’t stop, when we start, we have to finish it.”

While it was not easy, he now has four schools in the US, with plans of opening another.

On what keeps him going, the father of two said: “I love martial arts because it teaches you discipline. At the same time, when I’m teaching, I help students become a better person through taekwondo and martial arts.”