4 Women Referees Eligible to Judge Int’l Wrestling Contests

Four women referees who will judge wrestling matches completed their international refereeing courses in Hungary on Tuesday.

Maryam Eram-Abadi, Fatemeh Kadkhodazadeh, Leila Ammani and Somayeh Khani are the first women referees from Iran with international certification, IRNA reported.

For the internship period, they officiated the European Schoolboys Championship in Gyor, Hungary, in April. Fine performance by the group in the preliminary stage qualified them to judge the semifinal, classification and final games at the event.

Their success has put them on a higher pedestal to judge the Asian Schoolboys Championships slated for August 2-3 in Karaj, Alborz Province.

Women’s classic wrestling was born in Iran last year. Famous Japanese freestyle wrestler Kaori Icho held the first women’s classic style coach training session last September in Tehran.

Now 34, Icho is a ten-time world champion and four-time Olympics champion, winning gold in 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016. Icho was undefeated between 2003 and 2016.

Later the Wrestling Federation of Iran hired former Ukrainian world champion Ana Vasilenko to train the national women’s classic wrestling team. The team is holding its training sessions under the management of Vasilenko in the northern city of Gorgan. It is preparing for the first edition of the World Women’s Classic Style Championships slated for December 6-7 in Tehran.

Women’s classic wrestling had its league games for the first time last week with the enrollment of ten teams from across the country.