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Polo comes back home to Iran [Game of Persian Kings]
Egypt Guide ^ | 9/27/05 | Egypt Guide

Posted on 09/27/2005 7:42:44 PM PDT by freedom44

It has been called the Game of kings, but polo is being revived in post-revolutionary Islamic Iran. And it's not just men who are playing this dangerous sport - women are now competing too but observing Islamic dress restrictions. As the female riders prepare for the first ladies' polo tournament in Iran for at least 100 years, the sports commentator gives the audience a history lesson - reminding them that polo originated in the royal courts of ancient Persia 2,500 years ago.

The queen and her ladies-in-waiting would play against the emperor and his courtiers. Indeed the main square in the historic city of Isfahan was a royal polo ground whose dimensions were copied for all other polo grounds around the world. Polo spread to India with the Mughals and then across the world with the British, but ironically it almost died out in its country of origin in recent years.

Traditional sport "The main point is it's our national game so we have to try to win it back," says Mehdi Zulfiqari whose family have been playing polo for decades. In the last two years the Iranian Polo Federation has struggled to bring about a revival - enlisting 75 members - 12 of them women. "Polo was an Iranian cultural tradition, part of our tradition," says Siamak Ilkanizadeh Iran's representative at the International Polo Federation. "We started by building a polo arena here and we started a polo school and people came and learned polo and we've been able to increase our membership by 200%," he explains. Polo needs a good economy, as one player puts it, but the federation has tried to redefine the game as a national sport rather than an elitist pastime of the rich. This helped win the support of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei for playing the game of kings in a revolutionary state that overthrew centuries of monarchy.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: iran; polo; sports
Just like everything else the foreign occupying Mullahs tried to ban Polo.
1 posted on 09/27/2005 7:42:48 PM PDT by freedom44
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To: freedom44

Bananas
Pink Panther
American Movies
Coffee
Short Sleeve Shirts
Ties
.
.
...etc

some of the stuff Mullahs banned right after the revolution


2 posted on 09/27/2005 7:49:01 PM PDT by F14 Pilot (Democracy is a process not a product)
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To: freedom44

bump



(how was the storm there?)


3 posted on 09/27/2005 7:49:17 PM PDT by nuconvert (No More Axis of Evil by Christmas ! TLR) [there's a lot of bad people in the pistachio business])
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To: nuconvert

They even banned Persian Caviar for years.


4 posted on 09/27/2005 7:50:52 PM PDT by freedom44
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To: freedom44

they didn't ban it, they helped state smugglers send it overseas for more $

They banned Solomon fish though!


5 posted on 09/27/2005 7:56:06 PM PDT by F14 Pilot (Democracy is a process not a product)
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To: freedom44
"the federation has tried to redefine the game as a national sport rather than an elitist pastime of the rich. This helped win the support of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei for playing the game of kings in a revolutionary state that overthrew centuries of monarchy."

Supreme duplicitous hypocrite!

6 posted on 09/28/2005 5:25:53 AM PDT by humint (Define the future... but only if you're prepared for war with the soldiers of the past and present!)
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