Alinezhad: Our Capacity Is More Than 19 Gold Medals / Rahimi: Problems in Nagoya Were Staggering

A press conference for the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games was held with the attendance of the Secretary General of the National Olympic Committee and the chef de mission.

Ambassador Arjan: The press conference of Mehdi Alinejad, Secretary General of the National Olympic Committee and Asghar Rahimi, the head of the sports convoy for the 2026 Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, was held this morning (Monday).

Rahimi: The problems in Nagoya were overwhelming

At the beginning of this meeting, Asghar Rahimi, the leader of the Iranian caravan in the Asian Games, said: Thank God, the 20th edition of the Asian Games is over. Although the medal winning capacity of our sport is more, it is always compared with the previous periods. Our results were relatively superior compared to the past. 18 months before the games, I was elected as the supervisor and there was not a day, week or month when we did not have a meeting with the federations. In September of last year, I realized that we are dealing with a weak organizing committee. When we had challenges and protests, the challenge of the Japanese National Olympic Committee was greater than ours. We knew we would have difficult days and we strengthened ourselves and defined a scenario for the challenges.

He stated: We communicated with the organizing committee online all days and solved the challenges to some extent. Our most important challenge was the flight issue, and finally we arrived at a flight that was the best and most economical flight. According to a written rule, the organizing committee only accepted our children in Nagoya, and we had many problems and we got a bunch of cars and transported the children from Osaka to Nagoya on the days when there were no flights. We had more than 20 flight groups going back and forth. There's a big difference between the Games and the singles, and I don't want to be a standout, but this time it was a really different event. Part of the convoy was on a cruise ship, which had its own rules, and even the president of our National Olympic Committee was not allowed to enter, having agreed 48 hours before. We also had a bunch of kennels where the basketball, kurash, and jujitsu teams were there, and the problems were really overwhelming. Apart from this, we had 26 hotels that were scattered. This time we had a lot of teams from outside of Nagoya entering the tournament and that also had its challenges.

Rahimi continued: We were able to have one of the best caravans with the cooperation between the supervisory staff and the federations. You must have intelligently checked that India won 21 golds from the predicted 28 golds. Settlement problems disrupted Indian concentration and they fell behind. We had a difference of 15 golds with India in the previous period. Ma'andi journalists were also present and they wanted to create an issue about the parade and the athlete's shoes. Specialized clothing is one of the inherent duties of the federations that they had to follow. The crew of the caravans was always more than 20 people and in the previous period 24 people, but this time we reduced the quality and half to manage every moment we were in shock. Thank God, we were able to get good results with minimal margin.

He said about the elimination of extra persons: I attended 7, 8 four-year terms of the National Olympic Committee and a culture regarding extra persons is being formed. As a result, these cases not only did not have a negative effect, but also had a positive effect. In the past, some people considered it their right to participate in the Olympics and Asian Games, but this period a new culture was formed.

Regarding the irregularity of the Iranian convoy at the opening and leaving the ceremony, Rahimi said: There is a law in the ceremony that countries can leave earlier. All the athletes of the countries were taking pictures. The main group of 98 people of the ceremony were Kebadi children and they did not want to participate. The official there informed us that we could leave earlier, but we stayed to respect Japan. 200 people left the ceremony before us and 500 people left after us. The organizing committee did not provide a car for these people, so we took a taxi and they returned with the same taxi. No one warned us about disorder and they just said that we could leave, but we stayed until the Japanese parade.

Alinejad: Our capacity was more than 19 gold medals

Alinejad: Mehdi Alinejad, Secretary General of the National Olympic Committee, stated in a press conference held this morning: We started working on the Asian Games from March 1403. It was natural that after the Paris Olympics, our most important task was the Asian Games, and all our work was focused on the successful organization of this event. We had 8 events in two years, 6 events have been held and 2 events are left. Right now, the Los Angeles Olympics have occupied our time and all our actions are connected in a chain. The Asian Games was our biggest project and we took a lot of steps to do our part along with the other elements involved. We had nearly 150 meetings with the federations and tried to act in such a way as to provide the best situation for the group. Besides that, the National Olympic Academy complex served different disciplines and the academy played a good role in guiding the coaches.

He clarified: "We had good services in the field of psychology, and there was no team that did not have a psychologist." One of the neglected topics of our sport is the psychology of the list, which few federations are willing to spend in this field. We tried to financially support the federations and training workshops were held for the leaders of the expedition teams. At the same time, measures were taken to send athletes and companions to the event with the best quality and to have the shortest route with the least fatigue. Due to the sanctions, no postal company brings the ID cards to Iran, and we sent one of our colleagues to bring the ID cards that had a visa to Iran with a suitcase. Many measures were taken so that the convoy of 515 people could go and return safely. Despite the problems, we tried to make our athletes less involved.

Alinejad noted: We accepted the athletes online and more than 4,500 athletes were monitored daily with the help of artificial intelligence. One of our policies was to pay attention to each and every member of the delegation, especially those who had a chance to win a medal. We are in the most difficult situation after the revolution and we are involved in an existential war that started on March 9 last year. During these difficult conditions, we had to do our duty as representatives of Iran and soldiers of the people. I think that Iran's sports community has been enlightened in this matter and this success is not the result of the efforts of one person, group and group and it is related to the basic coaches, clubs, general administrations, federations and the Ministry of Sports and the National Olympic Committee. Since 2010, we have seen a downward trend, and in 2018, Jakarta became sixth and in 2023, Hangzhou, seventh, but in the most difficult conditions, we turned this downward trend into an upward trend. Our sport has the capacity to return to its fourth position, and maybe if we had the conditions of 2010 and the sale of 2.2 million barrels of oil, this would happen.

He said: Our capacity was more than 19 gold medals. Also, the historical issue was the success of women's sports. From 1951 to the Islamic revolution, we have one gold medal in women's sports, and before this period, 4 gold medals were added, but in this period, we had three gold medals in rowing and taekwondo, which did not have gold medals until now. The capacity of our caravan in the girls section was one-third, and one-third of our medals were won by girls. The growing movement of women's sports is happening quickly and this is promising for the future. We must advance the approach of seriously strengthening Dahtran. Serious capacity was built in Nagoya and we won gold in e-sports. Gymnastics grew with one silver more than the previous period. Maybe if Alfati's second move was better, we could have won our first gold. Our girls were first in Trampoline and Boxing and we won Bronze in Paddle in our first appearance. At the same time, our traditional discipline like wrestling won 6 gold medals, for which we should thank the federation. Weightlifting, karate and taekwondo won two gold medals and returned to the old days. Rowing also won a gold medal.

Alinejad Gefen: 21 of our disciplines won medals, and this is the most historically diverse. The difference between the Olympics and the Asian Games is winning medals in more disciplines. Our volleyball won 4 gold medals and winning 4 gold medals in a row is not an easy task. Our swimmers were in serious competition after many years and Sam Vajir finished fourth and Korash's gold repetition was also valuable. All this was a valuable move and we were only 2 golds away from the fourth place. China, India and Uzbekistan got less gold than the previous period and we upgraded our gold. Downstream from us, after Thailand which was very close, Kazakhstan was very far from us. Our caravan was in 14th place in terms of population, but it was 6th in terms of medals. Hong Kong had twice the population of us and Thailand had sent more than twice as many athletes as us. We should not remove support for medal-winning sports and at the same time we should activate new capacities.

Alinejad further clarified: We must have scientific talent search, which is very important, and in places where we have limited infrastructure, we must improve. Moving forward and finally made people happy, but we need more and more work to succeed in the Los Angeles Olympics and the upcoming Asian Games. Iran has the capacity to get better ranks in Doha. I hope that the conditions of the country will be such that the children practice with less worry. We showed that Iranians are men of hard times and we got the best result in the Asian Beach Games in Sanya, China, one day after the ceasefire. I hope these successes will continue for Iranian sports.

Alinejad reminded: We have been allocated 29 quotas for the Youth Olympics and our athletes are in camps. Benyamin Faraji, a good table tennis champion, and Hadith Yari, a futsal athlete, became our flag bearers. The gold reward will be 1 billion, silver 400 million and bronze 150 million. The bonus for the podium of the Asian Games was also paid before the return of the disciplines. 234 billion and 700 million Tomans were paid as bonuses and we have no debt.

In response to the question that some federations did not fulfill their promises of winning medals, Alinejad said: Federations had predictions and made promises. Some were implemented and some were not implemented. We also had different scenarios and our most probable scenario was 15 to 17 gold medals, and we won more medals than the most probable scenario. We must analyze the weaknesses and failures and we will convey the problems and strengths in the meetings with the federations. It is natural that the basis of the future support of the National Olympic Committee will be based on the results of Nagoya in order to establish justice.

Regarding the issues created after winning the basketball bronze medal, he said: We had about 150 meetings and in these joint meetings with the Ministry of Sports and Federations, there were expert opinions and disagreements. In some cases, we had no opinion on sending, but the opinion of the federation and the Ministry of Sports was on sending, and these cases were not few. Due to the respect for the Ministry of Sports and the Minister himself, we complied with the disputed matters and acted as a collective decision. In the case of basketball, there was no opinion on not sending, and at the end of the two meetings, the committee's opinion was on sending. A point was raised by one of the dear ones of the Ministry of Sports, and I know that it was not the opinion of the minister, but the opinion of a person who was cited as lacking information. We finally published the minutes of the two meetings and the opinion was about sending 5 men, 3 women and men, and there was even a prediction of medals. These sessions were video recorded. Of course, entering into other cases is not right, and basketball was not one of the controversial cases. Many claims can be made, but the reality is very clear.

Regarding the poor performance of the Omid team, he said: It is not a new issue and these cases have been repeated for years. The idea was not to send the team, but in the end it was sent. The main problem is the lack of cooperation between the clubs and Team Omid. Hossein Abdi said at Imam Khomeini Airport before the deployment, if the conditions were like this, it would be better not to send the team. Losing 4-1 to North Korea is not a good difference. If we are going to enter the Olympics, the federation should have a special program for the Omid team. The federation is responsible for zero to one hundred technical aspects and we tried to provide good dispatch conditions. The result was definitely not appropriate and the federation should have a more special program for better events.

Alinejad said that Ekash was sent instead of Omid's handball and girls' volleyball teams: "If I want to talk about single disciplines, other discussions may arise." At the time of the decision, our volleyball girls were seventh in the AVC Cup, and they were not in good condition, and with the change of head coach, they stood in fourth place in Asia, and we had no time to send them. If there were conditions like the Asian Championship in that tournament, this team would definitely be sent. In girls' handball, the federation reached a conclusion to send the boys' team.

Alinejad said regarding the conditions of sending the indoor convoy to the Riyadh Games, considering the situation in Saudi Arabia: the conditions in the region are unstable and confused; including the conditions of Saudi Arabia in the last 48 hours. We contacted the Olympic Council of Asia about this and are waiting to see what their opinion is. Our dispatch is also subject to our own conditions and should be decided at that time. I am not able to make a clear comment at the moment, but the health of the athletes and members of the convoy is important. We must also coordinate with the relevant authorities.

The Secretary General of the National Olympic Committee said about the reason for the presence of some members of the executive board, such as Mehdi Guderzi, in the delegations: I refer you to the National Olympic Committee's statutes. Read paragraph one of the statute and it states that the task of managing all affairs of the National Olympic Committee is with the elected executive board. More than 50% of the Olympic Committee's budget was spent on this mission. Goodarzi and arbitration are responsible and have duties in accidents, settlement and other cases according to the statute. These people are decision makers, observers and partners in caravan issues. Decisions are not made individually but collectively. These people are with us and help us to provide service. We assumed the responsibility for Godarzi and referee, and they had work there.

Regarding the problem of Fateme Umbizadeh's shoes, the disqualification of this athlete and the loss of the opportunity to win a medal, he said: The Olympic Committee has one task and the Federation has another task, and neither of them can perform another task. The specialized subjects of each field are with its own federation. The manual information was given to the federations and we also paid attention to them, but some rules are internal. The rules of shoes are subject to global rules and there is no discussion about shoes in the games at all. The monitoring center is responsible for the athlete's shoes that cannot enter and the federation is to blame for this. Of course, the federation had provided specialized shoes to Umbizadeh and the athlete himself stated that he is more comfortable with these shoes. Anyway, it was a bitter incident and a silver medal was taken from us and it was sad for us and the people. Federations have many specialized subjects and they must be mastered so that such an incident does not happen. His shoes were of very high quality and had more lugs, which made him jump more, and some people claimed that he had no shoes.

Alinejad said about the discussion of more bonuses to some federations: We have paid our commitment amount to all federations, and the wrestling federation provided and paid the equivalent of the committee's bonus to its athletes from other sources. There were other federations that paid bonuses and we did not pay any federation more than what was stated and we respected fairness.