Farzaneh Fasihi

Some Lesser Known Facts About Farzaneh Fasihi

• Farzaneh Fasihi belongs to a family of athletes.

• She had a keen interest in sports since she was a child. She did gymnastics from the age of five to twelve.

• She took part in a competitive sprint event for the first time when she was in middle school. In that event she broke the Isfahan provincial record.

  

• Fasihi scored 5th position in her international debut at the 2016 Asian Indoor Athletics Championships in Doha in 60 m and in 4 x 400 m relay.

• In 2017, she managed to reach over semi-finals in 100 m in the Islamic Solidarity Games in Baku.

• In 2018, she took part in the Asian Indoor Athletics Championships in Tehran, where she completed a 60m dash in 7.44 seconds.

• In the same year, she became Iranian champion in 100 m and indoor champion in the 60 m.

• She became president of Isfahan province for the third term in 2019. She was the only female representative of the province.

• She was the first and only women representative in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in the 100m line.

  

• In the 2022 World Athletics Championships, she competed in 100 m and finished in the heats round.

• In the same year, she held a record by finishing 60-metre sprint in 7.29 seconds at the World Athletics Indoor Championships, held in Belgrade, Serbia. She became the first Iranian woman to compete at the championship. She received the nickname “Jaguar” for her performance.

• In 2022, she participated in the fifth edition of the Islamic Solidarity Games, held in Konya, Turkey and broke her own record by finishing 100-metre in 11.12 seconds.

  

• In the same year, she signed with the Serbian athletics club BAK and became the first female legionnaire.

• After winning a gold medal at the 2023 Asian Indoor Athletics Championships in Astana, Kazakhstan, she declined to carry the Iranian flag and refused to sing the national anthem on the victory dias.

• She did so as a protest and to express the tragedy of Mahsa Amini, who collapsed and died under the police custody, after she was arrested for not wearing hijab properly.

• In 2023, she broke Iran’s record in women’s 100-meter dash at the Kazanov Cup in Kazakhstan by finishing the sprint in 11.41 seconds.

• On 18 February 2024, she won Iran’s first gold medal in the Asian Indoor Athletic Championships by completing 60 m sprint in 7.20 seconds.

• In May 2024, she participated in Doha Diamond League’s 100-metre race but failed to score any position.

• She was later selected to compete at the 2024 Summer Olympics, held in Paris.

• She has worked as a personal fitness trainer.

• She consider Jamaican track and field sprinter Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce to be her idol.

• She is a dog lover and has a pet named Dexter.