Word: kashfia
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...game: stray balls, gym bags, sweaty tracksuits?and a jumble of crutches and prosthetic legs. The final countdown to the Paralympics, opening in Athens this week, has begun, and Iran's sitting-volleyball team is readying for what it hopes will be its fifth consecutive gold. Team manager Ali Kashfia, watching from a battered turquoise wheelchair, nods appreciatively as he watches a particularly elegant set-and-spike maneuver, a smile splitting his scarred and twisted face. The 40-year-old veteran of the past four Paralympics lost his legs, one eye and the hearing in one ear when he stepped...
...like Kashfia whom the Iranian authorities had in mind when it expanded a fledgling parathletics foundation to include wounded veterans returning from the front. Hundreds of thousands of Iranian soldiers died in the eight-year war, and more than 400,000 were injured, many by land mines. The celebration of martyrdom, a tenet of Islam's Shia branch, provided the backbone for a revolutionary rhetoric that idealized sacrifice?an important propaganda tool for a young theocracy struggling to justify an ongoing war and a harsh Islamic regime. Veterans who had risked life and limb to defend their country were hailed...
...Iranians young and old are united behind their world-class sitting-volleyball team. Despite the lack of veterans, Kashfia isn't worried; in terms of tactics and technique, he says this team is the best Iran has fielded. Yet he acknowledges that vets bring a certain character to the team?which is why, he muses, Bosnia is the one to watch, and beat, this year. "They just went through a war themselves," he notes. "They have the energy that comes from surviving...
| 1 |