I recently wrote a piece suggesting that international freestyle wrestling had an unnoticed yet likely important impact on the historic Iranian Nuclear Deal. Ignored by the media and the rest of the free world, President Barack Obama engaged in the wrestling equivalent of "Ping-Pong Diplomacy" with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Our males athletes wrestled in Tehran to delirious crowds. The Iranians came to Los Angeles to wrestle our team here.
Now, the Iranian women are getting involved.
The sport is, after all, the official national pastime of Iran. Still, the news was surprising. As reported by USA Wrestling, a small-time news-aggregator called wn.com, and apparently nobody else,
The Iranian Wrestling Federation earlier this month sent more than a dozen female athletes to the 2015 Grappling World Championships in Antalya, Turkey. The women became the first from Iran to ever compete at the Grappling World championships.
What isn't surprising is that at least three of them left with medals. In their first official world championships! Japan, the United States, China and Russia have been the perennial powers of Women's International Wrestling. That's about to change.
Okay, so one reporter in the world covered this story--as far as I can tell. But, you can bet that every intelligence agency in the world took note. What I would like to do is congratulate the young women of Iran!