TEHRAN – Hamid Azizi, chef de mission of Iran’s delegation at the Dakar 2026 Youth Olympic Games, has expressed satisfaction with the overall performance of the country’s athletes, while stressing that comparing Iran’s final standing with its previous appearance at Buenos Aires 2018 would not be a fair assessment.
Iran finished 38th in the medal table at Dakar 2026, collecting one gold, four silver and three bronze medals. The result marked a significant drop from the 2018 edition in Buenos Aires, where the Iranian delegation secured seven gold medals and finished seventh overall.
However, Azizi believes several factors must be taken into consideration when evaluating the two campaigns.
Iran competed in Dakar with 29 athletes across 14 sports, compared with 49 athletes at the previous edition. The delegation included a 10-member girls’ futsal team, while athletes also represented the country in beach volleyball, badminton, beach wrestling, taekwondo, fencing, cycling, athletics, triathlon, judo and swimming.
Speaking exclusively to Tehran Times, Azizi highlighted the achievements of the Iranian athletes and pointed to several historic milestones.
“Overall, we returned home with 17 medals. The girls’ futsal team won bronze medal, beach wrestling secured one silver and one bronze, taekwondo claimed one gold and one silver, judo won a silver medal, wushu earned a bronze, and swimming also secured a silver. On the official medal table, we finished with eight medals: one gold, four silver and three bronze,” he said.
Azizi described the campaign as an important one for Iranian sport, particularly because of the historic achievements recorded in several disciplines.
“Among the valuable achievements of this edition was Iran winning its first-ever swimming medal at the Youth Olympic Games. Wushu also claimed a medal at this level for the first time. In addition, Iran’s first female boxer competed in an event of this stature, while we also secured our first team medal at an Olympic Games,” he added.
Asked whether he was satisfied with Iran’s overall performance, Azizi insisted that the comparison with Buenos Aires 2018 needed to be viewed in its proper context.
“To compare Iran’s performance in Dakar with its showing in Buenos Aires, we must first ensure that the comparison is based on the same criteria. We had 49 athletes in Argentina, whereas this time we competed with 29. Ten of those athletes were members of the girls’ futsal team, and we effectively competed in 14 sports,” he said.
He also highlighted the absence of several traditional medal-winning disciplines from the Dakar program.
“Sports such as freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling, weightlifting and karate, which are among Iran’s main medal-winning disciplines, were not included in the Dakar program. Therefore, I believe a fairer assessment requires us to consider these differences.”
Azizi acknowledged that Iran had not expected medals in certain sports, including cycling, badminton, athletics, triathlon, fencing and boxing, given the strength of the opposition.
Nevertheless, he said the delegation had entered several other disciplines with realistic medal ambitions and largely achieved its targets.
“In taekwondo, we were aiming for medals and eventually finished with one gold and one silver. We also expected podium finishes in swimming, wushu, judo and futsal, and fortunately, we achieved those objectives. In some of these sports, our athletes even performed better than expected,” he said.
Reflecting on beach wrestling, Azizi admitted that Iran could have achieved more despite securing two medals.
“We won one silver and one bronze in beach wrestling. Perhaps we could have done better, as the coaching staff had anticipated a stronger result, but unfortunately things did not go exactly as planned,” he concluded.
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