President of International Zurkhaneh Sports and Koshti Pahlavani Federation (IZSF), Mohsen Mehralizadeh, says that they hope to add the Iranian sport to the Olympic Games.

Zurkhaneh ritual is a traditional heroic sport in Iran. It combines martial arts, calisthenics, strength training and music.

“IZSF has been founded in 2004 and we a long way to go. At the moment, we are proud to say that Zurkhaneh sports have been recognized by 85 countries and some of the countries have founded Zurkhaneh federation,” Mehralizadeh said in the press conference held in IZSF’s headquarters in Tehran on Monday.

“Zurkhaneh is set to make its first appearance at the Asian Games. We keep in touch with Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) to add the sport to the Asian Games but we need at least 20 Asian members for participating in the games,” he added.

“Japanese and Korean countries introduced their traditional sports, namely judo and taekwondo to the world and the sports are parts of Olympic Games at the moment, but they worked so hard for many years to do that. We have to be patient since it will take time to introduce the sport to the world,” Mehralizadeh stated.

“Zurkhaneh is not only a sport, it belongs also to our culture and our religion. The origins of some sports including wrestling in Iran have come from Zurkhaneh,” the IZSF president said. 

“Zurkhaneh sports were included in the 4th Islamic Solidarity Games in Baku, Azerbaijan and has been added to the Association for International Sport for All (TAFISA) for some years,” Mehralizadeh concluded.