TEHRAN – Iran will send four women to the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) World Weightlifting Championships for the first time ever.

The prestigious competition will kick off on Sept. 18 and will run for nine days in Pattaya, Thailand.

The entry list showed record-setting numbers, including a total of 734 athletes from 105 nations. Out of those athletes, 339 women are set to compete alongside 395 men.

This number of female weightlifters participating is a promising sign ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, where gender equality is at the forefront. At the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, the number of male and female weightlifters will be equal for the first time ever in Olympic history, barbend.com reported.

According to the IWF, there are some countries that include more women athletes than men. Some of these teams with more women representing them include Brazil, Denmark, Great Britain, and Ecuador.

For context, in 2017, the Iranian Weightlifting Federation announced that women weightlifters from the country could officially compete in the sport, and now two years later Iranian female weightlifters will make history at the IWF Worlds.

Poupak Basami, who wrote her name into the history book as the first Iranian woman to participate at the Asian Weightlifting Championships, will represent the country in the 55kg weight category.

Abrisham Arjomandkhah (64kg), Elham Hosseini (71kg) and Parisa Jahanfekrian (87kg) are the other Iranian women participating in the competition.

The Iranian female team will be headed by Maryam Amrollah in the competition.

The Iranian sportswomen have shown that they have the potential to make the nation proud after shining in the international events in the last years.