TEHRAN - Elaheh Gholi Fallah was named as flag bearer for Iran at the opening ceremony of the 2022 Paralympic Winter Games in Beijing.

She was flag bearer for Iran at 2018 Paralympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang.

Iran will send four Para skiers to the Games which will be held from March 13 to 14.

Gholi Fallah was only Iranian woman to qualify for the Paralympic Winter Games. Vision impaired from the age of five, due to fluid in the brain and a tumor, she has long refused to let her disability define her.

Six months after losing her sight, she started riding a bicycle and was soon going out on her own, despite her parents’ understandable fury. Track and field followed at school but then came Para Nordic skiing and the opportunity to change her life and the lives of others.  

“I would like to be a pioneer in skiing for vision impaired people. When I started skiing that was one of my goals; for example that we make a team of athletes,” Gholi Fallah said in an interview with International Paralympic Committee last year. “I don’t like to try just for my life, I like to try for all disabled people who I can help.”