Female cyclist Faranak Parto-Azar won a bronze medal in the 26th edition of Asian Mountain Bike Continental Championships in Thailand.

She won the first medal of the Iranian team in the event on Tuesday in the cross-country class.

In male’s cross-country, Iran’s Faraz Shokri and Farzad Khodyari will hit the mountains today.

Thailand’s Chiang Rai is hosting the 26th Asian Mountain Bike Championships and also 12th Asian Junior Mountain Bike Championships from Feb. 1. The points gained in the event, which will wrap up tomorrow, will affect the cyclist ranking for qualification into 2020 Olympics. / MNA /

Esfahak village in Tabas, eastern Iran, has won TO DO Award 2020, a prestigious prize which is annually presented by the German Institute for Tourism and Development.

The award is aimed at taking into account the various interests and needs of the local population in the planning and implementation of tourism projects, measures, products and services.

The award will be presented to representatives of the village during a special ceremony, which will be held on the sidelines of the ITB Berlin 2020, March 4 to 8, as one of the world’s leading travel trade shows.

Esfahak is a village located about 38 km away from Tabas with hardworking and diligent people who are mostly engaged with agriculture and animal breeding. Village houses are often built on a floor with domed roofs and small windows.Old houses were often built by the means of bricks and mud and are mostly one-story.

The original texture of Esfakak was completely brought down to earth in a 7.4 earthquake in 1978, according to local tourism officials. A new village was built following the quake next to the rocked old one with the participation of people who have now refurbished it as a tourist destination with abundant units. / MNA/

The fifth edition of the International Fajr Cup started on Sunday in Rasht where Iranian and Indonesian weightlifters managed to collect the gold medals.

Iran’s Hafez Ghashghaei and Bulgaria’s Angel Rusev were the sole two contenders in the 61kg category. Ghashghaei, the 2019 World C’ships silver medalist, snatched the gold medal of the Fajr Cup with an overall of 280kg. He hoisted 120kg in snatch and 160kg in clean and jerk while Rusev, the 2018 European Youth Champion, lifted 110kg in snatch and 147kg in clean and jerk.

The 2018 World Champion Eko Yuli Irawan of Indonesia did not have a hard time gaining the gold medals of the 67kg category. He finished on 310kg, with 138kg in the snatch and 172kg in clean and jerk – well clear of Indonesia’s Deni Deni on 285kg, with Turkey’s Bünyamin Sezer third on 266kg.

Indonesian lifters claimed another gold, this time in 73kg by Triyatno. The 2012 Olympics silver-medalist made 136kg in snatch and 170kg in clean and jerk to finish on 306kg while Iraq’s Mohammed Qaddoori had a total of 292kg made up of 130kg and 162kg.

Indonesian Ambassador to Iran Octavino Alimudin taking a selfie with medalists on the sideline of Fajr Cup
34 male lifters from 13 countries of Iran, Armenia, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Cameron, Indonesia, Bosnia, Iraq, Jordon, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Norway, and Turkey are participating in the event which is qualifications series for the 2020 Olympics.

Lifters of 81 and 96 kg and those of 109 and +109 kg will compete on Monday and Tuesday respectively. /MNA/

The feature film ‘Yalda, A Night for Forgiveness’ by Iranian director Masoud Bakhshi, has won a top prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival in the US.

The festival’s World Cinema dramatic section gave its grand jury award to ‘Yalda, a Night for Forgiveness’, a drama by Iranian filmmaker Masoud Bakhshi.

‘Yalda, A Night for Forgiveness’ depicts the future of a young woman facing retributive justice play out live on the country’s most popular reality show.

The film is a joint production between Iran, France, Germany, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Lebanon.

Bakhshi’s feature will have its European premiere at the Berlinale Generation section (14plus), to be held on February 20 – March 01, 2020 in Germany.

Meanwhile, Sundance’s special jury award for best actress in a short film went to Sadaf Asgari for her role in ‘Exam’, directed by Iranian filmmaker Sonia Hadad.

The event awarded its grand jury awards to Lee Isaac Chung’s ‘Minari,’ and ‘Boys State,’ directed by Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss.

This year’s Sundance Film Festival took place from January 23 to February 2, 2020. The event is the largest independent film festival in the United States. / MNA/

Head of Iran Space Agency (ISA) Morteza Barari said Sat. that the country has the domestic knowledge of manufacturing satellites in 9 months.

Referring to the launch of Zafar satellite into orbit in the upcoming days, he noted, “Currently, five Iranian teams of scientists and experts are working around the clock, conducting finals tests which have been successful so far.”

According to Barari, Iran has developed the capability of manufacturing domestic satellites in 9 months.

Zafar is a 90-kilogram remote-sensing satellite equipped with color cameras and can be used for surveying oil reserves, mines, jungles, and natural disasters. If the launch is successful, it will orbit the earth at an altitude of 530 kilometers./MNA/

A total of 1,015 educational projects worth 14 trillion rials (nearly $330 million) will be inaugurated across the country, Mehrollah Rakhshanimehr, director of the organization for renovation, development, and equipment of schools, has announced.

The projects will be inaugurated by the next 10 days, on the occasion of the 41st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, he stated, ISNA reported on Sunday.
According to Rakhshanimehr, the projects include 4,168 classrooms, 11 swimming pools, and 32 gyms.

About 14,000 classrooms have been built so far this year (started March 21, 2019), compared with some 10,000 last year, he concluded.

In December 2018, Rakhshanimehr said that there are 530,000 classrooms nationwide, 160,000 of which are dilapidated, not meeting safety standards./T.T/

The pool composition for the men’s and women’s volleyball tournaments at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games has been confirmed, where Team Melli have been placed in Pool A.

In new World Ranking system, the best Asian team Iran, sit eighth, while Brazil remain in top place. Poland, the U.S., Russia, Argentina, France and Italy sit above Iran in the ranking.

The 12 qualified teams per gender have been split into two single round robin pools of six, with the top four in the standings of each pool to advance to the quarterfinals.

The teams were assigned to pools in line with the serpentine method, with hosts Japan placed in the first position in Pool A and the remaining squads ordered by their positions in the FIVB World Ranking.

The men’s national team of Japan, 1972 Olympic champions, are set to go up against the champions of the world in Pool A of their tournament. In addition to 1976 gold medalists Poland, the hosts will face 2016 Olympic silver medalists Italy, as well as Canada, Iran and Venezuela.

In Pool B, three-time Olympic champs Brazil will defend their Rio gold playing against three-time podium toppers the U.S., four-time gold medalists and reigning VNL champions Russia and the teams of Argentina, France and Tunisia.

In the quarterfinals, each pool winner will meet the fourth-placed team from the other pool, while a draw will determine the opponents of the second-placed and the third-placed teams which will be from the other pool as well, fivb.org reported.

In the women’s tournament, reigning world and European champions and 2016 Olympic silver medalists Serbia, two-time Olympic champions Brazil, as well as the teams of Korea, Dominican Republic and Kenya will be in the company of hosts Japan, two-time Olympic gold medalists themselves, in Pool A.

Three-time Olympic champions China will start the defense of their 2016 title in Pool B, where they will compete against back-to-back VNL gold medalists the U.S., the most decorated team in Olympic history – Russia, 2018 World Championship runners-up Italy, as well as Argentina and Turkey. /T.T/

According to military experts the Iranian army has the fifth most powerful ground force in the world, Chief of the Army Ground Force said on Saturday.

Iran’s Ground Force is the 5th most powerful ground force in the world,” Brigadier General Kiomars Heidari said as he visited a military training center in Tehran.

Iran has conducted major military drills in recent years to enhance the defense capabilities of its armed forces, testing modern military tactics and state-of-the-art equipment.

In November 2019, the ground force staged large-scale military drills, codenamed “Zolfaghar-e-Velayat”, in northwest Iran to boost the combat readiness of its units. It covered a vast strategic area in the region.

Various divisions of the ground force participated in the drill, which was focused on practicing the transfer of rapid reaction units via ground and air from across the country to operation zones. The enlisted units also displayed their efficacy to enhance their readiness in responding to operational requirements and threats through day and night.

In his Saturday remarks, General Heidari also pointed to his forces’ role in the war on the Daesh terrorists, saying, “We went to the Iraqi Kurdistan region to counter Daesh terrorists’ growing threats. We set up a headquarters there to confront Daesh 40 kilometers away from Iran’s borders.”

Back in March 2016, Brigadier General Ahmad Reza Pourdastan, who was army ground force commander at the time, said his forces smashed two teams affiliated with the Daesh (ISIL) group before entering Iran from western borders.

According to Pourdastan, now chairman of the Army’s Center for Strategic Research Studies, a large number of suicide vests and explosive devices were confiscated from the terrorists in the operation at the time. / T.T/