Iranian-American ready to represent Iran at US CrossFit Games amid political tension
- Californian Payam Saljoughian will become the first athlete to officially represent Iran at the CrossFit Games
- As a dual citizen, the lawyer said living in the US allows him to avoid most of the politics that comes with the strained relationship between the two countries
Iranian-American Payam A. Saljoughian is proud of his roots. “I am a huge Iran sports fan,” said the 32-year-old from Oakland, California. “I’ve attended all of the Iran games at the last two World Cups in Russia and Brazil. I obsessively follow Iran football, weightlifting, wrestling and other sports.”
Saljoughian will also get the chance of a lifetime this summer as the San Francisco lawyer, who focuses on health care matters, will represent Iran at the 2019 CrossFit Games in Madison, Wisconsin. Saljoughian’s parents came to the US for graduate school decades ago and ended up staying. In Iran, citizenship is obtained via one’s father so Saljoughian was lucky enough that his parents obtained all the proper documents when he was a child.
Then when CrossFit announced earlier this year it would be doing away with Regional competitions and crowning “country representatives” via the CrossFit Open, in which users submit five videos over five weeks of workouts picked by CrossFit, Saljoughian saw his opportunity.
However, CrossFit initially announced that only countries with at least one affiliate “box”, as gyms are known as, would be able to send athletes. Iran has multiple boxes but it is unable to affiliate due to US economic and business sanctions and the fact that CrossFit is an American company.
The company’s chief executive officer, Jeff Cain, was on hand to watch CrossFit Games veterans Lauren Fisher and Alessandra Pichelli battle it out, and Cain also gave Saljoughian some fortuitous news after the contest was over.