Iran's only female Olympic medallist bids her country goodbye and moves to Europe

Taekwondo champion Kimia Alizadeh revealed on her social media that she has left her homeland as she has had enough of being used by its authorities as a propaganda tool. Kimia. who won a bronze medal at the 2016 Olympics mentioned in her instagram post that she had moved to Europe. She wrote on an account that she has used for some time, but it was not immediately possible to verify her location. "I am one of the millions of oppressed women in Iran, who have playing with me for years," Alizadeh wrote, to an English translation. "They took me wherever they wanted. Whatever they said, I wore, every sentence they ordered I repeated." 

She also accused the Iranian government of exploiting her athletic success while condemning her as a woman, writing, "they put my medals on the obligatory veil and attributed to their management and tact." Alizadeh also said she had not been invited to defect Europe, but she would "accept the pain and hardship of homesickness'' over the corruption which lies in Iran. "My troubled spirit does not fit into your dirty economic channels and tight political lobbies she wrote, as none of us matter to them."Alizadeh earned a bronze medal in the taekwondo 57kg weight class at the 2016 Summer Olympics and won a silver medal at the 2017 World Taekwondo Championships.