With the Tokyo Games looming, Iranian sprinter Maryam Toosi has been desperately trying to travel to the US to pursue her Olympic dream, but is still trying to overcome one seemingly insurmountable hurdle — US President Donald Trump’s travel ban.
The 31-year-old, who shot to fame by winning gold in the 400m at the 2012 Asian Indoor Athletics Championships while wearing a hijab, has been waiting in legal limbo for three years after applying for a US visa to train and compete.
Toosi wants to travel to the US to take advantage of the superior facilities, better coaching, and a culture that celebrates track and field, because she knows Tokyo could be her last shot at competing at an Olympics.
And since falling in love and getting engaged to Iranian-born US citizen Moein Mohsen, a disc jockey based in Los Angeles, she has been even more determined to make the move.
“Getting the visa would mean everything. Everything,” she told reporters in a telephone interview from her current training camp in Cyprus.
“Moein travels here every other month, spending thousands of dollars to come see me... If he didn’t push me, I probably wouldn’t be in Cyprus right now training. I would have given up this dream,” Toosi said.
Toosi’s career has been one long battle to prove that the people who said that her dreams are impossible have got it wrong.
“When I first started chasing the dream of winning a gold medal or even qualifying for the Asian Games, everyone made fun of me — the federation, all the other athletes,” Toosi said.
“They asked: ‘How are you going to even qualify with the hijab, or the training you do?’ Even with the lack of training, I was still able to set those records and win that medal, and I’m here in Cyprus to prove I can do it at the Olympics, too,” she said.
The Iranian record holder at 100m, 200m and 400m, Toosi has suffered the agony of missing out on Olympic qualification twice before, in part due to technical errors made by race officials.
After those disappointments, she applied for a visa so she could train in the US, but despite having her interview in August 2016, she has still not received a decision.
“The problem is that Maryam is stuck in administrative processing due to President Trump’s Presidential Proclamation 9645 — that is, the travel ban,” said Parviz Malakouti, Toosi’s lawyer.
That proclamation, the third in a series of travel bans implemented in 2017, seriously restricts citizens of several, mostly Muslim-majority nations to get US visas.
The US Department of State did not respond to a request for comment on Toosi’s case.
Toosi believes that given the chance to train and prepare in the same manner as athletes like six-time Olympic champion Allyson Felix, she can qualify for Tokyo.
“When I met Allyson, I looked at her and I cried, because I realized that the difference between us was not talent. It was the training, the ability to prepare,” Toosi said.
Although she has said that her distinctive hijab is something of a hindrance on the track, she takes her position as a role model for Muslim women and girls very seriously.
“All the clothes that the other girls wear weigh about as much as my headscarf on its own. I have to wrap it tightly around me, but in another way, I don’t see it as a limitation. I am proud of my religion,” Toosi said.
“When I first started competing and all of a sudden a woman in a hijab was being seen next to Swedish girls or girls in regular track outfits, everybody was really shocked when they saw me,” she said.
“But after I started competing and breaking records, I started to see more and more females in hijabs,” she added.
As Toosi continues to train in Iran and Cyprus, Malakouti is exploring all legal avenues to get her a visa, while fiance Mohsen keeps rooting for her.
“I love Maryam and I’m sad she hasn’t been able to reach anywhere close to her potential as a talented runner because of being stuck in Iran,” Mohsen said.
“I pray that immigration gives her a travel-ban waiver so she can come to the United States to live the American dream as an athlete and we can start our life together,” he added.
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