American athletes get star treatment in Iran

“People look at me like I have two heads,” said James Ravannack, describing the reaction he gets when he explains to people what a fabulous time he had in Iran. Ravannack, president of USA Wrestling, told Al-Monitor that he “can’t wait to go back” and wants to take his family along to stay for a month.

Competing in May in a packed Tehran stadium in the World Cup for Greco-Roman wrestling, the American team is part of a revived spate of athletic and other US cultural exchanges with Iran. Both countries are opening the door for people-to-people diplomacy as their nuclear negotiators engage in a different kind of interaction and competition in Vienna.

In addition to the American wrestlers, US polo players have competed in Iran, and Iranian volleyball players are scheduled to take part in four matches in Southern California Aug. 9-16 against the US men’s national team. Iranian wrestlers have been invited to Chicago in November to a Greco-Roman competition called the Curby Cup. Soccer exchanges are also being considered by several groups, playing off the growing popularity of the sport in the United States as a result of this year’s World Cup. 

Sports diplomacy goes back to ancient times and in the modern era to 1896, when Greece hosted a revived Olympic Games. Sports have played a role more recently in overcoming hostility between the United States and its geopolitical adversaries. The organizers of the latest Iranian-US exchanges hope their efforts will advance US-Iranian understanding in the same way that ping-pong helped break the ice between the United States and China in 1971.