Mahboubeh Barbari Zharfi: Mother, refugee, judoka and soon-to-be Olympian

Barbari Zharfi fled Iran to seek asylum in Germany in 2018. Now she aims to inspire her daughter to follow her dreams when she competes in Paris

Mahboubeh Barbari Zharfi in action during the European Open Judo of Madrid 2023. Shutterstock

Mahboubeh Barbari Zharfi wears many hats.

A single mother, judoka and refugee, she will soon add to that list 'Olympian' when she competes at the 2024 Paris Games as part of the IOC Refugee Olympic Team.

“I want to give it my all,” she said in an interview published on Olympics.com.

“I want to prove one thing: even if you are a single mother and a refugee, you can achieve your goal and your biggest dream. For my daughter, I want to be a person to look up to.”

Her journey to the Paris Olympics has been one defined by resilience.

Barbari Zharfi, 32, hails from the port city of Bandar Anzali in the north of Iran, where her childhood was marked by political repression and street violence. Perhaps it was these challenging circumstances that drove her to seek refuge in judo, a discipline she took up as a teenager on her mother's recommendation.

"At that time, I realised judo had the power to give me a purpose in life," Barbari Zharfi said.

She eventually worked her way into the Iranian national judo team but in 2018 sought asylum in Germany, where her then husband was living, along with her daughter.

“It was very difficult,” Barbari Zharfi says about adapting to life in Germany.

“Everything was totally different compared to my life in Iran: the culture, the weather. But I have one big strength: I like to interact with people. That helped me a lot and now everything is fine.”

According to the UN Refugee Agency, more than 117 million people were forcibly displaced at the end of 2023. This equates to more than 1 in every 69 people on Earth.

In 2023, Barbari Zharfi became an IOC Refugee Athlete Scholarship Holder. In May she was named as one of the 36 athletes to represent the Refugee Olympic Team in Paris.

Out of the 36 athletes from 11 countries selected, 14 – or almost 40 per cent – are Iranian.

Barbari Zharfi made headlines last year when she took part in the Judo World Championships, becoming the first Iranian woman to compete in the discipline without the hijab mandated by Iran. She has climbed to 170th place in the world rankings.

"I am very excited to participate in the Games; it's a first for me. When I found out I was selected, I cried. I didn't expect to have such a reaction, but suddenly I felt like I had achieved everything in my life. I was really emotional," Barbari Zharfi said.

The considerable presence of Iranian refugees in the team follows a surge in the emigration of athletes from Iran, driven by ongoing anti-regime protests and increasing economic and political pressures over the past few years.

The mass defections come in the wake of at least 30 Iranian athletes seeking asylum in recent years, escaping not only the political repression in Iran, but also specific challenges within the sports sector.

Some issues cited by athletes include corruption within sports federations, the enforced policy of not competing against Israeli athletes and, for women, the mandatory wearing of the hijab during competition.

Having been encouraged to take up the sport as a teenager by her mother, now it is her own daughter she wants to inspire, having faced difficulties being a single mother.

“Ahead of every training session or a competition, I have to organise everything for my nine-year-old daughter and entrust her to someone who will take care of her,” she adds.

“It's not always easy, but I am able to manage that.”