Kimia Alizadeh Zenoorin made history yesterday, Aug. 18, as the first Iranian woman to ever win an Olympic medal. She took the bronze for Iran in taekwondo, beating Sweden’s Nikita Glasnovic.
“I am so happy for Iranian girls because it is the first medal and I hope at the next Olympics we will get a gold,” she said, according to the BBC.
Affectionately known as “The Tsunami” in Iran, the 18-year old is already the first Iranian woman to ever win a bronze medal at the 2015 Taekwondo World Championship in May last year, and went on to win gold at the World Taekwondo Grand Prix in August 2015. Alizadeh was also the Iranian flag bearer at the 2015 summer youth Olympics.
The first Iranian woman to compete in the Olympics after the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution was archer Lida Fariman, in 1992.