Iran VP vows to get cycling program on track
Aliabadi, one of Iran's seven vice presidents and responsible for sport policy, saw the men's madison team win bronze and immediately pledged to buy them a wooden track to replace a crumbling concrete velodrome in Tehran.
"I just spoke to him -- our performance pleased him greatly," Asghar Khaleqi, secretary general of Iran's Cycling Federation, told Reuters.
"He has promised to buy us a new one just like this," he said, pointing to the Doha race track.
Iran currently has only its aging Azadi outdoor velodrome, and has to fly its top track cyclists to Germany several times a year to train and race on wooden surfaces.
Khaleqi said the vice president was so impressed with the track used in Doha that he had asked Games organizers if they were prepared to sell it after it is dismantled.
"If Qatar will sell this one, we'll buy it," Khaleqi said. "A track like this in Tehran will greatly improve our cyclists."
Abbas Saeidi-Tanha, a silver medalist in the men's team pursuit, said cycling in Iran was a constant struggle and a new facility would bring even more medals at the next Games.
"Now we don't have one good track in Iran. It can get too hot to train outdoors, we have to be indoors," he told Reuters. "We can definitely win more medals if we can get a new track. The one we have is concrete and more than 30-years-old."
Iran's cyclists won two silvers on the road in Doha and a silver and bronze on the track.