TEHRAN (Press TV) -- As the countdown to the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games begins, some 52 Iranian athletes are preparing to flex their muscles at the sporting extravaganza.

The Iranians will participate in freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling, taekwondo, judo, weightlifting, archery, track and field, discus, rowing, boating, cycling, table tennis, boxing and shot-put.
Iranian basketball players will head to Beijing on August 2, as the first sport delegation to arrive at the Olympic venue.
The wrestlers and taekwondo fighters will be the last to arrive, who will join their peers at the Games on August 23.
The Beijing Olympics are scheduled to kick start on August 8, 2008.
There only five weeks left when the Olympics begin but controversy over the participation of the world leaders at the Games is still brewing on.
The Olympic executives in China are racing against time to prepare for the Games but the hosts have come under fire for a string of, mostly, politically motivated arguments.
Most of the Western leaders have kept the sporting world guessing either they’ll show up at the Games or not.
Nonetheless, the Iranian President Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has announced that he is unlikely to appear at the opening ceremony but says he will show up at the Paralympic Games.