Kimia Alizadeh, the only woman to have ever won an Olympic medal for Iran, defected from the country and moved to Europe, the martial artist announced on Instagram.
The 21-year-old Taekwondo bronze medalist wrote she is "one of the millions of oppressed woman in Iran." She cited the country's "hypocrisy" of using athletes for political ends while oppressing them.
"They took me wherever they wanted. Whatever they said I wore. Every sentence they ordered I repeated," Alizadeh said. "Whenever they saw fit, they confiscated me. They put my medals on the obligatory veil and attributed it to their management and tact."
"I wasn't important to them. None of us mattered to them, we were tools," Alizadeh added.
"My troubled spirit does not fit with your dirty economic ties and tight political lobbies. I wish for nothing else than for Taekwondo, safety and for a happy and healthy life," she said.
In her message, Alizadeh said "no one invited" her to defect, but she did not reveal what country she had relocated to. State-run media reported she was in The Netherlands. The ISNA news agency also reported that Alizadeh was training to compete at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
Alizadeh's defection comes amid anti-government protests erupted in Iran after the government admitted to "unintentionally" shooting down a passenger plane, killing all 176 on board.
