MNA– The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) has named its ‘Ones to Watch’ athletes for Rio Paralympics with Iran’s female archer Zahra Nemati appearing in the archery section.


The global governing body of the Paralympic Movement, International Paralympic Committee (IPC), has released the name of athletes in 22 sports fields to look out for during the 2017 season and on the road to the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.

The list, which was published on January 09, is dubbed as ‘Ones to watch’ and introduces 230 athletes who are likely to attract public and media attention before the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics.

Some athletes are among those who will have made considerable progress by the next Paralympics event and some are sportive figures who have already won medals and trophies.

The category for archery contains name of female Iranian para archer Zahra Nemati who won gold medal in Women's individual recurve open and silver in Mixed team recurve open at Rio 2016 Paralympics. She had also stood on top of the podium during 2015 Asian Para Championships. Other triumphs of the Iranian archer include one gold and one bronze medal in 2013 World Championships as well as gold in Women’s individual recurve W1/W2 and bronze of Women’s team recurve in London 2012 Paralympics.

IPC has introduced Zahra Nemati as arguably the most popular and successful female Paralympian to come from Iran since she secured Iran a qualification slot for the Rio 2016 Paralympics as well as Olympics following her performance at the 2015 Asian Archery Championships in Bangkok, Thailand.

In addition to Nemati in the archery section, other ‘Ones to Watch’ athletes, who are looking to make an impact on the biggest stage of all in 2020, include Wu Chunyan and Zhou Jiamin of Chine, Peter Kinik of Slovakia, Matt Stutzman and Andre Shelby from the US, Britain’s Jessica Stretton as well as David Drahoninsky of Czech Republic.

The Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, which run from 7th to the 18th of September 2016, saw up to 4,350 athletes from around 170 countries compete in 528 medal events across 22 different sports.