All-terrain – Nora Naraghi, women’s motocross champion in Iran! –

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Nora Naraghi, women’s motocross champion in Iran !

All-terrain - Nora Naraghi, women's motocross champion in Iran! -

Passionate about motorcycles since her early childhood, Nora Naraghi is not allowed to drive one on the road. And for good reason: she lives in Iran, where the Islamic regime allows women to drive cars, buses or even trucks, but not motorcycles…. Nora therefore solved the problem by pushing her handlebars off the beaten track, and …

Passionate about motorcycles since her early childhood, Nora Naraghi is not allowed to drive one on the road. And for good reason: she lives in Iran, where the Islamic regime allows women to drive cars, buses or even trucks, but not motorcycles … Nora has therefore solved the problem by pushing her handlebars off the beaten track, and she became Iranian women’s motocross champion !

"I was born on a motorcycle"

Born into a biker family – her father is a former motocross champion and runs a motorcycle shop – Nora has been sitting in a motorcycle saddle from a young age. "I was born on a motorbike," explains the young woman, now 20: "When I was four, my father would sit me down on a little Montesa and take me around and round in front of his store. One day. , thinking I was tired, he wanted to get me off the bike but I didn’t want to let go of the accelerator! "

Tall, brunette, slender and smiling, Nora quickly decided to take the key to the fields … or rather the mountains which dominate Tehran to go and satisfy her passion with her family. "My father was Iranian motocross champion, my mother rode motorcycles, so did my younger brother, and of course my husband too," she explains..

Except that for training, the track of the Azadi stadium, the main sports complex in Tehran, is not open to women: "we don’t have a permanent track, so we go to the hills to the northwest of Tehran where my father identified places offering the essential technical difficulties ", explains Nora. To complete the training, the family sometimes offers themselves a few extras, such as the first ascent of Mount Towchal which dominates Tehran at nearly 4,000 meters above sea level..

At the end of the day, Nora‘s passion materialized with a title of Iranian champion in the MX2 class, snatched in front of eight other competitors including her mother, Shahrzad Nazifi, in the only women’s motocross race in Iran: an event organized by the Xanyar motorcycle club … created by his family! It was "a fantastic day for me," she explains. "It’s normal, she is younger and has more potential, she has more technique too", acknowledges her mother, 38 years old..

In the footsteps of Ashley Fiolek ?

Nora, who races a 2006 Yamaha, would now like to face other rivals abroad, especially in the United States. “I would really like to run outside of Iran and the Americans are the best at it,” she explains. “My role model is Ashley Fiolek (2008 and 2009 US Women‘s Motocross Champion). I love her style and she’s young like me, but I don’t think we’ll be able to meet in the future. close ", sighs Nora.

In the meantime, she would like to promote motocross among women looking for a "stimulating and technical" sport. "My mother and I are pioneers in Iran, and we train other women in the Xanyar club. Currently I have three students," says Nora. "But most women don’t even know the sport exists," she regrets. As for her family plans, they are obvious: she and her husband will have children who "will be bikers too". Her husband, Hadi Mogaddas, confirms: "When we get married, we usually give up the motorcycle. This is different, I do more than before!"

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