Olympic Qualifying Table Tennis: Alena Titarenko Joins Iran's Women's National Team

Alena Titarenko, by winning the Iranian women's table tennis qualifying tournament, will compete as a member of the national team in the Olympic qualifying events for the 2016 Olympics. Titarenko met her Iranian husband at a university in Ukraine and has been part of the national team since her immigration to Iran in 2005. After being a member of the national team for several years, she returned to her home country for a while, but now she is once again a player for Iran's women's national team. In the early months of her presence in Iran, she stated in an interview with Hamshahri newspaper about her knowledge of the new country: "I had only read about the Achaemenid kings and Iran's past culture and civilization in textbooks. I didn't know anything else." Now, she is considered one of the most experienced members of the national team alongside Neda Shahsavari. In March 2009, while selected for the World Championships in Japan, she wrote a letter to Shahrokh Shahnaazi, the then president of the Table Tennis Federation, stating that due to her permanent return to Ukraine, she would not be able to accompany the national team and announced her withdrawal. She had secured the first place, earning the first quota for participation in the World Championships in Yokohama, Japan, and when she withdrew, the technical committee used Ana Fayyazian as a replacement athlete. Titarenko, who became the champion of Ukraine at the age of 14 and has played for the national team of that country, will go to the Olympic qualifying competitions in Hong Kong alongside Shahsavari, Mahjubeh Omrani, and Maryam Samet. Over the years, she has worked with various coaches in clubs and the national team, including Vida Abdi, Zeynab Eliasoon, Mahnaz Rajabian, and Sima Limoochi. Besides Shahsavari, Omrani, and Samet, players like Sahar Omrani, Maryam Farahi, and Ghazaleh Malatelab have been among her competitors over the years, and they have had wins and losses against each other. It has now been ten years since her first year of membership in the national team. Neda Shahsavari is also completing her fifteenth year in the national team. Alena also participated in the qualifying competitions for the Beijing Olympic Games in the Central Asian qualifying events. She played for the national team for the first time in the World Cup in Germany. The team, which she said had participated in official competitions after 30 years, topped the fourth division table to advance to the third division. She shone alongside Mahbubeh Omrani in the doubles competitions. In March 2008, during the 49th World Championships hosted by China, she played again for the national team and achieved good results, including a match against Puerto Rico that resulted in a victory for Iran. In July 2008, she was one of the members of the Iranian national team at the US Open and that same year was ranked among the top 700 players in the world, also participating in the Pro Tour in India. The Iranian women's table tennis national player, who returned to Iran a year ago, told Fars News Agency: "In 2008, due to certain circumstances, we returned to Ukraine. Even when I became a mother, I wanted to give up professional sports. But since the beginning of this year, we have returned to Iran, participated in competitions, and fortunately, I was able to come first."