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PARIS — Having overcome so many hurdles, refugee athlete Hadi Tiranvalipour experienced immense disappointment as his dream of winning an Olympic medal was cut short when he lost in a taekwondo qualification bout. Tiranvalipour was up against Omar Ismail of Palestine in the men's under 58 kilograms competition and was handed a 2-0 loss on the first day of taekwondo. Tiranvalipour was forced to leave Iran after speaking out in favor of women's rights. In 2022, he traveled to Turkey, then to Italy, where he lived in a forest for 10 days and then slept three months on a sofa in a shared accommodation that Iranian students had helped him find.
