Hello friends, I am Hossein, a traveler. Don’t be that biased and do not be so emotional. I hope you are all fine and I am very fine. As the emcee (master of ceremonies) Mr. Rava, declared, am I right? Was he Mr. Rava? As Mr. Rava said it is a very good day today.
It has been said that “Strength leads to uprightness and decency in a human, weakness leads to crookedness and incapability” [a poem by Ferdosi, the well-known Iranian Poet]. Energy is laid and hidden in sports, and weakness and crookedness are laid in addiction. Sports and addiction are at opposite ends. This sentence is true as long as weakness in other words doping does not enter sports, if doping enters sports, it will change to its opposite. Therefore, to prepare a situation for addiction prevention, control and cure, we need a bed which must be made within long long years, it cannot be done within a night, it needs a long term programs of five, ten or 20 years. That is why in sports, we are in need of role models, so that our youth see the role models, become interested in sports and learn from them. We learn everything from our role models, we learn how to speak from our parents, because they are our role models, we learn from them how to walk and eat meals, consciously or unconsciously we do it. The same holds true in the society, we need sports exemplars in different fields; therefore, many years ago, Congress 60 started its job in sports in 14 fields. In some sports, Congress 60 members reached the national team and till now we have had more than 10 individuals in the rugby national team, we did all of these things in a situation when everyone thought that if a person became a drug abuser, you had to consider him dead and deceased; they thought it was better it was better to throw the addicts to a sea. They thought it was better to erase the addicts from life, but they were unaware of the fact that this thought is wrong, we can RETURN these people to society, but it needs a strategy and is not possible using whipping, it cannot be done with ignorance and lack of knowledge. The only thing that we know about addiction is that one person is consuming drugs and we want them not to consume. We only consider addicts as idle drug users or rogues and sometimes, we use ugly words to address them. However, the truth is that the addicts are an endless treasure but no one pays attention to this treasure. People think addicts are those members of society who live in cardboard boxes, but only one percent of addicts live in cardboard boxes on the pavements. If you consider it globally, you can see addicts in different levels of society. Didn’t you see many football champions who became drug abusers? Many sportspeople and many other [famous] characters around the world have been addicts.
Here, we are presenting the role models and Congress 60 started this job many years ago. I said the same sentence last year, although it might not be good, I said when sports championships are held, [it is not good] to give a blanket to a cycling champion. They have ridden their bicycle for thousands of kilometers and have become the first person of this field in the country among all Iranians; therefore, we cannot give such a person a blanket, a pillow or a book as their award. Books and spiritual things are good but materials are important too. Who claims that materials [everything related to money] are not important? Materials are important too. And this type of work should not be done by the state or government, because the government has its own expenses; therefore, non-governmental organizations must conduct different competitions for football, and volleyball; however. For football and volleyball, competitions are always under way. For cycling, rowing, for individual sports like wrestling, and taekwondo, for different types of sports, they can conduct competitions. We made this role model last year and we did it again this year and we are very happy.
I was talking to Mr. Iraji, fortunately this project is expanding to other places. We should have role models in different areas and we have to provide a situation where our youth can come and do sports and distance themselves from addiction.
Actually, I do not want to talk a lot. Those who have participated in these races are champions, no matter whether they are the first, the second, or the third. As the dear emcee mentioned, it is wonderful to wake up very early, let alone a person comes and runs eight kilometers. Now that these dears have come and run, they are all champions. By custom, in the championship one person must be the first, the second. In the end, I have to thank the Anti-narcotics headquarters without whose efforts and support, we could not reach this place now. I am grateful to Dr. Jamal-loo and Mr. Nazari. Mr. Iraji is coming from sports administration but I do not remember the rest names. I welcome you all. I congratulate the champions. Prophet Mohammad states you have to pay a laborer before his sweat dries. We do not tell the champions to leave now and return six months later to receive your award and again six months later, we won’t tell them to go and return six months or a year later. We do not tell them that when you won the medal, your award’s cost (for instance the gold coin) was cheaper at the time of winning the medal and now it is more expensive and we give you the previous amount, we won’t decrease the amount of the award. Congratulations to them. God willing, we will do this job in the coming years.
After Mr. Dezhakam’s speech, the awards were given to the champions and those who have achieved the best records. The first male and female champions each won 100 million tomans (2000 dollars), the second champion won 60 million tomans (1200 dollars) and the third one won 30 million tomans (600 dollars).
Translated by Elahe