Growing up in Iran's western Kermanshah province and dreaming of becoming a basketball star, Homa Hosseini could hardly have thought she would one day make Olympic history for her country.

Yet when the first round of the women's single sculls starts in Beijing, Hosseini will become the first woman to represent Iran in one of the most physically demanding of all sports.

She will wear a headscarf and an all-covering outfit to abide by Iran's Islamic dress rules but her taking part marks another landmark in the growing participation of Iranian women in high-level sport.

"I was in the basketball team in Kermanshah province where I lived," Hosseini told AFP on the shores of Teheran's rowing lake before heading to Beijing.

"Then one day our coach said that the Iranian rowing and kayak federation is seeking women who are tall and eager to try a new sport for the national team."

It is only in the last years that Iran has started to push rowing for both sexes and the hopefuls chosen in the original search process were subjected to tough physical tests to check their potential.

Only a half dozen women made Iran's rowing team out of 400 that showed up at selection trials.

"I started my rowing without any prior knowledge or skill in the sport. But now after two years here I am representing my country to one the most important international games," said Hosseini.

She secured the Olympic place for Iran in the Asian qualifying trials in China a month ago.

The 1.80 tall but slender Hosseini, 20, will row in Beijing wearing a headscarf and a sleeveless apron over a long sleeved T-shirt, a very different uniform to the lycra all-in-ones favored by most rowers.

But she said it will not hinder her performance: "It's not a problem."

The fact that Iranian women are seeking to compete at a high level in a physical sport like rowing is a sign of increasing readiness in the Islamic republic to accept female sportswomen in different disciplines.

After the Islamic revolution in 1979, it was impossible for women to compete in international sports competitions, where they would inevitably encounter men as judges and spectators.

However, from the early 1990s women began to compete again, helped by a cautious relaxation of dress codes and championing of their cause by Faezeh Hashemi - the daughter of then president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Initially, women began to enter more stationary sports where conservative dress codes could be maintained without problems - such as shooting or archery.

Iran's Olympics team also has two other women - Najmeh Abtin in archery and Sara Khoshjamal Fekri in taekwondo.

Hosseini is realistic about her chances in Beijing, where she will face vastly more experienced and powerful scullers like the perennial rivals Bulgaria's Rumyana Neykova and Ekaterina Karsten Khodotovitch of Belarus.

"I know that it will be very difficult to get to the next stage of the competition, other girls have been training for this game for the past five year, while we have just started the sport in Iran two years ago," she said.

"My goal is to be able to make it to the Asian Games in Guangzhou in 2010 and the London 2012 Olympics," Hosseini.

Asked to whom would she dedicate any medal she won, a more somber tone emerged.

"I would dedicate it to my two brothers. They both were martyred in war" that Iran fought with Saddam Hussein's Iraq from 1980-1988.

"I asked for their help for this qualification, and thinking of them gave me hope and calm, I owe my qualification to them," she said.

(AFP via China Daily July 18, 2008)