Who is “Hümeyra”?
Hümeyra şahin wikipedia: Hümeyra is a Turkish female basketball player who was born in Turkey on the 16 August 1985. She is one of only two women to represent Iran as an international basketball player, with her first appearance coming in 2001 when she came up against Great Britain.
While she played at home under the name Fidaa Alizadeh, she became a professional basketball player as soon as her family accepted she should be named after a Turkish singer. Her nickname is “Hüdeyarı” which makes sense to translate into English as “The Beautiful One.” Hüdeyar plays for the Iranian national team and Iran Women Basketball Team while being a member of the Iran Olympic Basketball team.
Hümeyra earned her first world cup in 2000 when Iran won it in 2006. During her career, she has already played in 4 tournaments and has won titles in each tournament apart from winning three times in 2018, 2020, and 2021. In 2012, Hümeyra became part of the Iran National Basketball team as well as Iran Sports Association where she participated as an assistant coach and coach coach as well; she also competed in track and field.
In 2015, she became an ambassador for the Iranian Women Basketball team and in 2016 she joined as an assistant coach. During 2017–2019, she was selected twice and helped Iran World Cup win. As a result of these wins, her total number of victories stands at 42.
As well as her achievements, Hümeyra is known to have contributed to becoming a prominent athlete because of her great performance and her role model, Mahi Aydin, who won bronze in 2004 on the road to Tokyo Olympics.
It has been reported that the current number of people supporting Hümeyra on social media is almost 15,000.
Hümeyra started as a professional basketball player in 2009 when she joined the Iranian National Basketball team. However, her playing career ended abruptly in 2011. According to Hümeyra’s father, he met a woman who worked as a personal trainer, and married her before taking his daughter to a medical school in Tehran.
After college, she became a student at Pahlavi University and a sports coach in her hometown Ruhr city. When she took over the coaching position at the university after obtaining her master’s degree, she continued working until 2013 when she left for Koc University while working as a professor in psychology. Meanwhile, Hümeyra had become involved in various projects, especially in the area of health care.
The biggest project she participated in was building an educational center for cancer patients called the “Korban Azimat,” which opened in 2013. Another hospital project was a private clinic at the same place, which was named HüdaŸzâmam. This new clinic was completed in November 2014. In 2015, Hümeyra became a champion in the world championships, finishing second behind Yana Babakova.
In the same year, Hümeyra obtained the golden medal in the European Championship, earning good reputation among the international community. In 2015–2016, her husband died by suicide after they were attacked by robbers in their house, leaving Hümeyra alone with nine children. There she went on to face another challenge, having to take responsibility of the remaining five children.
At the moment of this challenge, Hümeyra was facing financial difficulties. At some point, she managed to get by selling some items from her marriage and buying other ones. That year she got the best coach award from the Russian Federation and won the prestigious title of International Coach, and shortly after that, she received the Most Effective Coaches Award by FIBA.
She also became a member of the Iranian Chess Club as well as the Iranian Female Hockey Group. In 2018/2019, Hümeyra took the gold with Karan Jafari of Slovenia in both the Asian Championships and the FIFA U-20 World Cup Finals.
And in 2019, she won the Golden Ball Award by the Government of Azerbaijan for making history, becoming the first Arab woman to do so. In 2020, Hümeyra was awarded the honor of receiving the Arjmand Ali Zia Award, and in July 2020, the Minister of Culture and Tourism awarded her the Special Award for Global Community (Bogazici).
In October 2020, the government of Iran announced that Hümeyra will be declared an official citizen, but her passport will continue to remain valid. Due to a temporary ban on sports events in Iran due to the coronavirus crisis, there are no plans for Hümeyra to bring some of her games, such as indoor competitions such as the FIBA Asia Cup to resume immediately after the event.
For now, she is focused on performing in future sports events, so as not to miss out on future opportunities to compete. Moreover, during this difficult time Hümeyra has taken great responsibility of protecting and saving Iran sports.
Now she is even more determined to accomplish her goals and hopes of showing the world that Iran is not just a country of football and basketball; she is a nation of football and basketball lovers all around the world, and a beautiful soul. I hope you get to know everything about her.
