Iran is braced to host sanctioned events in World Para Alpine Skiing and World Para Snowboard for the first time ©NPC Iran

Iran is braced to host sanctioned events in World Para Alpine Skiing and World Para Snowboard for the first time in the country’s history.

A World Para Snowboard competition at the Dizin resort in the Alborz mountain range near Tehran is due to begin tomorrow and conclude on Wednesday (January 4).

Around 10 Iranian athletes are set to take part in what will be an historic event for the country and for the development of their winter sport competitors.

Two Para Alpine Skiing events then follow, with the first starting in Darbandsar on January 8 and finishing on January 9.

Dizin will host the second competition in the sport from January 16 to 17.

The competitions are modelled on other winter Para sport competitions, including athlete classification, while education and training workshops will be held alongside each of the three events.

World Para Snow Sports head Dimitrije Lazarovski will be joined by two international classifiers at the competitions, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) said, with a view to giving organisers knowledge of how to develop winter sports in Iran.

The Dizin resort is located north of Tehran ©Getty Images
The Dizin resort is located north of Tehran ©Getty Images

"We began and also continue planning to support athletes' activities in winter sports through participation in Nagano 1998, Salt Lake City 2002, Torino 2006, Vancouver 2010, and Sochi 2014," National Paralympic Committee of Iran Secretary General Masoud Ashrafi said.

"For the last two years we tried to develop, encourage and attract more athletes to winter sports in our country.

"At this time, we are hosting three winter sports events in Iran, which is the result of our efforts to develop winter sports with the help of World Para Alpine Skiing and World Para Snowboard.

"In the future we will witness the attraction of more athletes to winter sports and we will have the chance to hold regional and international winter Championships."

Iran’s NPC are confident the three events will spark interest in winter sport and that they can be the catalyst for the country holding further competitions in the future, especially with the next two editions of the Winter Paralympic Games - Pyeongchang 2018 and Beijing 2022 - both taking place in Asia.

"Iran have more than a million kilometers of mountains and many parts of them are used as ski resorts, so athletes in our country can ski more than six months in a year," Ashrafi added.