Fatemeh Akrami: The Iranian Girl with Wings

Like a bird with wings, she flew 4,000 feet over Russia and loved it. Fatemeh Akrami, 24, is the first Iranian woman to experience freefall wearing a wingsuit. She is also the first Iranian woman to become a professional skydiver.

Akrami talks with all the energy of a professional athlete — firm and without hesitation — and is determined not to miss a thing. “I started gymnastics when I was six,” she says, “only because there was a gymnastics center near our home and my parents wanted me to work out. So they registered me there.”

The instructors were impressed and trained her professionally. “First I won the national championship and then I was recruited on to the National Gymnastics Team.” Akrami was 13 when she joined the national team and afterwards won two gold medals and one silver at the Islamic Solidarity Games.

Afterwards, however, she had to give up sports for a time because of injuries to her ankle. “My left ankle was cracked in three places and was dislocated in one place. My epiphyseal plate was injured. One of the doctors told me that I might not be even able to run again!”

But Akrami had no plans to give up. After five months of recovery she won the national championship. “I was the first [Iranian] woman to perform the front handspring and double front somersault on the ground,” she says.

She won her last National Women’s Gymnastics Championship in 2011. “After that, national competitions became sporadic and then finally stopped,” she says. In Iranian gymnastics, there are fewer competitions for women over 18. For this reason, some female gymnasts decide to pursue another sport. “I weigh 65 kilos,” Akrami says, and explains that the coach she had been working with only had experience dealing with athletes weighing 57 kilograms and less. “We must have male coaches and because this is not possible in Iran, we have to change to other fields.”

Training is hard on professional gymnasts. They are at risk of breaking their limbs, and at the same time, in Iran, there are no competitions for them to take part in, and no income. “At 18, we must think about a job and our future," says Akrami. "Most opt to become coaches or change to fields like wushu, track and field or karate.”

Falling in Love with Skydiving

Akrami has pursued different sports, but nothing filled the empty place gymnastics had left. “I still do gymnastics and gymnastics is my true love. I was looking for something that would be as appealing to me. I tried track and field and wushu but they were boring. They lacked the excitement and the variety of gymnastics.”

Five years ago, as Akrami was on her way home from college, a friend suggested she try parkour. The same day she accompanied her to a gym where she could give it a try. “I tried a few moves,” says Akrami, “and in that very first session finished perhaps five moves.”

She liked parkour, but a few months later she found a more exciting field. “A friend told me about skydiving. I searched the internet and found a skydiving school in Dubai. I researched and found out that I could reserve a place.”

She went to Dubai to take the week-long course. “There were eight of us in the class — seven men and me. But I was the only one who succeeded in completing the course within a week.”

She found her first sky dive exciting. “I had no idea what it was about. I had read a little about it and had watched a series of videos but I had not seen it close up. It was a positive environment. Men and women dived together and nobody had any reaction but to smile. I said to myself that I could be one of them.”

After the one-week course she fell in love with skydiving. She traveled to Dubai and Russia and took various classes to become a professional. Eventually she got a licence from the United States Parachute Association.

But Akrami wanted to find a way to skydive over her own country and that was not easy. “This field is military by its nature,” she says. “In other countries a civilian branch of skydiving has grown in parallel to the military branch, but in Iran it is still military, and it is done in a military way. Now imagine one woman among all these men — and not just men but military men. The first time around they were in doubt that I could dive but little by little they started to help me.”

Opening the Door for Other Women

Akrami was intent on opening the door for other women. “I always went wearing most perfect hijab and did the best dives,” she says. “Over these five years I tried to make the fewest possible mistakes so that women can skydive as well. Now they can. There are five women who come and are allowed to dive. But the first time it was really hard. I was all by myself.”

Besides skydiving over Karaj, Golestan and Gilan in Iran, Fatemeh Akrami has dived more than 250 times over Russia and Dubai. “I wanted to try the wingsuit. To do this I needed at least 200 dives and the approval of my coach. And in the last year I worked hard to get to 200.” Finally, during her last trip to Russia, she was able to start diving wearing a wingsuit.

Jumping in a wingsuit is more dangerous than the ordinary free fall. “It is in a category by itself,” says Akrami. Some people might skydive a thousand times and not be able to dive in a wingsuit. It makes you aerodynamic. You fly almost like bird, but much faster. And the higher the speed, the higher the chances of dangerous accidents are. The suit makes it so your wrist is tied to your side to form a wing, so you have less maneuverability. This means that if you are in a dangerous situation, your ability to maneuver to save yourself is limited.”

Dangerous or not, she has enjoyed her experience so much that she wants to repeat it. Isn’t she afraid when she dives, I asked? “Everybody gets scared,” she says. “Anybody who says otherwise is a liar. But some people know how to overcome fear and put it to good use. My fear excites me and pumps me with adrenaline. If a dive is not going to excite me, I am not going to do it.”

Fatemeh Akrami has had a productive year. She got her wish to fly in a wingsuit and has also received her coaching licence from the International Parkour Federation. But she has made another important decision too. “I studied computer hardware and got my BA degree. Now I want to get my Master’s in physical education. This is the field that I should have chosen from the start.”

Fatemeh Akrami is very active on Instagram, and has close to 12,000 followers. She regularly shares photographs and videos of her sky dives, parkour techniques and gymnastic moves. All the photographs have one aspect in common: They all show her with a happy smile, whether she is falling from the sky or practicing a move.