Draft:Mahdi Ahmadian

Mahdi Ahmadian is a table tennis player originally from Iran.

Personal life
His father was a top-level table tennis player in Iran. His younger brother is also a competetive table tennis player.

Career
He started playing table tennis at eight years-old. At the age of 16 years-old Ahmadian’s began to train with the Iranian national table tennis team. Aged 17, he played his first international tournament. At 18 he ranked in the top 10 in Iran for under-21s.

A refugee, he left Iran in 2016 but didn’t didn’t have a passport. He travelled for up to 12 hours each day without food and drink to reach Turkey for where he planned to sail to Greece. He sailed on a plastic boat with his three-month-old baby and around 45 other refugees. However, the motor failed and fearing capsize he discarded his possessions, except for his table tennis racket. Three weeks later, after travelling by foot, he reached a refugee camp in Linz, Austria.

In Austria, he joined table tennis club Badener AC, and participated in the Austrian Bundesliga. He is a recipient of the IOC Refugee Athlete Scholarship. He also opened a table tennis business to sell table tennis rackets.