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Chess player Sara Khadem on making the tough moves in life
The Iranian-born player refused to wear a hijab, choosing to migrate to Spain with family. She gives her perspective on her career and life
Stavanger, Norway: In early 2020, after her passport was confiscated resulting in a temporary travel ban from Iran, Sara Khadem didn’t know what to do with her life. The Covid pandemic extended the frustration, and forced Sara to even ask her husband, an Iranian movie director who worked at an advertising company then, for a job in his office.
Chess was the farthest from her mind for the International Master.
“I stopped looking at chess,” Sara said. “I was thinking of what else I can do.”
Five years on, she is among the six women featuring in a strong field in the ongoing 2025 Norway Chess Women. This invitation has helped rekindle her motivation, which had gone missing during a period of upheaval and uncertainty.
The trickling test of a six-month travel ban and the pandemic grew into a storm when, in 2022 at the World Rapid and Blitz Championships in Kazakhstan, Sara refused to wear a hijab. Amid protests in Iran against the mandate for women and heightened tension, Sara, with her husband and one-year-old son, moved to Spain on a residence visa. Now representing that country, she has not returned to Iran since, where an arrest warrant awaits her.
“When you cannot even travel because your own government bans you and they tell you it doesn’t matter, like your whole career doesn’t matter because we are thinking of something else, then you will reach a point where you don’t want to stay,” Sara told a group of journalists here.
Sara acknowledged she received support in Iran during her chess journey, and still does from the public. Her thought of emigrating wasn’t correlated to what happened in Kazakhstan (it was “because of my son and the situation in the country”), but not returning to Iran was.
“My first option was to still play for Iran and live outside. Then I realised this wasn’t practical because I cannot play in any of the tournaments like the Olympiad and World Cup. I just came to the point where I realised it’s not my fault,” she said.
Sara isn’t the first chess player from Iran to take this route. GM Alireza Firouzja also left Iran protesting the country’s boycott of Israel players. He now represents France.
“He had some political issues too, and it’s going to be the same (going forward),” Sara said.
“For girls, especially, it’s more difficult. If I had to stay in the national team, I had to wear the scarf in order to be able to go back. When I knew this (switching to Spain) was an option for me to decide what I want to do, Iran didn’t make sense to me. But still, changing the federation was very difficult. Because I like to play for Iran. I like my country. It wasn’t about the country.”
Abandoning that country, her family and setting up a life outside – Sara now resides in Marbella – did take its toll. Chess, after her pre-pandemic years of collecting the Grandmaster norms, took a backseat. It even went, as she put it, “backwards”.
“It was very hard. That’s why you don’t see me playing so much,” she said.
And she is okay with that, in a sport where every day is a race of the ratings.
“I don’t want to miss the first years with my son,” Sara said. “I know a lot of players care about their careers a lot. But I want to make a balance.”
