When the Iraqi journalist, Muntazar al-Zaidi, hurled his shoes at the then-US president, George Bush, in December, Iranian officials declared him a hero and hailed his gesture as a mark of Islamic courage.

They were presumably less impressed this week when Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was similarly targeted during a visit to the north-western city of Urumiye.

Ahmadinejad found the shoe on the other foot as he waved to the crowd from an open-top car on his way to give a speech at a local stadium.

An Iranian website, Urumiye News, reported that a shoe was hurled at the president as his convoy drove through a central square. Security guards waded into the crowds but failed to find the culprit.

A hat was also thrown in Ahmadinejad's direction before his car sped away.

The event went unreported on mainstream Iranian news outlets but has been hotly discussed on the country's highly active blogosphere. Some pro-Ahmadinejad bloggers have dismissed the reports as rumours spread by "royalists" and "counter-revolutionaries".

However, Ahmadinejad has been on the receiving end of flying footwear before. A shoe was thrown at him during a students' demonstration at Tehran's Amir Kabir university in December 2006.

Urumiye News said the latest protest came when a disturbance broke out after a vehicle in the presidential convoy struck an elderly man who walked onto the road to try and hand Ahmadinejad a letter. People became angry when the driver failed to stop to attend to the injured man. Eventually an ambulance in the motorcade was forced to take him to hospital after jeering crowds blocked its path.

Ahmadinejad travels frequently to Iran's provinces in a bid to boost his popularity. He commonly receives large numbers of letters requesting financial assistance and other help during such trips.

After Zaidi's protest in Baghdad, Iranian officials paid tribute by holding several public shoe-throwing competitions in which contestants threw footwear at ­caricatures of Bush. Iran's main shoemaking federation also offered to supply a lifetime of shoes to Zaidi, who remains in a Baghdad jail awaiting trial.