Drawing on archival documents from the National Library and Archives of Iran (Sakma), this study examines the mechanisms through which the physical education policies of the second Pahlavi regime were transmitted and implemented at the local level in Nishapur during the 1950s (1330s solar calendar). Its primary aim is to show how school-based physical education, inter-school competitions, equipment procurement, and royal sports festivals were transformed into instruments of national identity formation, social discipline, and the integration of a provincial city into the central state’s major domestic and international projects. The research is descriptive-analytical and grounded in historical documentary analysis. The data consist of circulars, competition programmes, correspondence of physical education associations, and administrative reports preserved in the Sakma collection (especially file 48366/297 and related series). These materials were analysed through qualitative content analysis within the conceptual framework of “sport policy” and “top-down modernity.” The documents reveal that from the early 1950s physical education ceased to be a marginal school activity and became a fully scheduled, gender-differentiated, equipment-dependent component of the central bureaucracy, closely linked to events such as the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. Shortages of infrastructure and specialist personnel, together with the concentration of resources in Tehran, exposed a clear gap between central directives and local capacity. Royal sports festivals further turned the athlete’s body into a public stage for the display of political legitimacy. Physical education in 1950s Nishapur thus constitutes a clear instance of top-down modernity, in which school sport and the local athlete served the representation of national order and political legitimacy, yet structural constraints at the local level prevented the sustainable institutionalisation of mass sport. Given the limited range of available archival sources, future research is recommended to deepen the analysis by incorporating oral history, complementary written materials, and comparative examination of neighbouring districts in Khorasan.