Iran has banned a weightlifter from sports for life and dissolved a sports committee after the athlete greeted an Israeli counterpart on a podium.

Mostafa Rajaei, a veteran weightlifter, finished second in his category in the 2023 World Master Weightlifting Championships in Poland and stood on a podium with an Iranian flag wrapped around him on Saturday.

On anther step of the podium stood Maksim Svirsky from Israel, who finished third.

The two athletes shook hands and took a picture together, which led to the Iran Weightlifting Federation banning Rajaei from all sports for life due to what it called an “unforgivable” transgression.

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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    1 year ago

    You’ve gotta be pretty insecure to have a complete breakdown over a minor issue. Really makes Irans government appear weak.

            • Fazoo@lemmy.ml
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              1 year ago

              People of the Book absolutely applied to Jews. Ever heard of the Muslim prophets Noah, Moses, and Abraham? It is the main reason for them fleeing to Muslim countries during Christian persecutions of their communities. Second class, sure, but to say they were only mistreated is a blatant historical accuracy. Iran and Turkey are home to large Jewish communities to this day. Sephardic Jews, from Spain, were expelled by Catholics, after living for several hundred years under the Umayyad Caliphate.

              Iran’s issue is with the existence of a Jewish state. Not the existence of Jews in the world.

              Please educate yourself before acting like you know better. A basic Google search can literally disprove much of what you claim.

        • PapstJL4U@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          and holding of the sword for tapping was one of the pictures circulated, that made the ukraine fencer look aggressive.

    • ZeroEcks@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Fencing is kind of different, as far as I know you shake hands (or tap swords) before fencing to indicate that you aren’t actually going to try and murder each other. Weightlifting isn’t the same in that regard. Though I’m just speculating on the specific rules around this

      • Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        With the protective gear they’re wearing, I’m pretty sure that you couldn’t murder your opponent even if you wanted to.

        The injury rate in fencing is just marginally higher than the injury rate in synchronized swimming or table tennis.

  • krayj@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    They are opposed to even the most basic form of civility. Yeah, we already knew that, this just makes it clear to the doubters.

    • blackbelt352@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      Yeah none of that politics stuff like how Jackie Robinson playing baseball definitely wasn’t political, and the US vs Soviets 1980 Olympics definitely wasn’t politically charged, and people definitely were expressing their dislike of the Soviets during the game or the entire point of the Olympics being a peaceful gathering of nation states for competition ia definitely not political, or all the taxpayer money that goes to building stadiums also isnt political, or that the owners of sports teams are politically active isnt… political. Oh… wait.

        • blackbelt352@lemmy.sdf.org
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          1 year ago

          Eh I tend to find that nothing is truly apolitical. Everything that exists is affected by politics. If you start looking you can find how politics plays a role in everything.

          Like this bottle of Coke I’m currently drinking. The corn syrup used in it is super cheap because the agriculture industry is heavily subsidized to grow corn, the logos and branding falls under trademark and copyright law, the plastic that makes up the bottle has regulations on the types of plastic used and can only use food safe plastics, and that plastic is a product of petroleum, so fossilr fuel lobbying isninvolved too, the water that Coca Cola uses could very well have come from a source that was plundered by a PMC (look up Nestle for that one) and stolen from locals. And then just because I throw the bottle into recycling, doesn’t mean as soon as it leaves my hand that it’s properly handled along the entire processing and doesn’t just end up in a landfill anyway. And that’s not talking about all the different lobbyists from all the various industries that play a role in making, shipping and disposing of a bubbly brown liquid in a bottle made of polymerization petroleum.

          • Knusper@feddit.de
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            1 year ago

            I do agree, but I also imagine, they did not literally mean that politics should never occur in all of sports.

            They probably meant that sports competitions should be held with mutual respect, independent of politics. If you can’t shake someone’s hand, you’re not either going to be cool with them winning, so there’s a big risk of you not competing fairly. That’s the bare minimum where politics need to be kept out of sports.

            • blackbelt352@lemmy.sdf.org
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              1 year ago

              Mutual respect and being apolitical are definitely not the same things. Like I said, politics has always been a part of sports.