Featured Image Credit: IMWA World Masters Weightlifting Championship
Topics: Iran, Israel, Sport, News, World News
Callum Jones
Topics: Iran, Israel, Sport, News, World News
A simple act of sportsmanship just so happened to ruin one athlete's career, after a weightlifter faced a lifetime ban for shaking his competitor's hand.
Many of course watch sport for the competitive nature, but what is going on in the real world sometimes spills over into the action.
Mostafa Rajaei is an Iranian weightlifter who participated in the World Masters Weightlifting Championships last year in Poland.
He placed second overall in the men's over-35 age group in the 240-pound division at the event.
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This was certainly not small feat as the athlete even broke the world record for the clean and jerk with a lift of 430-pounds.
Rajaei took to Instagram after the event and admitted that he 'could not work well' due to pain in his elbow but 'in the two beats of God and gratitude, I became the first, and moved the world record by one kilogram'.
But despite an excellent showing, this would be the last time Rajaei would compete for Iran.
Whether it be at the end of the proceeding or the beginning, it is pretty common for competitors to shake hands.
However, that doesn't seem to fly with the Iran Weightlifting Federation
After Rajaei shook hands with Israeli competitor Maksim Svirsky, the federation announced: "The weightlifting federation bans athlete Mostafa Rajaei for life from entering all sports facilities in the country and dismisses the head of the delegation for the competition, Hamid Salehinia.”
The federation called the handshake 'unforgivable', and fired Salehinia as a result of the transgression.
They claimed that Rajaei had been 'sent with the support of the federation' but then 'crossed the red lines of the Islamic Republic' by his act of sportsmanship.
Why did this happen?
Well, not only does Iran not recognise Israel as a nation, but it also disallows any contact between Iranian and Israeli athletes.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei asked competitors back in 2021 'not to shake hands with a representative of the (Israeli) criminal regime to obtain a medal'.
The restrictions did not stop there though, as Iranian athletes are routinely given medical certificates and disqualified from events in order to avoid Israeli competitors.
So Rajaei's gesture was a violation of the country's strict rules.
More recently, Iran called for Israel to be banned for the Paris Olympics.
Iran’s foreign ministry stated on Twitter last week: “Iran condemns the reception and protection of Israeli athletes at the Olympic Games in Paris, demanding their exclusion over Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza."
With tensions between Iran and Israel unlikely to ease anytime soon, several Iranian sportspeople have defected to compete for other countries to avoid facing Rajaee's fate.
These include Alireza Firouzja, a chess prodigy who now plays under the French flag after Iran banned from him competing in the 2019 world championships because of the possibility he could face an Israeli opponent.