this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2023
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 190 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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

[–] BertramDitore 55 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah, all this does is broadcast weakness. It’s a pathetic reaction.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

Islamists are fragile nut cases

[–] dessimbelackis 7 points 1 year ago

Soft as puppy shit

[–] FartsWithAnAccent 4 points 1 year ago

Where have you been?

[–] [email protected] 61 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Didn't a Ukrainian women get disqualified from Fencing recently for understandably not shaking hands with a Russian opponent? What are the rules, would this bloke have been disqualifed if he hadn't shook the others hand?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Fencing has a customary handshake.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And an alternative tapping of the swords, which the Russian refused.

[–] PapstJL4U 1 points 1 year ago

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

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 5 points 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.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 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.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Djeezus... Sports should be above politics. Shitty stuff.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They said, it should be, not that it is.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 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.

[–] ConditionOverload 16 points 1 year ago

"Unforgivable". These idiots...

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Meanwhile, Iran actually has a seat in parliament that is reserved for a Jewish representative.

[–] Badass_panda 10 points 1 year ago

That's Iran-ic

I'll show myself out

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

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