The thing about this is that the now-banned Iranian weightlifter was completely ungracious about it. Note in the video above that he refuses to shake the Israeli champion’s hand, and keeps his head down sullenly during the playing of the Israeli National Anthem. But that wasn’t nasty and antisemitic enough for his Islamic supremacist masters in Tehran. “Lifetime depravation [sic] for an athlete and the head of veteran’s weightlifting team,” from Street Journalist, October 28 (thanks to Pamela Geller):
Mir Rasool Raisi, Head of Delegation to Iran’s Weightlifting Team, and Hossein Khodadadi, a veteran weightlifting champion, have been banned from all sport activities for life. Mr. Khodadadi appeared on the platform beside an Israeli weight champion during the Poland competitions.
Jalal Yahya-Zadeh, head of Physical Education Committee for Youth Committee announced this news and and added: “The fact that an Iranian weightlifting veteran has competed against an Israeli during the worldwide competitions and has stood beside him during the distribution of medal is unjustifiable.”
He added: “Unfortunately, those who supposedly had the primary responsibility in this regard did not see any problem in this matter, however did not see it fit to be distributed within the public, which itself is an obvious mistake on their end.”
Mr. Yahia-zadeh pointed to Mir Rasool Raisi’s remarks on publication of news and pictures of Iranian and Israeli athletes beside one another.
Mr Raisi has stressed the accompanying members of the Iranian expeditionary team had destroyed all CDs and photos and did not expect happening of such matter.
Physical Education and Youth Committee has stated the Cultural Commissioners have been informed and the president has also been warned of such matter.
Mr. Yahia-zadeh has recommended to the safeguard organization of the Physical Education Committee to prevent such matters from happening.