Iranian refuses to race Israeli swimmer in Beijing

by Tammy on August 10, 2008

A post by Maynard

As reported:

Mohammad Alirezaei was due to race against Be’eri in the fourth heat of the 100 meter breaststroke, but pulled out, apparently under the orders of the chiefs of the Iranian delegation.

The same thing happened four years ago at Athens:

Iran has paid a judo champion who avoided an Olympic match against an Israeli the same $125,000 prize money it awarded its gold medal winners, the official Islamic Republic News Agency said Wednesday.

Wouldn’t you think an ongoing official policy of refusing to compete against Israelis would get Iran kicked out by the IOC? I guess not.

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4 Comments | Leave a comment
  1. marleed says:
    August 10, 2008 at 17:49

    The IOC needs to pay attention to its own rules. Its very own charter states that . . .

    . . .any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, sex or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement.

    Game over, send the offending team home. And while you’re at it, send the “males only” teams home too. That would eliminate Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Brunei. (notice a trend here?). I believe they site “cultural and religious” reasons for their no girls allowed Olympic teams. “Cultural and religious” translated from the original Arabic really means, “we’re a bunch of misogynous pigs”.

    Since someone mentioned misogyny, why doesn’t someone on the IOC find out where in the world Mehbooba Andyar is? She is an Afghani female athlete who disappeared from her Olympic training facility in Italy.

    The young runner, who competes in the 800 meters and 1,500 meters, had become the poster girl for the Olympic movement, with her face adorning the International Olympic Committee’s Web site.

    But being in the international spotlight had attracted the wrong kind of attention. Although Ahdyar always ran in a headscarf and wore long tracksuit bottoms she still received death threats from extremists who objected to a Muslim woman taking part in sports at all.

    When she received visits from Western media earlier this year, her neighbors called the police telling them she was obviously a prostitute working for foreign clients. Her father, a carpenter, even spent time in jail until the issue was cleared up.

    Finally, it would be appreciated if when selecting future countries to host the Olympics, the committee could rule out countries guilty of grevous human rights violations and genocide. I’m just suggesting!

  2. Ripper says:
    August 11, 2008 at 09:28

    Hey the Olympics have never even commemorated the 1972 massacre of the Israeli Olympic team in Munich.

  3. Esther says:
    August 11, 2008 at 11:53

    They have to drop out if they’re going up against Israelies. If they actually lost to an Israeli — they’d probably be killed. ;P

  4. aardvark says:
    August 11, 2008 at 12:15

    Radical Islamists should be careful not to enter countries where Jewish people are allowed, as they might accidentally come into some sort of contact with them. Certainly they need to avoid ANY contact with the nation of Israel above all! This especially applies to homicide bombers, as their remains get blown who knows where and could be expected to be contaminated by coming into contact with Jews, thus making them unclean for the afterlife. There goes your chance for those virgins!

    Of course there is also the problem of all the various inventions, medical innovations, and contributions to modern life developed by Jews; they should avoid any of these: http://www.jewishachievement.com/domains/inven.html

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