The veteran Iranian weightlifter Mostafa Rajai took part in the World Weightlifting Championships, which ended last Saturday in the Polish city of Wieliczka. It is a non-professional competition reserved for the legends of this sport that attracts hundreds of devotees from all over the world every year. That’s why Rajai, a former member of the Iran national team who officially represented his country at the 2015 Asian Weightlifting Championships in Thailand, also took part.
The Iranian won the silver medal. However, according to the rules of the Persian Weightlifting Federation, he made a serious mistake: poses for a photo with an athlete from Israel. In the footage, Rajai shakes hands with his Israeli rival and converses with him. Maxim Svirsky, bronze medalist of the competition. He does so draped in the Iranian flag. However, the state news agency IRNA released a statement in which it denounced that the weightlifter “crossed all the red lines”.
It takes several days for the consequences to appear. Finally, the director of the Weightlifting Federation said, Sajjad Anoushiravaniannounced on Tuesday the expulsion for life of Rajai. “When we learned of this inexcusable incident, strict action was taken against those involved. The athlete responsible has been banned for life and after a thorough investigation, strict action will be taken against all involved. In addition, effective immediately, all activities of the Veteran Athletes Committee will cease.”
Consequently, Rajai will not have access to sports facilities in his country. And he won’t be able to Hamid Salehinia, the leader of the Iranian expedition in Poland. As if that weren’t enough, the Federation’s Veterans Committee will also be dissolved.
The decision does not respond to any written law, but to an unspoken rule that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei applauds: Don’t compete against Israeli athletes. In September 2021, the ayatollah expressly called on his supporters to maintain this position, even in the face of possible sanctions from international sports organizations.
For this reason, the Persian athletes resort to desperate solutions to avoid such scenarios. They feign injury, avoid progressing to the next round, or outright refuse to welcome and compete with their rival if he is Israeli. However, others choose to defect. A decision that is often justified for other reasons.
About thirty Iranian athletes have resigned from their national teams and applied for asylum abroad. In this sense are the cases of the judo champion Said Mollaei and the Greco-Roman wrestler Ali Arsalan. But above all the one about the chess prodigy Alireza Firouzjawho made the decision to leave Iran after authorities banned him from participating in the 2019 World Cup over fears of meeting an Israeli.