Rasoul Khadem (left) coaching Hassan Yazdani Cherati at the Olympics (Photo/Tony Rotundo, WrestlersAreWarriors.com)The head of Iran's wrestling federation has resigned after criticizing the authorities for letting athletes be punished because of his nation's ban on facing Israeli opponents, according to multiple media reports.
Rasoul Khadem, an Olympic gold medalist for Iran who was reelected as president of the wrestling federation just two months ago, wrote a letter published on the organization's website, suggesting he had been forced from the job, stating "apparently it is not going to work out" because of "my awkward mentality."
"I cannot lie. Sometimes the best way to take a stand is not to stand," he also wrote.
Upon learning of Khadem's resignation, the councils for freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling said they were resigning en masse, the semiofficial ISNA Iranian news agency reported.
These resignations are a product of an incident at the 2017 U23 World Senior Wrestling Championship in Poland last November, in which Iran's Alireza Karimi-Machiani, 23, was wrestling Alikhan Zhabrailov of Russia when a sideline coach told him to lose the match so that he would not have to wrestle an Israeli opponent in the next round.
Iran does not recognize the state of Israel and forbids its athletes from competing against Israelis at international sports events.
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