January 22-2016
In a fit of pique with Russia, Iran’s national wrestling fed-eration announced Monday it will no longer send any Iranian grapplers to Russian wrestling events.
Rasul Khadem, a former star Iranian wrestler and the president of the Iranian Wrestling Federation, was responding to Russia’s refusal to send a team to this year’s Takhti Cup, the annual wrestling event hosted by Iran every year.
Because of this “unprofessional action” by the Russians, Iran decided not to participate in Russian-sponsored wrestling events.
The Mehr news agency said the wrestling federation accused Russia of fearing that its position of leadership in world wrestling was on shaky ground and had therefore adopted a “policy of sabotage.”
Mehr said this problem had developed over the last two years as the international wrestling federation, now renamed United World Wrestling, was reorganized and adopted many rules changes designed to make the sport more appealing to the public, more transparent and more acceptable to Olympic officials. Mehr said Russia was not happy with many of the changes.
Consequently, Alireza Rezaei, the Iranian federation’s spokesman, announced that Iran did not take part in a recent match in Russia and will not attend the upcoming Yarygin International Tournament.
He said relations with other countries are based on cooperation and mutual respect. “Since the Russians refuse to take part in Iran’s international wrestling events, we have decided to stay away from their tournaments in turn.”
“Iranian wrestlers will still attend the competitions in countries like Belarus, Hungary and Ukraine due to their satisfactory interaction with Iran,” he said.
Rezaei added, “In the same line, Iran also plans to limit its presence in Turkey’s international events as well.”
The United States frequently appears in the Takhti Cup, but not always. USA Wrestling officials have told the Iran Times that budget constraints do not allow it to go to Iran every single year, although they would like to do so.