Mostafa Rajaei, a veteran weightlifter, finished second in his category in the 2023 World Master Weightlifting Championships in Poland and stood on a podium with an Iranian flag wrapped around him on Saturday.

On anther step of the podium stood Maksim Svirsky from Israel, who finished third.

The two athletes shook hands and took a picture together, which led to the Iran Weightlifting Federation banning Rajaei from all sports for life due to what it called an “unforgivable” transgression.

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[–] NuPNuA@lemm.ee 64 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Didn't a Ukrainian women get disqualified from Fencing recently for understandably not shaking hands with a Russian opponent? What are the rules, would this bloke have been disqualifed if he hadn't shook the others hand?

[–] Maruki_Hurakami@lemm.ee 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Fencing has a customary handshake.

[–] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And an alternative tapping of the swords, which the Russian refused.

[–] PapstJL4U@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

and holding of the sword for tapping was one of the pictures circulated, that made the ukraine fencer look aggressive.

[–] ZeroEcks@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Fencing is kind of different, as far as I know you shake hands (or tap swords) before fencing to indicate that you aren't actually going to try and murder each other. Weightlifting isn't the same in that regard. Though I'm just speculating on the specific rules around this

[–] Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 1 year ago

With the protective gear they're wearing, I'm pretty sure that you couldn't murder your opponent even if you wanted to.

The injury rate in fencing is just marginally higher than the injury rate in synchronized swimming or table tennis.