The head of Iran's wrestling federation resigned on Wednesday after criticising authorities for letting athletes pay the price for the ban on facing Israeli opponents. Wrestling is a hugely popular sport in Iran where Rasoul Khadem, an Olympic gold medallist, was re-elected as president of the Wrestling Federation just two months ago. But in a somewhat cryptic letter published on the federation's website he suggested he had been forced from his post, saying "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 wrote.
The councils for freestyle and Greco-Roman wrestling announced they were resigning en masse along with Khadem, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported. Khadem had recently criticised Iranian authorities for their approach to competing against Israeli opponents. It followed a six-month ban given to Iran's Alireza Karimi Mashiani by the United World Wrestling Disciplinary Chamber for deliberately losing a match at the under-23 world championships in Poland in November in order to avoid an Israeli opponent in the next round. His coach Hamidreza Jamshidi was banned for two years.
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