On the fifth day of the Tokyo Olympics, Mongolian Saeid Mollaei, who lost to Japan's Takanori Nagase in the 81-kilometer final of the judo men's class, changed his nationality and entered the tournament in order to maintain his belief as a judoka.
The 29-year-old Mollaei was originally from Iran and represented Iran in the 2018 World Judo Championships, winning a gold medal.
However, at the World Championships in Tokyo in 2019, he complained that he was repeatedly pressured by the Iranian government and others to abstain from the match in order to avoid playing against politically hostile Israeli players.
After that, I went to Germany with the cooperation of IJF = International Judo Federation, and there was a tournament where I participated as a member of the refugee team, but I acquired Mongolian nationality and participated in this tournament as a representative of Mongolia.
Mollaei defeated a Kazakh player in the first round, and in the third round he took advantage of the Azerbaijan player by taking advantage of the waza-ari, and in the quarterfinals he won with a single waza-ari to match the Georgia player.
Then, in the semi-finals, he showed a spirited movement against Austrian players, and he took two waza-ari with his favorite piggyback and won with one waza-ari, and proceeded to the final.
In the final against Japan's Nagase, he was deprived of his waza-ari and ended up in a silver medal, but after the match, he took Nagase's hand and raised it high to praise the winner. It was full of.
Mollaei "Medal is also for parents"
Saeid Mollaei, who changed his nationality from Iran to Mongolia and won the silver medal, said, "I lost at the Nippon Budokan two years ago, practiced and returned. During that time, I could not meet my parents due to many problems. This medal is I want to give it to myself first and then to my parents. "
Mollaei complained that the Iranian government had pressured him to avoid playing against Israeli players, and when asked, "Did you want to play against Israeli players?" I want to fight him. I'm looking forward to doing judo with him someday. "