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When

Javad Foroughi

finished his shift as a nurse at Tehran's Baqiyatallah Hospital, he would go down to the basement of the building, prepare a target at 10 meters, draw his 4.5mm caliber air pistol, and

PUM

.

Thus, he was shooting for more than an hour each day, pulling the trigger 60 times, as in competitions.

Foroughi started shooting late.

At least in a professional way and using a compressed air gun.

He was 37 the first time he tried precision shooting.

It was good.

Little by little he was coming out of the basement of the hospital to compete in small shooting championships in Iran.

Soon his country became too small for him and he entered the international circuit, even winning world championships in India and Hungary.

Then the great leap to an Olympic Games would come.

At the age of 41,

the nurse Foroughi traveled to Tokyo to represent his country in the men's 10-meter air pistol tournament.

On the first day of competition, still with the Hangover Games after the opening ceremony, the Iranian hung the gold medal.

Olympic record included with 244.8 points.

His first and triumphant contact with the Tokyo track was celebrated in a big way by the official media in Iran.

Foroughi dedicated his medal to one of the 12 Shiite imams and to his country's supreme leader,

Ali Khamenei

, who called the shooter to congratulate him on his victory.

Foroughi's golden performance would have remained purely in the sports part if it were not for an organization called

United for Navid

recalled that the shooter and nurse works for a militia of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which was designated as an organization terrorist by former US President

Donald Trump

in 2019.

The very hospital Foroughi works in is run by the IRGC, a powerful military, political and economic force in Iran, with close ties to the Supreme Leader, which was created 42 years ago, after the Islamic Revolution that toppled Shah

Mohamed Reza. Paleví,

to defend the country's Islamic system and provide a counterweight to the regular armed forces.

Elite corps

The IRGC is estimated to have more than 190,000 active personnel, has its own land, naval and air forces, and oversees strategic weapons.

He also controls the Basij paramilitary Resistance Force, which has helped to suppress internal dissent, and the powerful

bonyads

- charitable foundations - that run a portion of the economy.

The IRGC influences other parts of the Middle East with money, weapons, technology and advice to allied governments and armed groups through its overseas operations branch, the

Quds force

, an elite corps of 15,000 soldiers, to whom The US accuses of supporting terrorist organizations.

Foroughi's victory divided Iranians on social media. While some celebrated the achievement, others attacked Foroughi, saying they are not proud of the victory due to his membership in the IRGC and his involvement in Syria, where he was serving - supposedly only as a nurse - between 2012 and 2013, at one point. in which his country, a close ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, was sending fighters to support the Syrian central government.

"We consider the awarding of an Olympic gold medal to the Iranian shooter Javad Foroughi to be not only a catastrophe for Iranian sports, but also for the international community, and especially for the reputation of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Foroughi is a current member. and a veteran of a terrorist organization, "the complainant organization United for Navid, created after the execution last year of Iranian fighter

Navid Afkari

, who had participated in protests against the regime in 2018

, said in a statement

.

Accused of terrorist

A couple of days ago, Korean shooter

Jin Jong-oh

, a six-time Olympic medalist, voiced his objection to the IOC for letting Foroughi participate in the Games. "How can a terrorist be in first place in a competition at the Olympic Games? That is the most absurd and ridiculous thing I have ever seen," said Jin Jong-oh as soon as he returned from Tokyo to his country after being eliminated. .

"The Olympics have a problem with Iran. Or rather, they

have a problem of cowardice when it comes to Iran.

Time and again, the IOC refuses to confront the regime, even though Iran continually violates the government's own statutes. Committee, "writes

Shay Khatiri

, a strategic studies analyst at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore

, in

Newsweek

.

"Champion Javad Foroughi is a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard who went to Iraq at the behest of his government to subvert the country's fragile democracy, and then to Syria, where Iran and Russia joined Assad to participate in the massacre of half million Syrians. And although Foroughi was reported to be a male nurse, claiming to have started his shooting career just four years ago, Foroughi made a military salute from the podium after his victory, while the Iranian national anthem played, "he continues. Khatiri.

Several Iranian athletes in the diaspora also protested after Foroughi's victory. Like

Sardar Pashaei

, a former national wrestling team coach who moved to the United States in 2009, who asked the IOC to "investigate the shooter's past."

Sam Rajabi

, a former judoka for the Iranian national team who also fled to the United States in 2010, noted that Foroughi's gold was the by-product of "forty years of direct shooting training by the Islamic Republic army."

Iranian media close to the IRGC took advantage of the victory to tell epic stories about Foroughi's adventures in war-torn Syria, where he served as an "advisor and medic on the battlefield against the Islamic State."

But in social networks there are even some people who have pointed out without proof that the shooter is a "murderer", due to his great resemblance to an Iranian military man who appeared in a video shooting Syrian families in which there were children.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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