What happened to the Olympic wrestler Ara Abrahamian ?

Question

I've been reading news reports that they took his medal away for poor sportsmanship, but the reports are all vague on exactly what he was so angry about. I know he thought there was a bad call against him, but what exactly was it? I don't approve of bad sportsmanship, but it would be interesting to learn if he really was screwed out of a gold medal by a bad call or if he's just hacked off because he lost the match...

Answer 1

he was soundly beaten by the canadian wrestling team and he was frustrated.

Answer 2

Don't listen to the Chinese communist propaganda, the corrupt IOC, and the Liberal NBC idiots.

Ara was cheated in the most corrupt sport in the most corrupt Olympics in history!

He was disqualified for no reason that even experts in wrestling can comprehend - a total disgrace to the sport.

To add insult to injury, four years ago in Athens he was cheated out of the gold again, this time by communist Russians who bribed the judges.

In Beijing 2008, a video replay of any controversial issue is the right of the contestants, but for some reason was denied by the judges.

Ara was initially awarded a point by the mat judge on the subject incident. However, side judges overruled, had the point stripped, awarded instead a point to the Italian, and then disqualified Ara, awarding the match to the Italian, who happens to have friends in high places within wrestling!

Disgusting, and I would have supported Ara even if he would have smashed the laughing judge in the face!

Answer 3

Dan T

I don't care if he was cheated. there is a proper way our society expects us to behave in public., and his behavior was inappropriate and childish.

Hopefully he is ban for playing at any Olympics games forever.

Answer 4

he is banned he has said he will never wrestle again

Answer 5

Nothing in particular.

He was protesting on his opponent's wi of the gold medal.

And as he was receiving the bronze medal, he took it off his neck, threw it on the mat and left the place without continuing the ceremony.

This is just another tantrum of his, he did the same thing 4 years ago in athens.

So, as a punishment for his childlish behaviours the int'l olympic society decided to ban him from getting the bronze medal.

If i were able to choose a reasonable punishment then i would choose to ban him ff he olympics forever so that people like him would learn better than that.

Answer 6

I agree with niblzz.... that was just poor sportsmanship and he acted like an ungrateful, spoiled child. Even if there was a bad call by the judges, he should have objected and gone through the proper steps to challenge the ruling. There are so many people that don't even qualify for the Olympics, much less actually make it there. So many countries have never, ever won a single medal, but they continue to go in the hopes of one day bringing home something.  This guy was absolutely ridiculous and childish. So many athletes would have been happy to have that bronze medal. What a baby. Get over yourself Ara!!  Here is the link to the article on Yahoo.

Answer 7

He was subject to corruption. He tried to protest the proper way with a written complaint after the match but FILA refused to look at it. The head of FILA is italian and apparently cousin with the referee. The opponent was italian. Laying down the bronze medal was then a proper way to bring attention to the corruption within the sport. Though it did cost him the medal.

Answer 8

The english press has oddly enough focused on "bad sportmanship", like if Ara was acting like a spoiled brat.

In swedish press there has been a discussion on the corruption in the wrestling society for a long time. Greece-Roman wrestling is a traditional swedish game and we consider the international wrestling union FILA as a bunch of corrupted criminals. Former member of the FILA board Pelle Svensson openly accuses his fellow chairmens and being corrupted and covering up for frequent million dollar bribes in the major tournaments. He also states that he has been life threatened for trying to convience others to clean out the sport.

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