Mongolia’s Oly wrestling strip gets public backing
Bad refereeing
ULAAN BATAAR, Mongolia, Aug 23, (AP): A skin-baring protest by a pair of Mongolian wrestling coaches at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics might have struck some observers as slightly bizarre. Back home in their landlocked Asian nation, however, it’s been praised as the appropriate response to bad refereeing.
Mongolian media and the public reacted angrily to the decision to award victory to Uzbekistan’s Ikhtiyor Navruzov over Mongolia’s “Mongolia! Mongolia!”
Former freestyle wrestler Nyamjav Baasanjav said Tuesday the referees should have given Mandakhnaran a warning instead of awarding a key penalty point to Navruzov.
“This shows the referees were biased and favored the Uzbek wrestler,” Baasanjav claimed. “Everyone can see from the video recording of the wrestling that Mandakhnaran was the better wrestler. Mongolia was robbed.”
Wrestling is one of Mongolia’s traditional sports — alongside archery and horseback riding — and has an intense following in the country of slightly fewer than 3 million people.
Stripping one’s clothes off is considered an acceptable way of peacefully protesting a decision and the coach’s actions were widely embraced.
“The internet loves the Mongolian coaches for this protest action,” said Myagmardorj Boldbaatar, an entrepreneur and active social media user. “The coaches didn’t break anything or physically hurt anyone. It was nothing personal.” Caster”.
“It’s great to come home and receive such a welcome. I will always do my best,” she told journalists.
“I hope that in four year’s time there will be more people to fill the entire airport,” she said referring to the next Olympic games in Tokyo in 2020.
Semenya, 25, first shot to international stardom in 2009 when she won the 800-metres at the World Championships in Berlin.
The star athlete has been dogged by questions around her gender, with suggestion that her body produced higher levels of male hormones.
Her competitors had raised concern that the condition gave her an unfair advantage.
The country’s Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula told the crowd that the country
Australia’s Cate Campbell dives to start her women’s 50-meter freestyle final race during the swimming competitions at the 2016 Summer Olympics on Aug
13, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (AP)
was proud of Semenya, a university student who has become a national icon.
In Rio, South Africa equalled its record of 10 medals achieved in Antwerp in 1920 and Helsinki in 1954.
Meanwhile, Australia’s 100m freestyle world record holder and gold medal hope Cate Campbell went into the Olympics with a painful hernia, a report said Tuesday.
Campbell told The Australian that the hernia, her second in 12 months, did not impact on her performances in Rio where she failed to win a medal in the 100m despite being the favourite.
“I want it to be very clear that I do not make any excuses for my poor performances Uzbekistan’s Ikhtiyor Navruzov celebrates after winning against Mongolia’s Mandakhnaran Ganzorig in their men’s 65kg freestyle bronze medal match on Aug 21, during the wrestling event of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at the
Carioca Arena 2 in Rio de Janeiro. (AFP) this past week,” she told the newspaper from Rio.
The Australian said Campbell’s hernia was detected three months ago, before she broke the world 100m freestyle record during a swim in Brisbane in the lead-up to the games.
The 24-year-old had hinted at a problem during the swimming in Rio, saying “everyone has injuries and everyone has setbacks”, but made no mention of it as she missed an individual medal in the finals of the 100m and the 50m.
She told Australian Olympic broadcaster Channel 7 that her 100m final swim was “100 percent my fault” and that she went out too hard at the start and was unable to finish as she wanted.