ANGRY AT JUDGES, HE THROWS MEDAL AWAY
Allan Maki
Globe and Mail
August 15, 2008
Canada
Swedish wrestler, who felt he should have gone on to gold-medal match,
gives bronze medal the toss
BEIJING — Swedish wrestler Ara Abrahamian accepted his bronze medal
Thursday then stepped off the podium and threw it away.
The 33-year-old Armenian-born wrestler dropped his medal on the mat
and walked away to protest what he called "a corrupt system."
"I think the semi-final shows that FILA [wrestling’s governing body]
does not play fair," Abrahamian told reporters. "I didn’t deserve to
lose. The system is corrupt."
Abrahamian lost a 3-1 decision to Italy’s Andrea Minguzzi in the
84-kiolgram Greco-Roman semi-final at the Chinese Agricultural
University Gym. After the match, Abrahamian shouted at the referee
and judges and had to be restrained by a team official.
Swedish wrestling coach Leo Myllari said of Abrahamian’s loss:
"It’s all political."
The Abrahamian-Minguzzi match featured a Swiss referee, a Cuban
mat chairman and Canadian judge Lee MacKay of Ottawa, a 53-year-old
Olympic veteran who also judged four years ago in Athens. MacKay was
unavailable for comment.
In Greco-Roman wrestling, the mat chairman has the ultimate say. He
can agree with the referee and judge or overrule them. The post-match
speculation was that Abrahamian had been "screwed" but that it was
unlikely filing an appeal would change anything.
"My friends called me 20 minutes before [the bronze-medal match]
begging me to compete," said Abrahamian, a mechanic in Stockholm. "I
decided I had come this far and I could not let them down. So I
decided to wrestle … I don’t care about this medal."
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
