Israel Matzav

Iranian basketball team hugs Israeli coach after game

While an Iranian swimmer was forced to drop out of his preliminary heat on Saturday night because he would have had to compete with an Israeli, on Sunday afternoon, the Iranian basketball team competed with the Russians, who are coached by an Israeli, and apparently had no problem with it. Well, sort of an Israeli.

Following the Russian basketball victory over Iran in the second day of competition at the Beijing Olympics, both teams - including the coaches - congratulated each other by hugging and shaking hands, despite the fact that the coach of the Russian national team was an Israeli.

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The friendly post-game exchange was far from hidden, with one photographer capturing a picture of [Russian coach David] Blatt [pictured. CiJ] hugging the Iranian star center Hamed Ehadadi.

In a joint press conference held after the game, Blatt told reporters that the Iranian team was a "great bunch."

"They have a couple of good players," Blatt said. "Some of them are even fit for the Euroleague."

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Although throughout the press conference the Iranian players happily answered questions posed by Israeli journalists - without necessarily knowing the country of origin of those journalists - one question clearly caught the captain of the Iranian team off-guard.

When asked how he felt about competing against a team led by an Israeli coach, Samad Nikkhah Bahrami hesitated, then said, "No, no, I'm not talking about that. We came here to play, there's no need to mix politics and sport."

For the record, Blatt is about as Israeli as I am. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts. But here's a picture of him with one of the Iranians.

UPDATE 5:12 PM

Gateway Pundit reports that Iran is now claiming that the swimmer who dropped out on Saturday night was ill and had to be hospitalized. Right....

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:28 PM