Egyptian wrestler bites Israeli in the back, loses anyway
As a teenager, when I was up late on Saturday nights, I often watched wrestling on Boston's Channel 38. But I never saw a move as dirty as this one.
In Italy on Saturday, Israeli wrestler Ilana Kartysh won the gold medal in the Golden Grand Prix wrestling tournament. In the semi-final round, she met an Egyptian who fought dirtily and dishonorably.
In the semi-final,
Kartysh met the African champion, Enas Mostafa of Egypt. At the
beginning of the match, Mostafa refused to shake hands with her. During
the fight, she broke two of the Israeli's fingers and bit her in the
back – causing her to bleed. At the end of the match, unsurprisingly,
she refused to shake hands with her again.
" I can't remember such dirty behavior in sports," Kartysh told Ynet
after the fight. "In wrestling you must shake hands at the beginning of a
match and at the end of a match. But not only did she refuse to shake
my hand, she even broke my fingers and bit me until I began bleeding.
"On the ground, when she
was on top of me, she just bit me. I have her teeth marks on my back,
and I began bleeding too," the Israeli wrestler adds. "Because of her
dirty behavior my desire to beat her grew stronger."
"From the beginning
of the match, when she didn't come over to shake my hand – I knew
something was wrong. I felt some kind of hatred towards me and I don’t
know why, maybe it has to do with politics and maybe not, but it's never
happened to me before. She really attacked me.
Maybe it had to do with politics? Maybe? Or maybe it was just anti-Semitism.
And where were the referees when this happened?
But Kartysh beat the Egyptian, and beat the next opponent too, and won the gold medal. Good for her!
Unsportsmanlike conduct; UPDATED with embedded video
We're going off topic again.
Here's a play from Sunday's Jets - Dolphins game. This play happened with 2:58 left in the third quarter, when the Dolphins punted to Jets receiver Santonio Holmes(notes). As Holmes took the ball for a short return, cornerback Nolan Carroll(notes) was hurt on the right sideline as he rushed down to cover the play. The replay showed strength and conditioning coach Sal Alosi extending his knee just enough to trip Carroll up on the play. Carroll was down for a minute, but returned to play later in the game.
Let's go to the videotape.
I don't know what that coach was thinking but the league ought to discipline him.
UPDATE TUESDAY 12:27 AM
Sorry, the embed code didn't embed. If you cut and paste it into your browser, you can watch the video.
UPDATE TUESDAY 10:32 AM
I've now updated this post by embedding the video.
Iranian weight lifter banned for life for appearing with Israeli
On Thursday, I showed you video of the award ceremony for the 105 kilo category at the World Weightlifting Championships in Poland. The Israeli competitor came in first, an Iranian came in second and a German came in third.
The Iranian refused to shake the Israeli's hand, although he did stand at the podium while the Israeli national anthem - HaTikva - was played. I remarked that based on past precedent I was surprised that the Iranian didn't just forfeit the match with the Israeli.
Apparently, the Iranian government was also surprised. It has banned the weightlifter and his coach from all sporting activities for life.
Jalal Yahya-Zadeh, head of Physical Education Committee for Youth Committee announced this news and and added: "The fact that an Iranian weightlifting veteran has competed against an Israeli during the worldwide competitions and has stood beside him during the distribution of medal is unjustifiable."
He added: "Unfortunately, those who supposedly had the primary responsibility in this regard did not see any problem in this matter, however did not see it fit to be distributed within the public, which itself is an obvious mistake on their end."
If the sporting community had any morals, it would pit Israeli competitors against Arabs and Muslims in every event until the Arabs and Muslims tired of forfeiting and either withdrew from competition altogether or decided to compete. But expecting that kind of courage of conviction from a community that insisted that 'the games must go on' at Munich nearly 40 years ago is probably asking too much.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
