{"id":603770,"date":"2021-07-27T13:51:20","date_gmt":"2021-07-27T17:51:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=603770"},"modified":"2021-07-27T13:51:22","modified_gmt":"2021-07-27T17:51:22","slug":"iranian-born-olympic-wrestler-dedicates-silver-medal-to-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/iranian-born-olympic-wrestler-dedicates-silver-medal-to-israel\/","title":{"rendered":"Iranian-Born Olympic Wrestler Dedicates Silver Medal to Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">16<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Firanian-born-olympic-wrestler-dedicates-silver-medal-to-israel%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=603770&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div readability=\"31.046052631579\">\n\t\t\t<span class=\"article-category\"><a class href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/latest-news\/\">Latest News<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"article-excerpt\">2018 judo champion defected from regime, trained with Israelis<\/p>\n<figure class=\"post-thumbnail-container relative lg:mr-24 w-full my-4 mb-8\">\n\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"736\" height=\"491\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/GettyImages-1234232081-736x491-1.jpg\" class=\"w-full lazyload blur-up wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 736px) 100vw, 736px\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/GettyImages-1234232081-736x491.jpg 736w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/GettyImages-1234232081-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/GettyImages-1234232081-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/GettyImages-1234232081-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/GettyImages-1234232081-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/GettyImages-1234232081-1400x934.jpg 1400w\" data-sizes=\"auto\" \/><figcaption class=\"absolute text-white p-4 w-full text-right text-xs bottom-0 bg-black opacity-75\">\n\t\t\t\tSilver medallist Mongolia&#8217;s Saeid Mollaei celebrates during the medal ceremony for the judo men&#8217;s -81kg contest during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo on July 27, 2021. (Photo by Franck FIFE \/ AFP) (Photo by FRANCK FIFE\/AFP via Getty Images)\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\t\t\t<span class=\"text-gray text-xs md:text-lg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/author\/josh-christenson\/\" title=\"Posts by Josh Christenson\" class=\"author url fn text-red-700\" rel=\"author\">Josh Christenson<\/a> \u2022 July 27, 2021 1:50 pm<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n<div readability=\"52.5296784831\">\n<p>Iranian-born judo wrestler Saeid Mollaei dedicated the silver medal he won Tuesday at the Tokyo Olympics to the state of Israel.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Thank you to Israel for the good energy. This medal is dedicated also to Israel,&#8221; Mollaei told Israel&#8217;s Sports Channel. &#8220;I hope the Israelis are happy with this win.&#8221; The 2018 judo world champion defected from Iran in 2019 after Iranian officials demanded he throw a World Judo Championship semifinal match to avoid wrestling an Israeli competitor. He reportedly trained with the Israeli judo team before the Tokyo Olympics.<\/p>\n<p>Tensions between Israel and Iran have escalated in recent months, as Iran-backed militias <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/national-security\/israel-fends-off-attacks-on-its-northern-border\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">have<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/national-security\/israel-strikes-terrorists-after-rocket-attack\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">launched<\/a> rocket attacks against the Jewish state. The attacks came on the heels of an 11-day conflict with Hamas in May during which more than four thousand missiles were fired at Israel.<\/p>\n<p>Mollaei has been a Mongolian citizen since December 2019. He fled Iran for Europe in August 2019, fearing repercussions after he criticized the regime for ordering him to throw his championship match.<\/p>\n<p>The International Judo Federation in April placed a four-year ban on Iran&#8217;s judo team for demanding its athletes avoid matches against Israelis.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Latest News 2018 judo champion defected from regime, trained with Israelis  Silver medallist Mongolia&#8217;s Saeid Mollaei celebrates during the medal ceremony for the judo men&#8217;s -81kg &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-603770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603770\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}