US wrestler Jordan Burroughs saw this month’s tournament in Iran as a chance to redeem himself after a rough performance at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics last year.
It looks like that will not be happening.
Iran on Friday banned US wrestlers from the freestyle World Cup in response to US President Donald Trump’s executive order forbidding visas for Iranians, the IRNA news agency reported.
Photo: AP
“Training comes to a halt. We’re like: ‘OK, what do we do now? Where do we go? Where do we compete?’” said Burroughs, a four-time world champion. “I’m just bummed. I love Iran. I love their people and I don’t get into politics. I wasn’t going to make a political stance. I was going to compete.”
IRNA quoted Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Bahram Ghasemi as saying that a special committee reviewed the case of the US team for the tournament and “eventually the visit ... was opposed.”
The competition, one of the sport’s most prestigious events, is set for Feb. 16 and Feb. 17 in the western Iranian city of Kermanshah.
The decision marks the first action taken by Iran in response to Trump’s executive order banning visas for seven Muslim countries. Ghasemi said the policy of the new US administration left Iran no other choice but to ban the wrestlers.
USA Wrestling said in a statement that it has not officially been told it will not be allowed to compete.
The governing body for the sport in the US said that if that is the case, USA Wrestling is “extremely disappointed” in what it calls an “unacceptable situation.”
“We don’t think politics [should] have any role in this, but, unfortunately, sometimes you can’t control that,” USA Wrestling executive director Rich Bender said.
Burroughs, a 2012 Olympic champion and long viewed as the face of wrestling, has yet to compete internationally since leaving Rio without a medal.
“These decisions, these executive decisions, are always so far beyond your reach,” he told reporters. “Like, you always feel like: ‘Well, the presidency or these strict laws or these Muslim bans or whatever you like to call them, they’ll never affect me.’ This is one of the few times where something so personal has occurred. Almost like it [was] handed down from the president to us. It’s a bummer.”
US freestyle wrestlers have competed in Iran since the 1998 Takhti Cup in Tehran, which followed an absence of nearly 20 years. Since then, US competitors have attended Iran-hosted wrestling competitions 15 times.
Iranian athletes have made 16 visits to the US as guests of USA Wrestling since the 1990s.
“Crazy! I’ve never been more welcomed by any country in the world and now we can’t even enter the country!” US wrestler Reece Humphrey tweeted on Friday.
The 2018 freestyle World Cup is in Iowa City, Iowa, and the Iranian team is expected to qualify.
“Though we had hoped for a different outcome from Iran’s Foreign Ministry, we appreciate the complex nature of this decision,” Nenad Lalovic, president of United World Wrestling, the sport’s international ruling body, said in an email to the AP. “We are currently working to find a solution for the freestyle World Cup as soon as possible.”
Wrestling is extremely popular in Iran and is rooted in an ancient practice of combining the sport with physical education and meditation.
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