Sudan’s Mohamed Abdalrasool has become the second judoka to withdraw from the Tokyo 2020 Olympics after refusing to face Israel’s Tohar Butbul in the 73kg division.
Olympic officials said Abdalrasool didn’t show up to face Butbul in their round of 32 bout on Monday despite weighing in for the bout earlier, as a form of rejecting normalization with the occupation state.
The International Judo Foundation didn’t immediately announce a reason why Abdalrasool didn’t compete, and the governing body didn’t respond to requests for comment.
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Sudanese Olympic officials also didn’t immediately comment.
Abdalrasool was supposed to face Algerian Fethi Nourine in an earlier round, but Nourine also withdrew due to the winner of that fight having to take on the Israeli Butbul in the round of 16.
Nourine said he didn’t want to compete against Butbul due to Nourine’s political support of Palestine.
Nourine had withdrawn from the World Championship in 2019 after he was unlucky in the lottery, being matched with an Israeli settler.
This is not the first time athletes reject to play against athletes from Israel.
At the 2016 Rio Olympics, the International Olympic Committee sent Egyptian Islam El Shehaby home before the end of the Games for refusing to shake the hand of an Israeli athlete.
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COMMENTS
The international sport bodies are just playing politics with sports…..These Arab athletes have been doing this rubbish for long and no stringent measures have been taken?No life ban has been imposed? Very soon European football nations like England Germany France will also refuse to play against Arab countries whose citizens have participated in terror attacks against them before….Even USA too will stop competing with Arabs countries too because of 9/11…..These guys have killed in millions with their terror attacks church bombings and so on for decades and everyone forgives them and take them as part of humanity…..How dare they complain about isreal?…..That land is the ancestral land of the Jews dating back 3000 years ….Was Palestine even a country when Isreal was declared independent in 1948?….the so called occupied west bank and East Jerusalem was held by Jordan when Isreal liberated it in 1967 so why should Israel give it back to Palestine?….When did Arabs move to that location?….If the Arab countries loved Palestine so much why didn’t Egypt relinquish Gaza and the senai to Palestine when Egypt held it before 1967?why didn’t Jordan relinquish Judea Samaria and East Jerusalem to Palestine when Jordan held it before 1967?why didn’t Damascus relinquish the Golan height to Palestine when Damascus held it before 1967?…..At least this territories would have been enough for the Palestine to build their country and develop a Nation that could have been able to withstand Isreal…. This people should stop thinking with a religious mindset and face reality….The Arabs don’t love Palestine they only feel their religion is being insulted as the Jews remain the dominant powers of the middle East.simple.
@Ako thanks bro, these Arabs contribute nothing to the world development anyway except terrorism just like their counterparts in northern Nigeria, against Israeli but supports Fulani terrorists killing sprees in Africa. People should look at the world index Arab Muslim leads in religious killings, terrorism, war, women enslavement, girls abuse, Rape, folks don’t look any further Nigeria is our case study.
@Sunnyb
It’s so unfortunate that present-day Arabs (including Buhari and his army of Fulani killers) have diverted from the paths of their forebears, a people that made ground-breaking discoveries in science, astronomy, and especially mathematics. Our present number system is an amalgam of the knowledge of two cultures: Hindu-Arabic. Without the contributions of Arabs, there will be no calculus as it is known today–and probably no computers! Yet, you have some fools in northern Nigeria calling themselves Boko Haram.
Isreal is the chosen land, emerging as a fresh spring in the midst of a desert, a reality which no man can change. Just as southern Nigeria CANNOT be annihilated by these marauding Fulani rapists.
Except the governing bodies of the Olymoic and sports in general are gaining something from the arabians countries that we dont know, I see no reason why they shouldn’t have placed an embargo on them from attending anything that has to do with sport untill they are ready to abide by the rules of the game. Firstly, are the Arab countries not aware that there is every possibilities of facing Israel in the Olympics? If yes why do they forge ahead to come?? Shunning competition with another countries, it’s against the ethics of the sports to introduce politics. I remember in 1996 and 1998 we didnt go for the nation’s cup simply because of politics I expect these countries to have sat at home rather than coming for the Olympics and not taking part on the ground of politics