Ibragim Berkmanovich Samadov (''Ибрагим Беркманович Самадов'') born July 18, 1968 in
Pervomayskaya,
Chechenskaya Respublika,
USSR
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
is a former
Olympic weightlifter. In transition at the end of the Soviet Union, he represented the
Unified Team at the
1992 Olympics in the 82.5 kg division.
Samadov was the gold medalist at the
1991 World Weightlifting Championships
The 1991 World Weightlifting Championships were held in Donaueschingen, Germany from September 27 to October 6, 1991.
Medal summary Men
Women
Medal table
Ranking by Big (Total result) medals
Ranking by all medals: Big (Total result) and S ...
, representing the Soviet Union with his superior
clean and jerk evening his total weight with teammate
Oleksandr Blyshchyk. In 1992,
Altymyrat Orazdurdyýew was the favorite, but was not selected for the Unified Team by coach and Russian national hero
Vasily Alekseyev because Orazdurdiyev was from Turkmenistan, while Samadov was from Russia. Thus, Samadov was the new favorite.
The Olympic competition was the closest in history, with all three medalists tied with the same weight lifted. The first tiebreaker was the athlete's body weight and Samadov was .05 kg heavier, pushing him to the bronze medal position. The second tie breaker was based on which athlete had lifted their weight first and Samadov would have bested eventual winner, Greek
Pyrros Dimas
Pyrros Dimas ( el, Πύρρος Δήμας; ; born 13 October 1971) is a Greek politician and former weightlifter. He is currently the technical director for USA Weightlifting, having taken that position in June 2017. Dimas has also been involve ...
by lifting his
snatch on his second lift to Dimas' third.
At the medal ceremony, Samadov refused to lean forward to accept his medal, instead taking it in his hand, before he dropped it to the podium and walked away to very loud boos.
The
International Olympic Committee
The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...
(IOC) disqualified Samadov and banned him for the rest of his life. Samadov apologized the following day but the medal was not awarded, either to him or to fourth place finisher
Chon Chol-Ho, because the disqualification did not happen during the award ceremony.
The IOC also refused to accept his apology, and he was also banned for life by IWF commissioner
Gottfried Schoedl.
He was ineligible for the
Weightlifting Hall of Fame, since making a medal ceremony protest was an offence to the entire Olympic Games.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Samadov, Ibragim
1968 births
Living people
Russian Muslims
Olympic weightlifters of the Unified Team
Soviet male weightlifters
Weightlifters at the 1992 Summer Olympics
Competitors stripped of Summer Olympics medals
Chechen sportsmen
Sportspeople banned for life
Sportspeople convicted of crimes
Doping cases in weightlifting
European Weightlifting Championships medalists
World Weightlifting Championships medalists
Weightlifting coaches