Mohammad Nasiri

In 1964 Rome Olympic Mohammad Nasiri, born in the Kurdish city of Sanandaj, was a 19-year-old youth who stood fifteenth in the bantamweight division of weightlifting. Imre Foldi, a Hungarian army officer had taken the Silver medal after the Russian Aleksei Vakhonin.
Four years later Nasiri was a world known weightlifter. He had defeated both Foldi and another Russian Gennady Chetin, the new world record holder, in Mexico City one year before the Olympic in what was called the pre-Olympic weightlifting tournament.
Little did anyone know that on that Sunday afternoon of 13 October, 1968 Nasiri was to make a miracle happen. The Iranians and in fact the world were by now familiar with Nasiri's usual "Ya Ali" expression just before attacking the halters. He would turn his back to the halter, go into a deep thirty-second prayer with God, turn back and roar Ya Ali, and bend to touch the bar. Ya Ali is an expression used by Iranians showing their submission to the will of Imam Ali, the first leader in the Shia' Islam after Prophet Mohammad, whenever they are about to do something extraordinary. In fact, Nasiri had copied this sequence from his mentor and past weightlifting world champion the late Mahmoud Namjou.
In Mexico City eleven hundred crowd had jammed the weightlifting room to see Nasiri as if they had guessed something was about to happen. Some twenty Iranians were present. Prince Shapour Gholam Reza the brother of the Shah and the President of Iran National Olympic Committee was also present.
Nasiri started with doubt. In the Press section, he stood 10 Kg behind the Hungarian Foldi - 112.5 Kg vs. 122.5 Kg. He wouldn't lose his usual smiles. In his second and third tries he had lifted 117.5 Kg but the Russian and Japanese judges rejected his seemingly legal move. The Iranian managers complained to the Jury Committee. The crowd started booing the Jury. It seemed Nasiri's moves were legal but this is the Olympic and the judges' decisions are final. If nothing, Nasiri started building support from the spectators in the room.
In the Snatch part of the competition he and Foldi finished with 105 Kg, although the Japanese and Russian judges rejected Nasiri's first try at 105 Kg. He managed to lift this weight above his head in the third and final attempt. The Polish Henryk Trebicki lifted 107.5 Kg and stayed ahead of Nasiri with 5 Kg in two parts. Nasiri tied with the Japanese in the third place.
Then the Jerk competition began. This was Nasiri's specialty. Foldi ended with 140 Kg. His total 367.5 Kg was a new Olympic record. The Polish couldn't lift better than 135.5 Kg and his bronz medal was secured. Nasiri's turn was called in by the judges. For his first try he asked for 142.5 Kg which was equal the Olympic record. He easily lifted the weight and got three white lights from the three judges as a sign of unanimous approval. That still put him 7.5 Kg behind Foldi. There was a big cheering going on in the small room and people were waiting for Nasiri's next move.
Suddenly the electronic score board showed 150 Kg for Nasiri. The crowd started humming but all became silent as Nasiri entered the room. Everybody was standing. The public speaker was heard requesting people to sit down, but nobody gave any attention to the request. Oscar State, the President of the International Weightlifting Federation, announced if Nasiri succeeded in lifting this weight, he would be breaking the World and Olympic Jerk record and also the Olympic record in total, which he would tie with Foldi's earlier total. This was an immense gamble by Nasiri. He could compensate his 10-Kg deficit against Foldi in the Press, if he could successfully lift this weight. Now Foldi and his coach came out of the locker room and sat in the front row to watch Nasiri. The weight attenders added the weights in a state of bewilder. 150 Kg for a 55-Kg man? How could this be?
Same sequence. Nasiri goes to a corner. Few seconds of silent praying that lasted like years to the Iranian crowd in the room. He raised his hands as a sign of supplication to God and roared that terrifying Ya Ali this time not once but but three times. The world across the Pacific ocean must have heard this Ya Ali. The weight lifting room was in a dreadful state of absolute silence. He lifted the weight and rested it on his shoulder. Another Ya Ali gave him the necessary energy to lift the weight over his head.
The crowd exploded in cheering and support. The Iranians in the room were emotionally happy and cheering. The three judges awarded three white lights and ordered Nasiri to drop the weight. He refused. He kept it up there in the air for the world to see. The judges once again asked him to drop the weight, this time with a tune of appealing. The head of the Jury Committee stood up and captured this moment with his pocket camera. He forgot he was supposed to sit in his seat and behave professionally. This was a moment people involved in weightlifting knew its worth more than anybody else. This was a historic record in the world of weight lifting. The judges began to realize that Nasiri was punishing them because they had called his clean Press moves illegal earlier in the competition. He finally dropped the weight.
Nasiri was jumping around. He came to the edge of the platform and responded to the crowd with the kisses his hands offered them. Was this the end of a theatrical scene or an Olympic event? but the Olympic must continue. According to the rules, the weights were once again checked to officiate this new world record. And then the scale was brought in to the stage to weigh the small Nasiri. He even took out his shoes and socks to reduce his weight! The scale showed 55.7 Kg. Foldi was 56 Kg. Nasiri was the new Olympic Champion in the bantamweight division and he was the new world record holder in Jerk and tied with the world record with a total of 367.5 Kg. Foldi could not do anything except to concede to another Silver medal.
When Nasiri returned to the stage for medal ceremonies he performed a back flip that would go into history as a happy moment for Nasiri and Iran. The Iranian national anthem was played and one could see the Iranian flag above those of Hungary and Poland. Prince Pahlavi asked the organizing committee that he give the medals. His request was granted. He would have the honor of hanging the first ever Gold medal an Iranian weightlifter had achieved in the Olympics around Nasiri's neck. Even the legendary Mahmoud Namjou had not achieved this victory although he had harvested several Gold medals in the world championships. This was Iran's first Gold medal in the Mexico City Olympic.
but that 150-Kg Olympic record would stay untouched for the next twelve years. In 1971, however, Nasiri managed to break the world record by lifting 152.5 Kg during the Iranian national championships. In fact, no weightlifter was able to break this or the 150-Kg Olympic record until Yurik Sarkisyan from Russia (now Armenia) replaced it with 157.5 Kg in the 1980 Moscow Olympic.
The current Olympic record is 165.0 Kg set in the 1988 Seoul Olympic by the Armenian Oksen Mirzoyan of the then Russia. In fact, from 1972 Munich to 1996 Atlanta only eight times weightlifters have lifted 150 Kg or more in the Jerk section of the bantamweight division. This shows the importance of the 150-Kg barrier that Nasiri broke in 1968.
Some statistics are in order here. From the top ten finishers in the 1988 Seoul and 1992 Barcelona Olympics (total twenty), only four were able to lift more than 150 Kg. Finally, in Barcelona Chun buying-wan from China, the eventual Gold medallist, could lift 155 Kg in the Jerk section. This considering the fact that from 1988 Seoul the division's allowable weight was increased to 59 Kg from the old weight of 56 Kg.
Nasiri won the world championships of 1969, 1970 and took a Silver in 1971. In 1972 Munich Olympic one more time he faced the veteran Imre Foldi. Like Mexico City he fell behind Foldi this time with 7.5 Kg deficit in Snatch. He had tied with Foldi in the Press with 127.5 Kg. This time too he decided to gamble and asked for the 152.5-Kg weight but could not lift it beyond his knees and lost the Gold medal to Foldi with a total weight of 370.0 Kg. both Foldi and Nasiri finished the Jerk with 142.5 Kg. In Press, Nasiri set a new world record of 128.5 Kg and an Olympic record of 127.5 Kg. These two records would go into history books of the International Weightlifting Federation as permanent records since Press was to be eliminated from weight lifting. Munich was the last Olympic Press was allowed.
In 1973 Nasiri surprised the world by moving to the Flyweight division, a lighter division at 54 Kg, in the weightlifting world championships in Havana, Cuba. With his favorite Press move eliminated and his traditional weakness in the Snatch move, he felt he could still apply this specialty in the Jerk move at the expense of losing some weight. It worked! He took the Gold medal there too while setting two new world records in Jerk and total, 140 Kg and 240 Kg, respectively. This victory was followed with another Gold in 1974 Manila, Phillipines World Championships.
In the 1976 Montreal Olympic he took a bronz medal in the Flyweight and hence completed the color of his medals in the Olympics. He used to say he wished to attend five Olympics and set an immortal individual record, but with Iran's boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics he lost that chance. However, he and the late Gholamreza Takhti, the legendary Iranian wrestler, remain the only Iranian athletes who have attended the Olympics four times.