Third Olympian gets sent home after refusing to face judo star Tohar Butbul
The Paris 2024 Olympics has been hit by a familiar controversy after another athlete withdrew to avoid facing one opponent in the tournament.
Algerian Redouane Messaoud Dris has become the third athlete to withdraw from an Olympic judo match against Israel's Tohar Butbul. The judoka was disqualified on Monday after failing to make weight ahead of their scheduled first-round bout at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Dris, 22, came in 0.4 kilograms over the 73-kg weight limit and handed Butbul a walkover result. Neither Algeria's judo federation nor the national Olympic committee have commented on the matter as of yet.
In response to Dris' exit this week, a statement from Israel's Olympic Committee alleged Butbul's opponent did so intentionally: "Tohar's competitor has removed himself from the competition. The Israeli delegation will continue to compete with the Olympic values in mind, we believe this kind of behaviour has no place in the world of sport." The Algerian Olympic Committee have been approached for comment.
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It's been alleged Dris missed weight intentionally to withdraw while hopefully avoiding sanctions. It's the third time in two editions of the Olympics that Butbul's opponents have disqualified themselves, with many suggesting Dris did so in support of Palestine.
Butbul - who clinched a mixed team Olympic bronze medal in Tokyo three years ago - is now scheduled to face Hidayet Heydarov of Azerbaijan in the round of 16. The two-time IJF Grand Prix champion is no stranger to such controversy, however.
It was back in 2021 - during the Tokyo Olympics - that Sudan's Mohamed Abdalrasool didn't show up for his match against Butbul. That was after Fethi Nourine of Algeria had already withdrawn and received a 10-year suspension for also refusing to face Butbul, confirming the decision was because his opponent was Israeli.
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Butbul, 30, responded to his opponents' withdrawals at the time and showed a lot of empathy on the matter. He highlighted at the time that it wasn't necessarily the athletes themselves making such choices.
"It’s against the spirit of the sport," he told German outlet DW in July 2021. "In many cases, the athletes aren’t the ones making those decisions. Athletes are human beings, they want to compete. They’re the victims here, absolutely."
Nourine clarified at the time that his decision to leave the competition was down to his support of Palestine. A couple of years prior, Iranian judoka Saeid Mollaei said he'd been instructed by his national committee to throw his semi-final fight to avoid the risk of facing an Israeli.
Mollaei made the difficult decision to leave his family and move to Germany after speaking out on the orders he's received. That led to tensions in Iran, and he claimed he was unable to return to his home nation as a result.
"If an athlete fails to comply with these orders, he and his family are 100 per cent sure to get into trouble. Even now, I don’t know what my family's situation is."
