International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge has denied a claim from the Israeli Youth Olympics team that an Iranian athlete withdrew to avoid facing one of their members.
Iran’s Mohammad Soleimani did not take his place in the final of the men's 48kg taekwondo event in t he inaugural youth games. He was due to take on Israel's Gili Haimovitz and cited an ankle injury as his reason for pulling out, something IOC head Rogge insists there is no reason to doubt.
However, the poor political relationship between Iran and Israel – the former refuses to acknowledge the latter’s existence – led Israeli chef-de-mission Daniel Oren to say: "To be honest, once our boy got into the final, we knew that this is going to happen. We are dealing with sports here, youth sports, in fact. It's a pity that politics got involved."
Rogge, however, said on Tuesday: "The athlete did not participate in the competition because of a foot injury.
"He was driven to the hospital, was examined by a Singaporean doctor, totally independent, not belonging to the organisation and he diagnosed an ankle sprain. For us, that's the end of the story.
“If I have a medical certificate which is the case, by an independent doctor, saying that this young man could not participate, for me it's the end of the story."
Rogge also played down rejected concerns about the scheduling of the event during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
He added: "The teams have adapted extremely well and in many countries you can have an exception to fasting or strenuous work or heavy labour and, or sport.
"We are constrained by the international calendar and it's not possible for the sports movement as a whole to stop competition in every religious day or period.
"We cannot stop on Friday, Saturday or Sunday because of (religious) faith. We cannot stop the sporting world for Ramadan.
“We try to accommodate as much as possible, we try to adapt as much as possible, but it's not always possible.”