Sara Besbes, a Tunisian champion fencer, boycotted a competition
in Italy rather than fence Israeli Noam Mills.
Besbes, who comes from a family of great
fame in fencing, reached the final round where she had to play against an
Israeli player. However, she stood still on the platform, pointing her sword
toward the ground and refusing to move as a sign she was boycotting the Israeli
athlete but without officially announcing it to avoid punitive measures by the
judges.
Tunis Radio reports Noam Mills “collapsed in
tears” as she was declared the winner.
A Google translation of this
article from the Italian press indicates Besbes’s action required Mills to win
the competition by inflicting the final blows against Besbes as she “remained
completely passive to the point of suffering from the five thrusts that have
losing the match”
An abnormal behavior that has not escaped the referees, who
could not take action because it was not a rejection but, apparently, of a
defeat.
The Besbes, 22, belongs to a family of fencers: the mother was
one of the most famous specialists in Tunisia, three sisters and a brother are
part of the National Assembly and the father is on the board of the Federation.
She, Sarah, was African champion and points to a place for the
London Olympics. In short, not a champion, but even the newcomer, and there is
more than reasonable suspicion that hers was a conscious decision and inspired
by the leaders of her Federation.
Even the rival, winning, reacted to the success with tears.
The 5-0 defeat cost the Tunisian also the final knockout in the
next round got the Chinese Li Na, who was eliminated easily.
Mills has instead continued the journey by eliminating the
Mexican Teran and entered the main draw which Thursday released the new world
champion. Sara and Tunisian leaders have preferred to avoid comment.
This was the second such incident this week.
Iranian Sayyad Ghanbari Hamad refused to fight against Israeli
Tomer O
For a better pic...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.aloufok.net/spip.php?article5598
Your pic was taken from a very old match, I think.
Thank you very much for the link.
ReplyDeleteI rarely say anything negative about leadership-especially where/ when women are concerned, but this is getting out of hand. It’s up to women to help bring about peace, promote love of humankind, and celebrate diversity.
ReplyDeleteThen why is the young woman promoting race hatred? The young lady comes from a family, all of whom, it is touted, are great fencers; she is at the top of her game (we hear from her handlers), but all I see is an alloyed/pretend champion: Sara Besbes-her old strategy (she practiced for years): if she can’t beat ‘em, she, theoretically, could use anti-Israel advertising for a much bigger (better) cash flow: a new kind of cash hungry crowd pleaser! She can supersize her pecuniary endeavor, sacrifice sports’ incentives, motivation, and promote neo-nazi posturing. What a cocktail! Some athletes might question this kind of “finessing”.
Your take on things is quite off base and it seems you are missing the point of boycotting.
Delete