Gholamreza Takhti

Gholamreza Takhti medal table
Takhti in Zurchaneh
Wrestling (men)
Iran
Olympic Summer Games
gold	1956 Melbourne	87 kg
silver	1960 Rome	87 kg
silver	1952 Helsinki	79 kg
World championships
gold	1961 Yokohama	87 kg
gold	1959 Tehran	87 kg
silver	1962 Toledo (Ohio)	97 kg
silver	1951 Helsinki	79 kg
Asian Games
gold	1958 Tokyo	87 kg

Gholamreza Takhti , nickname Jahan-Pahlavan ( German  Der Weltheld , Persian غلامرضا تختی Gholamreza Tachti , born August 27, 1930 in Khānīābād , Tehran ; † January 7, 1968 in Tehran) was an Iranian freestyle wrestler . He was a participant in the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki , 1956 in Melbourne , 1960 in Rome and 1964 in Tokyo .

Life

Gholamreza Takhti had four siblings, two brothers and two sisters. After attending elementary school, he worked as a carpenter and began wrestling in his spare time. At 19 he left Naziabad and started working for the railroad. From his income he financed his further training. His progress was enormous: just two years later he won the silver medal in the middleweight division at the World Wrestling Championships in Helsinki in 1951 .

Takhti took part in four Summer Olympics, winning one gold (1956 - light heavyweight) and two silver medals (1952 - middleweight, 1960 - light heavyweight), and finished fourth at the 1964 Games.

He also won two gold ( 1959 in Tehran, 1961 in Yokohama ) light heavyweight and two silver medals (1951 in Helsinki, 1962 in Toledo ) at world championships in middle and light heavyweight.

On January 7, 1968, after an argument with his wife, Takhti left his home, went to the notary and made his will. On the morning of January 8, 1968, he was found dead in a Tehran hotel. Although Takhti's family, especially his son, have given assurances on several occasions that Gholamreza Takhti committed suicide, rumors persisted that he was murdered by SAVAK . Al-e Ahmad wrote in an essay about Takhti that a folk hero like him, who was such a fine person, would never commit suicide, and the rumor of Takhti's murder was born. How popular Takhti was was shown by his funeral procession. More than 400,000 people from all walks of life came to the funeral of Gholamreza Takhti.

Gholamreza Takhti was considered a fair and athletic competitor on and off the wrestling mat. His eternal rival and friend, the three-time Olympic and seven-time world champion Alexander Vasilyevich Medved from the Soviet Union , visited Takhti's final resting place several times. The Iranian wrestling federation Iran Amateur Wrestling Federation (IAWF) commemorates Takhtis with an annual tournament in the capital Tehran: "Takhti Wrestling Cup" ( German  Takhti Ringer-Pokal ). In September 2007 he was inducted into the FILA International Wrestling Hall of Fame for his services to wrestling . In addition, the Takhti Stadium in Tehran was named after him.

International success

(OS = Olympic Games , WM = World Championship , F = Freestyle, Wed = Middleweight, HS = Light Heavyweight, S = Heavyweight)

• 1951, 2nd place , World Cup in Helsinki , F, Wed, with victories over Rasmussen, Denmark , Göte Ekström , Sweden , Aarno Seppälä , Finland and a defeat against Haydar Zafer , Turkey ;

• 1952, silver medal , OS in Helsinki, F, Wed, with victories over Gustav Gocke , Germany , León Genuth , Argentina , André Brumand , France , Veikko Lahti , Finland, György Gurics , Hungary , Haydar Zafer, Turkey and one defeat against Dawit Tschimakuridse , USSR ;

• 1954, 5th place , World Cup in Tokyo , F, HS, with victories over Hollander, New Zealand , Thomas Dole , USA and defeats against Viking Palm , Sweden and Adil Atan , Turkey;

• 1955, 2nd place , World Youth Festival in Warsaw , F, HS, behind Boris Kulajew , USSR and in front of Pehliwanov, Bulgaria ;

• 1956, gold medal , OS in Melbourne , F, HS, with victories over Kevin Coote , Australia , Robert Steckle , Canada , Jacob Louis Theron , South Africa , Peter Blair , USA, Mitsuhiro Ohira , Japan and Boris Kulajew, USSR ;

• 1957, 7th place , World Cup in Istanbul , F, S, with defeats against Wilfried Dietrich , Germany and Ivan Wychristuk , USSR;

• 1958, 1st place , Asian Games in Tokyo , F, HS; before Haruo Takagi , Japan and Hwang Chae-won , Korea

• 1958, 2nd place , World Cup in Sofia , F, HS, with victories over Silvano, Italy , Ballo, Romania , Petko Sirakow Atanasow , Bulgaria, Karabacak, Turkey and one defeat against Anatoli Albul , USSR;

• 1959, 1st place , World Championships in Tehran , F, HS, with victories over Bekir Büke , Turkey, György Gurics, Maurice Jacquel , France , Lucjak Stepczyński, Poland , Boris Kulajew and Petko Sirakow Atanasow;

• 1960, silver medal , OS in Rome , F, HS, with victories over Hermann Van Zyl, South Africa, Shunichi Kawano, Patrick Parsons , Australia , Gulam Gunga, Afghanistan , György Gurics and one defeat against İsmet Atlı , Turkey;

• 1961, 1st place , World Championship in Yokohama , F, Hs, with victories over Herbert Albrecht , GDR , R. Nola, New Zealand a . Boris Gurewitsch , USSR and a tie against Hasan Güngör , Turkey ;

• 1962, 2nd place , World Cup in Toledo , F, HS, with victories over Daniel Brand , USA, Javier Peralta , Mexico , İsmet Atlı, Esko Ojanperä , Finland, and one defeat against Alexander Medwed , USSR;

• 1964, 4th place , OS in Tokyo , F, HS, with wins over Imre Vígh, Hungary, Kawano, Anthony, Buck, Great Britain, a draw against Said Mustafow , Bulgaria and a loss against Ahmet Ayık , Turkey

swell

• various issues of the specialist magazine " Athletik " from 1950 to 1964,
• International Wrestling Database of the University of Leipzig,
• Documentation of FILA's International Wrestling Championships, 1976

Web links

• Profile of Gholamreza Takhti at the Institute for Applied Exercise Science
• Gholamreza Takhti in the database of Sports-Reference (English; archived from the original )
• Gholamreza Takhti . In: Ehsan Yarshater (Ed.): Encyclopædia Iranica (English, including references)
• Photo of Takhti's tomb

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Abbas Milani: Eminent Persians. Syracuse University Press, 2008, p. 1073.
2. ↑ FILA Class of 2007 ( Memento of the original from December 28, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed on July 21, 2010