Imam Ali Habibi

Imam Ali Habibi medal table
Babr-e Mazandaran
Wrestling
Iran
Olympic Summer Games
gold	1956 Melbourne	67 kg
World championships
gold	1962 Toledo	78 kg
gold	1961 Yokohama	73 kg
gold	1959 Tehran	73 kg
Asian Games
gold	1958 Tokyo	67 kg

Imam-Ali Habibi Goudarzi , Persian امامعلی حبیبی گودرزی, (Born April 13, 1931 in Babol ), is a former Iranian wrestler and politician . He was the winner of the gold medal in the 67 kg weight category (lightweight) at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne .

Imam Ali Habibi, whose nickname is Babr-e Mazandaran ( German  Der Tiger Māzandarāns ), was one of the most successful freestyle wrestlers of his time.

His first gold medal - Iran's very first gold medal at an Olympic tournament - he won in the 67 kg weight class at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne. At the Asian Games in Tokyo in 1958, he won his second gold medal in the same weight class. A year later he was at the World Wrestling Championships in 1959 in Tehran in the weight class 73 kg for the third time in a row gold medalist.

At the 1960 Summer Olympics , which Rome hosted, Habibi missed a medal. To the surprise of many experts, he lost in the semifinals to Douglas Blubaugh , whom he dominated for much of the fight. The completely dejected Habibi also lost the battle for the bronze medal. He recovered very quickly from this shock experience. Just one year later, at the World Wrestling Championship in Yokohama in 1961 , he achieved another great success: winning the gold medal. At the wrestling world championship in 1962, which took place in Toledo , Habibi entered the 78 kg weight class and won gold again.

Imam-Ali Habibi switched to politics after his successful career. In September 2007 he was inducted into the FILA International Wrestling Hall of Fame for his services to wrestling .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 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  

Web links

• Profile of Imam-Ali Habibi at the Institute for Applied Training Science
• Imam-Ali Habibi in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )