Rio 2016: Olympic wrestling coaches strip down in protest

And y’all thought the NFL was the no fun league. Sure, an excessive touchdown celebration can get your team penalized or (if it’s really excessive) get you a big fine, but what if it got you kicked out of the playoffs? Okay, that’s not quite a perfect parallel, but it’s a reasonable approximation of what happened to Mongolian national team wrestler Mandakhnaran Ganzorig at the Rio 2016 Olympics.

Ganzorig was facing off against Uzbekistan’s Ikhtiyor Navruzov in the bronze medal match for the Men’s freestyle 65 kg division. Up by a point, 7-6, with the clock winding down, Ganzorig decided to (in the infamous words of Miesha Tate) “just coast” and started doing a bit of early celebrating. Only problem is, that’s a penalty and suddenly the score was tied up at 7s with a point granted to Navruzov for Ganzorig’s actions.

The Mongolian team challenged the ref’s decision to penalize their athlete, only that wasn’t allowed either, and saw Navruzov get awarded another point because of it to take the match 8-7. Goodbye win, goodbye draw, goodbye bronze medal for Ganzorig.

The only logical choice in that kind of situation: take all your clothes off and stage a protest. Obvious when you think about it.

For a better replay of the incident, click here.

Now the only question is, how long before we see UFC cornermen take the cue, the next time the judges turn in a really bad decision?

Update: Interesting side note (and h/t to @IRodC on Twitter) this isn’t the first bit of scoring controversy involving Navruzov in these Olympic games. In a quarterfinal match against Puerto Rico’s Franklin Gomez, Gomez scored a four-point takedown, but saw Navruzov awarded awarded two points instead, as officials ruled Gomez’s takedown was out of bounds. Three judges were suspended indefinitely after the match, for their “suspicious officiating.”