A controversial Iranian track star-turned-Turkish-para-athlete has been stripped of a gold medal he won at the Paralympic Games in Paris and denied the right to compete in another event at the Games.
Sajjad Hashemi was one of Iran's fastest men and represented the country in the London Olympics in 2012 and the Rio Olympics in 2016. He holds the Iranian record in the 400 meters and 200 meters, as well as in the relay events in the 400 and 200 meters.
But he last competed for Iran in 2021 and since then gained Turkish citizenship, changed his name to Serkan Yildirim, and gained a spot on Turkey's Para-Athletic team due to impaired eyesight. At the age of 33 he made his stunning para-athletics debut, breaking the world record in the 100 meters T12 event with a time of 10.53 seconds at the World Para Athletics Championships in Tokyo in May.
Yildirim followed up on that success in the Paralympic Games in Paris on August 31, winning gold in the 100 meters T12, a disability class for track athletes with a visual impairment that requires them to run with a sighted guide. But on September 4, the World Para Athletics (WPA), the international federation responsible for the sport, announced that Yildirim had been disqualified.
"The results of Mr. Yildirim in the men’s 100m T12 medal event have been disqualified, with all resulting consequences," the WPA said in a statement. "The medals from the men’s 100m T12 medal event will be reallocated.”
In addition to losing his gold medal, Yildirim was barred from competing in a second event, the 400 meters T12.
Yildirim's disqualification resulted from a technicality stemming from a German regional court ruling that allowed him to compete in Paris. According to the WPA, it was notified on August 30 without notice of an "interim injunction issued by a single judge in the Bonn regional court" requiring Yildirim to be allowed to compete in his two events at the Paralympic Games, which began two days prior.
However, the "WPA was not provided with notice of the proceedings, or any opportunity to participate in them."
Because Yildirim's classification status was under a "sport class status 'review,'" which would make him ineligible to compete under WPA regulations, the governing body appealed the German court's injunction, while allowing him to compete pending the results of the appeal.
After a higher court ruled in favor of the WPA's appeal, the injunction was lifted, and the WPA immediately disqualified Yildirim.
The WPA said in its statement that it was "unable to provide further substantive comment at this point in time." The WPA responded to further questions by RFE/RL regarding the reasoning for the review of Yildirim's status by referring to its September 4 statement, while the International Paralympic Committee did not immediately respond.
The Turkish National Paralympics Committee did not respond to RFE/RL's questions about the case, nor did it respond to RFE/RL's questions last month regarding a growing controversy in Iranian media about Yildirim’s status as a para-athlete.
Following a story by RFE/RL's Radio Farda titled A Champion With Two Identities in July, questions had been raised about Yildirim's eligibility to compete as a para-athlete.
The story noted that Yildirim often appeared in sunglasses while running as a para-athlete for Turkey and in photos posted to an Instagram page under his new name. The account, which RFE/RL was unable to verify was overseen by Yildirim, offered no hints that he had previously competed for Iran.
The report also noted that, in recent images on an Instagram account under the name Sajjad Hashemi, the runner appeared without sunglasses or other signs of possible impairment and no trace of his activities as a para-athlete in Turkey. That Instagram account no longer exists.
Following the publication of Radio Farda's report, Hashemi responded to questions sent earlier to his Persian-language Instagram account asking about the apparent inconsistencies in the posts on two social media accounts.
'Relatively Severe' Disability
Responding in the comments section of Radio Farda's Instagram account, Hashemi said that he was an "athlete from Tabriz who, for personal reasons, competes for Turkey today."
He said he had changed his name after gaining Turkish citizenship and that the only reason he did not mention his past as an athlete competing for Iran was because "the audience of my sports condition is tied to the people of Turkey."
The athlete said he had "been visually impaired since 1986" and has had "relatively severe" disability status in Iran for more than two decades but preferred not to compete as a para-athlete. In other reports he explained that his poor vision caused him to jump the gun at the start of races.
He said that while he is not completely blind, his impairment had grown bad enough to earn him permission to compete as a para-athlete.
Subsequent reports in the Iranian media openly questioned the veracity of Hashemi/Yildirim's impairment and eligibility to compete in para-athletics, including quotes published by the conservative news site Tabnak in which Iranian athletes said they had not noticed anything irregular while training and competing with him and coaches who said the Iranian team could "not accept the hypothesis that he had vision problems."
Yildirim as Sajjad Hashemi competing for Iran.
In an interview published on August 19 by Tabnak, Hashemi/Yildirim said that "sometimes news is published only for views and clicks."
He said that some people unfortunately cannot distinguish the difference between being blind and visually impaired, but that he had had a disease that affected his eyesight since he was 10 that got progressively worse. By the Rio Olympics in 2016, he said, he knew his condition was bad enough to be eligible to compete as a para-athlete.
On August 20, the WPA said in comments to RFE/RL that "classification is carried out through a rigorous process to determine which athletes are eligible for para athletics, and then allocate eligible athletes into sport classes for competition."
Classification is granted following a thorough review of medical evaluations to confirm an eligible impairment, as well as in-person evaluations by certified professionals to "assess whether the athlete meets the minimum impairment criteria for the sport and to assign them a sport class."
While saying that the WPA cannot comment on individual athletes or cases due to confidentiality, the oversight body said that it can protest an athlete's sport classification at any time and "takes all allegations of classification-related misconduct very seriously."