Two Mongolian wrestling coaches, head coach Tserenbaatar Tsogtbayar and his assistant Byambarenchin Bayaraa, stripped down to their underwear due to a perceived injustice in Ganzorigiin Mandakhnaran’s bronze medal match.
Mandakhnaran, otherwise known as Ganzorig, was competing against Uzbekistan’s Ikhtiyor Navruzov to determine third place in the 66kg category.
Videos by VICE
Ganzorig was leading 7-6 and started to taunt his counterpart with just seconds left of their match. As the time elapsed, his coaches stormed the mat to celebrate and hold Ganzorig and the Mongolian flag aloft, thinking they had earned an Olympic bronze medal by a point.
However, the judges had adjusted the score from 7-6 to seven points apiece, adjudging Ganzorig to have refused to engage with Navruzov—or “fleeing the hold”—amidst his on-mat celebrations. A further point was then added to the Uzbek’s score to make it 7-8 after the Mongolian coaches’ appeal was rejected.
Ganzorig, who is a two-time world bronze medallist in his weight category, crumbled to the floor as Navruzov celebrated with his team.
While Ganzorig was on the floor, wrestling with his own disbelief, his two coaches decided to toss a challenge flag to a call that couldn’t be contested. With both coaches looking visibly infuriated, the judges tried waving them away before the pair opted to strip down to their underwear in protest.
The tumultuous Brazilian crowd tried drowning out the hubris emanating from the Uzbek camp with chants of “Mongolia” in support of Ganzorig. But, it was done. Security had to be brought in to escort the de-clothed Bayaraa and Tsogtbayar away from the judges.
“The referees are no good,” an angered Bayaraa said through a translator. “There are 3 million Mongolian people, all waiting for a bronze medal. And now? No medal. Only a few Mongolian athletes get to come here. All of the stadium was behind us—one hundred percent for Mongolia.”
There have been so many controversies attributed to the Rio Olympics—whether it was swimmer Ryan Lochte and his robbery lies, athletes being legitimately robbed, the Russian doping scandal and the IOC’s lack of backbone, the diving pool turning green, the clear juxtaposition between the rich tourists and the Olympic Village with the poor watching on from nearby favelas… It’s all been a bit of a mess.
However, Sunday’s antics in the 65kg final was, inarguably, the perfect send-off for an imperfect, odd and particularly unendearing Olympic Games. Unless you’re from Mongolia, of course.
