Hossein Rezazadeh | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Member of City Council of Tehran | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Assumed office 3 September 2013 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Personal details | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Born |
Ardabil, Iran |
May 12, 1978 |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Political party | Front of Islamic Revolution Stability | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sports career | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sport | Weightlifting | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Event(s) | +105 kg | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Sports achievements and titles | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Personal best(s) |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Medal record
|
Hossein Rezazadeh (Persian: حسین رضازاده, born May 12, 1978 in Ardabil, Iran) is an Iranian politician and retired Olympic weightlifter. Rezazadeh is a two-time Olympic champion, four-time World Weightlifting champion, and five-time Asian champion. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest weightlifters of all time. An ethnic Azeri, Rezazadeh has won the Iran Sportsperson of the Year award four times, more than any other athletes in the country's history.
As of July 2016, Rezazadeh holds the world record in weightlifting's super heavyweight class in the clean and jerk, and total. He is the first Iranian athlete to have won two Olympic gold medals. He is also one of Iran's most noted celebrities, frequently appearing on television and in the news; his wedding, which was held in the holy city of Mecca, in February 2003 was broadcast live on state television in Iran.
In 2002 he was voted the "Champion of Champions" of Iran and was one of 16 Iranian athletes granted a badge of courage from Iranian President Mohammad Khatami. As a reward for setting a world record at the 2003 World Weightlifting Championships in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, Mohammad Khatami awarded him 600 million rials (a little more than US$60,000 at the time) to buy a house in Tehran. After his spectacular performance, he was offered by Turkey’s Weightlifting Federation a stipend of US$20,000 a month, as well as a luxury villa and US$10 million reward if he switched nationalities and won gold for Turkey at the 2004 Athens Olympics, but he turned down their offer. Rezazadeh rejected the tempting offer saying, "I am an Iranian and love my country and people."