Swedish Wrestler Ara Abrahamian Throws Down Bronze Medal

Swedish wrestler Ara Abrahamian threw down his greco-roman bronze medal in protest on Thursday after his bid for Olympic gold was ended by a decision denounced by the Swedish coach as "politics".

Abrahamian took the bronze from around his neck during the medal ceremony, stepped from the podium and dropped it in the middle of the wrestling mat then walked off.

"I don't care about this medal. I wanted gold," he said.

A bitter Abrahamian, silver medallist at Athens 2004 who had high hopes of top honours in the 84kg competition in Beijing, announced he was quitting the sport.

"This will be my last match. I wanted to take gold, so I consider this Olympics a failure," he said.

Abrahamian later said he believed his loss to the eventual gold medallist Minguzzi was "totally unjustified". The wrestler said his friends "called me just 20 minutes before the [bronze] competition, begging me to compete".

"I decided that I had come this far and didn't want to let them down, so I wrestled," he said.

Image Courtsey: Rediff.com and Reuters