Prince
Board Sponsor
I don’t generally write articles about politics for IronMag because politics really don’t have a lot to do with bodybuilding – at least not world politics. If we talk about politics in bodybuilding we’re not talking about what happens in Washington DC or at the United Nations. We’re talking more about the inner workings of judging panels. We’re talking about athlete-favoritism, maybe the role of big supplement companies or hometown advantages. That sort of thing is what we would be talking about. But we wouldn’t be talking about Republicans, Democrats, or the inner workings of international politics.
However when we are dealing with athletes from countries that do not have the greatest relationships diplomatically speaking with the United states, then we delve into the other political arena. There aren’t a lot of countries that we don’t have some sort of diplomatic relationship with. I can think of a few countries we have strained ties to, but there’s still something to work with. But when it comes to countries like Iran and North Korea, now we’re in a whole other category of countries where there are virtually no diplomatic ties between us. And while there aren’t a lot of bodybuilders coming from North Korea to the Mr Olympia there are at least two from Iran. For those out of the loop, Iran just recently launched ballistic missiles at a United States military base in Qatar and also was involved in a major war with one of our closest allies in the region, Israel, for 12 long days. So you can understand why there was a lot of doubt as to whether or not Hadi and Behrooz would be able to come to the 2025 Mr Olympia.