Officials in Tokyo announced on Monday that a second judo athlete had withdrawn from the Olympic Games before of a scheduled match against an Israeli opponent.
Sudanese fighter Mohamed Abdalrasool withdrew from his second-round encounter against Israeli Tohar Butbul in the -73 kg category.
There was no explanation given for this.
Fethi Nourine of Algeria should have been Abdalrasool’s opening round opponent, however Nourine scratched ahead of time to avoid a potential match with Butbul.
The 30-year-old Nourine was suspended by the International Judo Federation (IJF) after she was quoted on Algerian television saying, “We worked a lot to get to the Olympics.”
“However, the Palestinian cause is more important than all of this.”