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The Iranian swimmer, Mohammad Bidarian, has refused to compete with his Israeli rival in the 100-meter freestyle event in Croatia.

Bidarian advanced to the semifinal in the 100-meter breaststroke event after he clocked a time of 52.25 seconds on Thursday morning.

Despite the fact that he had a chance to get an Olympic berth for his country, the 19-year-old Iranian national gave up the competition as he was grouped with an Israeli swimmer on Thursday evening.

Another Iranian swimmer, Mohammad Alirezaei, gained the first Olympic berth in swimming for Iran at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games on Thursday.

Alirezaei, 22, qualified for the games after he clocked a time of 1.03.03 minutes in the 100-meter breaststroke event and improved his personal best by 0.89 seconds.

Top swimmers from 13 countries have taken part in the international event which began in the Croatian city of Dubrovnik on July 10 and will conclude on July 13.

He could have saved himself a lot of trouble by just photo-shopping his Israeli opponent out of any pictures of the race.

Previously on Israellycool:

Iran’s Tae Kwon Do Follies

Gutless

Olympic Disgrace

You can view it here (go to the AFL kicking goals in Israel story).

I was very close to playing against this team on Wednesday evening, but, alas, couldn’t find the time (Given that the last time I played Aussie Rules, I broke my thumb, perhaps it was just as well).