Sheith Gallery in Tehran opened its door to public on Thursday with a new exhibition of 400 photos of legendary freestyle wrestler of Iran Gholam-Reza Takhti.
The late wrestler passed away 47 years ago but his popularity among Iranians gets fans from the four corners of the country at Ebn-e Babooyeh cemetery in Southern part of Tehran, near Shahr-e Ray, on January 7 each year to commemorate his mysterious death allegedly caused by the intelligence service of Pahlavi regime in 1968.
The collector of the photos Abbas Khojasteh started collecting Takhti’s photos since he was 13 and even sometimes has traveled to other cities to search for new photos of his beloved hero.
The opening of the event marked Takhti’s birthday on August 27 and it will run through September 9 every day 4:00 pm to 8:00 pm local time.
Known as Iran’s most popular athlete in the 20th century, and commonly referred to as Jahan Pahlevan (The World Champion) because of his chivalrous behavior and sportsmanship, Takhti was born in 1930 in Khaniabad neighborhood of south Tehran.
The legendary wrestler entered Poulad Club in Southern Tehran at the age of 15 and won the first international medal to be gained by an Iranian wrestler at the world freestyle championships in Helsinki, Finland, in 1951. In 1952, Takhti repeated his silver medal at Summer Olympics in Helsinki.
He won an Olympic gold medal during Olympic Games in the Australian city of Melbourne in 1956, and a silver medal in the Olympic Games in the Italian capital of Rome in 1960.
When a terrible earthquake hit Boein Zahra in western Iran in 1961, killing thousands of people, Takhti was among the first people who volunteered to collect humanitarian aid for the affected people there.
Takhti was also famous for acting fairly when competing against his rivals.
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