Hassan Rahnavardi, who was Iran’s oldest living Olympian, was Chef de Mission for his country’s teams at the 1968 and 1972 Olympic Games in Mexico City and Munich, respectively.

He was also a politician who opposed the new regime after the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

Rahnavardi was dismissed from his role at the Ministry of Health, barred from politics and had all his property confiscated by Iran’s new rulers, after which he left to live first in Europe and then the United States, where he stayed until his death.

There, he worked as a doctor and author and would make regular broadcasts about the situation in Iran on foreign television stations.

Rahnavardi graduated in dentistry in Tehran, worked as a doctor for the Health Ministry, and later earned a doctorate in public health at Johns Hopkins University in the US.

Born in Tabriz, he was a gold medallist as a light heavyweight at the first Asian Games in Delhi in 1951 and won again at the third edition in Tokyo in 1958.

Rahnavardi missed the podium by one place at the 1952 and 1956 Olympic Games, respectively at 82.5 and 90 kilograms.

At Melbourne in 1956 he failed with his last two attempts and finished level with the Frenchman Jean Debuf on 425kg, losing a medal on the old body weight rule because he was heavier than debut.

At Helsinki four years earlier, Rahnavardi had finished five kilograms behind bronze medallist Arkady Vorobyov from the Soviet Union, making 402.5kg in total.

He was third at the World Championships three times, in 1949, 1951 and 1955, and took silver in his homeland in 1957, when Tehran was the host city, behind Vorobyov as a middle-heavyweight.

Rahnavardi was secretary general of the Iranian Olympic Committee for five years, served in Parliament for three years and was Governor of Yazd province before the revolution.

He died of natural causes on September 5.