What happens if Olympic athletes refuse their medal

Despite going through the gruelling highs and lows of training just to get an Olympic Games, some athletes are known to have rejected success after winning a medal at the legendary sporting festival.

Achieving gold, silver, or bronze at any summer games is generally seen as a career high for any athlete across the 32 sports that are currently being played at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Obviously, gold is the dream for the more than 10,000 competitors staying in the Olympic Village - but not everyone can achieve that.

Ibragim Samadov is one of two athletes to refuse his Olympic medal (YouTube)

Silver or bronze? Still a prize that everyone would bite your hand off to secure.

However, not everyone it seems.

While some who get second or third place show incredible sportsmanship against fierce rivals, others have actively shown attitudes that flirt with the very opposite.

For this, we have to go back to the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and the weightlifting.

During the hotly contested men's competition, weightlifter Ibragim Samadov claimed bronze while representing the Unified Team of the former Soviet Union (EUN) in the light heavyweight category.

Samadov was one of the favourites heading in to the competition given that he had previously won gold at the World Weightlifting Championships in 1991.

Despite lifting the same as first and second, Ibragim Samadov placed third due to weighing slightly more than the other two (YouTube)

After three individuals were tied with the weights they lifted, judges were forced to act and Samadov ended up being dropped to bronze because he weighed .05 kilograms heavier.

That's 50 grams; less than a portion of pasta you might cook yourself for lunch.

Samadov was furious with the ruling, and during the medal ceremony, he refused to lean in so the medal could be place around his neck.

Going against protocol, the EUN athlete accepted it in his hand. But he quickly dropped it on the podium and walking off to a chorus of boos.

Samadov was then disqualified and hit with a lifetime ban by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

The suspension was upheld despite an apology, which means he is ineligible for the Weightlifting Hall of Fame despite his successes.

Fast-forward to the 2008 Beijing OIympics and Samadov's antics were replicated by Swedish wrestler Ara Abrahamian, who'd lost to Italian Andrea Minguzzi in the semi final of the 84kg weight class of the Greco-Roman wrestling event.

Swedish wrestler Ara Abrahamian rejected his medal (PETER PARKS/AFP via Getty Images)

The Swede claimed there had been 'blatant errors in judging'. He and his coach even went as far as accusing the officials of corruption.

Having won silver in the 2004 Athens Olympics, Abrahamian secured bronze in 2008, but the victory did not delight him at all.

Although he shook hands and accepted the medal, he quickly removed it before exiting the podium and putting the medal on the competition mat at his feet.

The IOC promptly disqualified and banned him for life following a hearing, with the medal rendered obsolete.

At the time, IOC said in a statement: "The awards ceremony is a highly symbolic ritual, acknowledged as such by all athletes and other participants.

"Any disruption by any athlete, in particular a medalist, is in itself an insult to the other athletes and to the Olympic Movement. It is also contrary to the spirit of fair play."

The bronze medal was not reallocated, but the IOC did reverse the lifetime ban in 2009 - despite Abrahamian already having retired from wrestling.