At the
2010 World Weightlifting Championships Salimi won the gold medal in the +105kg category. Salimi won gold again in the +105kg category at the
2010 Asian Games with a 205kg
snatch and a 235kg
clean and jerk. Salimi won the gold medal at the
2011 World Weightlifting Championships in
Paris, France on 13 November 2011 and set a new snatch world record of 214kg. Salimi became the 2012 Olympic gold medalist in the
+105kg category on 7 August 2012 with a 208kg snatch and a 247kg clean and jerk for a total of 455kg. Despite a torn
ACL, total knee re-construction and over two years out of the game, Behdad Salimi returned to weightlifting in 2016 to compete in the Fajr Cup, held in
Tehran, Iran and won gold. At the
Rio 2016 Olympics, he broke the world record snatch set moments before by
Lasha Talakhadze, making 216kg, in the clean and jerk he initially completed a lift of 245kg which was approved by 2 of the three judges before being disqualified by the 5 member jury. Iran’s National Olympics Committee filed an application to the
CAS. The
International Weightlifting Federation website was hacked the next morning and its Instagram page flooded with over 285,000 comments.
Leaving National Team After
2012 London Olympic games he and other Olympic medalists of Iran protested against Iran's national weightlifting team head coach
Kourosh Bagheri for using offensive language in training and declined to attend national team exercises. As a result of a heavy argument on a live TV debate between Salimi and
Kourosh Bagheri, the Iranian Weightlifting Federation dismissed Salimi and other weightlifters and did not invite any of the London medalists for the
2013 Asian Weightlifting Championships and
2013 World Weightlifting Championships.
Retirement After winning his third gold medal at the
2018 Asian Games, with a total of 461kg, Salimi announced his retirement from the sport. ==Major results==