Here’s why a Kuwaiti athlete’s gold medal ceremony was set to the Olympic anthem and not Kuwait’s

Fehaid Al-Deehani of Kuwait won Olympic gold Wednesday in the men’s double trap shooting competition. But instead of the Kuwaiti flag, the Olympic flag was raised at the medal ceremony, and instead of the national anthem of Kuwait, the Olympic Anthem was played.

Al-Deehani is one of nine Kuwaitis competing in Rio de Janeiro as an Independent Olympic Athlete. Since 1992, athletes have participated under the Olympic flag for various reasons. On Wednesday, Al-Deehani became the first ever to win gold, and therefore the first to queue the Olympic song.

Kuwait’s Olympic committee has been suspended by the IOC since last August. The reason is that Kuwait’s government has supposedly passed legislation allowing the government to interfere in elections of various Kuwaiti sport federations, which is one of the IOC’s biggest no-nos. The same legislation has caused FIFA to suspend Kuwait’s soccer federation. Kuwait’s Olympic Committee was suspended by the IOC in 2010 as well, forcing athletes to participate under the Olympic flag at the 2010 Asian games, but the ban was lifted by the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

Al-Deehani has been one of the world’s best shooters for a while, winning bronze medals for Kuwait in 2000 in Sydney and again in 2012. But this is his greatest accomplishment, and probably the greatest accomplishment in the sporting history of Kuwait, a country that has never won an Olympic gold. And it didn’t happen under a Kuwaiti flag.

Make no mistake. Technically, this medal was won for the International Olympic Athletes, but Al-Deehani’s win was a win for Kuwait. Sports are played by people, and Al-Deehani, an officer in Kuwait’s military, is a proud Kuwaiti man. He carried the Kuwaiti flag in the 2012 Olympics, and was asked to carry the Olympic flag -- but refused, saying he would only carry Kuwait’s.

Sports are generally best when they’re decided by people, not governments, Olympic committees or massive intercontinental bureaucracies. Al-Deehani’s win is a reminder of that. The IOC probably feels it’s protecting the spirit of that by banning Kuwait, but the Kuwaiti government feels exactly the opposite. They will keep bickering, possibly for a while. But they can’t stop Al-Deehani or the people of Kuwait from celebrating his accomplishment, and hopefully they will.

1992 was the first year an athlete competed as an Independent Olympic Athletes, as Yugoslavian and Macedonian competitors participated under the Olympic flag due to the rapidly changing political situations in the Balkans at the time. In 2000, athletes from East Timor were independent, as their country had not yet formed a federation. In 2012, athletes from the recently dissolved Netherlands Antilles and one athlete from newly formed South Sudan played under the flag. And in 2014, three Indian athletes participated in the Winter Olympics as Independent Athletes due to that country’s suspension from the IOC.