2008 Olympic Champion Naidan Tüvshinbayar sentenced to 16 years

Olympic champion and former Mongolian National Olympic Committee President Naidan Tüvshinbayar has been sentenced to 16 years in jail for murder. A court in the Khan-Uul district of Ulaanbaatar jailed Tüvshinbayar for the killing of a childhood friend after a year-long trial that rocked the nation.

Tüvshinbayar attacked fellow judoka Erdenebileg Enkhbat allegedly under the influence of alcohol on April 2 2021, with a heavy object, leaving him hospitalised with brain injuries which caused Enkhbat's death shortly after. Tüvshinbayar was jailed for 20 days before murder charges were filed.

Now 38, Tüvshinbayar won the men’s U100kg judo gold medal at Beijing 2008. The gold medal was Mongolia's first at an Olympic Games. He followed it up with a silver at London 2012. He took world bronze in Budapest in 2017.

Tüvshinbayar also served as the MNOC President, being elected to the role in August 2020 and replacing Demchigjav Zagdsuren, who had held the post for 19 years.

In April 2021, Tüvshinbayar resigned from the post after being jailed for 20 days.

Tüvshinbayar was also popular among politicians and was a campaign promoter of the Democratic Party’s successful Presidential candidate Khaltmaagiin Battulga, a former sambo world champion, who served as President of Mongolia from 2017 to 2021.

Enkhbat had won a silver medal in the men’s U100kg category at the IJF Grand Slam in Baku in Azerbaijan in 2013 and a gold in the same category at the IJF World Cup in Jeju in South Korea in 2012.