Golbarnezhad was 48 years old.
The Paralympics turned tragic on Saturday, when Iranian cyclist Bahman Golbarnezhad passed away after suffering from cardiac arrest following an incident in a mountainous stretch of the course in Rio, BBC Sports reports.
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Golbarnezhad was rushed to a local hospital, but was unable to recover. He was 48.
"He had been cycling for 12 years and he was our best cyclist. He was married and has a wife and one son,” Masoud Ashrafi, the secretary general of Iran’s National Paralympics Committee, said in a statement to BBC. "He was the kind of man who was a family man. He loved his family."
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Golbarnezhad’s death marks the first Paralympics or summer Olympics fatality since the 1960 games. The circumstances surrounding his death are still being investigated.
A moment of silence will be observed on Sunday at the games’ closing ceremonies.