Table Tennis ITTF Oceanian Championships 2022

It seems to me that the entire province in Iran is religious, and hence the legitimacy of this regime, but even Tehran itself (in theory, the most educated and progressive people) is not inclined to turn out 1-2 million to overthrow the current regime. The Shah never had this legitimacy. The same is true in Afghanistan, where the Taliban has real and big public support, even though it's relegating these people to the Middle Ages. It's a strange world

that happened to so many people. Khomeini at the time of revolution had probably something like 90% support. maybe even more (which I still can't understand how and why)   he was supposed to be someone like Pope, stay in the holy city of Qom and do not interfere with the government.  of course that didn't happen and some people slowly started to realize the catastrophe. but make no mistake Khomeini was still extremely popular until his death.   there is a famous thing about Khomeini, when he landed in Iran with Air France 10 days before the revolution, lots of high profile people (exiled by Shah's regime) accompanied him inside the plane. none of them are with the regime anymore. they are either killed by MEK terrorists, killed or jailed by Khomeini himself or fled the country later. 

Hungary is simply much better than Italy (it is clear that Orban has been investing much in sports, because they are strong despite their small population) – we haven't beaten them in 20 years or more. A window of opportunity arose when Hungary unexpectedly lost to Slovakia, and we could have advanced, but we didn't capitalize on it. Because of the loss to Slovakia, Hungary won't finish first. However, Italy certainly didn't deserve to advance, since they lost to both Hungary and Slovakia. Our form was simply poor and our best player- Fantin, was out with injured. However, that doesn't change the fact that with seven or eight Canadian players of Fortino caliber, we should have played much better here.

Fantin's injury didn't help, but the fact that the Canadian head coach didn't even show up at the tournament shows certain priorities – only the Olympics were important, and the project will soon be over. I`, sure that half of our Canadian players won't be playing for the Italian national team in a next year. France will qualify, because I don't believe they won't beat Slovakia tomorrow. Congratulations to France for having a long-term vision for this sport, not just for a single home event.

2-3 against Hungary. Big disappointment. Unfortunately, it seems our good form was only to the Olympics and no at the World Championships were crucial for us. We had a big chance against France, because I expected a loss against Hungary. It's also fair to say that Hungary and France, relying primarily on their own athletes and have been better than Italy for many years and even bringing in 7-8 North American athletes didn't help us. Unfortunately, despite advancing to the top 8 for the Olympics, the Italian project will last even shorter than China, as they at least advanced to the elite group. In a year, I suspect we'll be fighting relegation against the Netherlands. In reality, that 8th place at the Olympics means nothing anymore, and in a 1 month, no one will remember it. Even the young girls from Slovakia played better here than us, where there isn't even a single Canadian player. If we finish in 4th place, it will be only 2 positions better than in 2019 - when we had a very weak team.