Iran National Thread

[Dragon 2,059]

The greatest day in the history of Iranian snooker as Hossein Vafaei defeats former world finalist Judd Trump to reach the semi-finals of the China Open

[MHSN 3,785]

We talked about the circus in our weightlifting before and another chapter of that just started !

 

I think people read about the story after the 2002 Olympics, when 5 Olympic medalists tried to change the coach and they finally managed to do that ! after testing few coaches , finally Sajjad Anourshiravani (one of those 5 weightlifters, now retired) became the coach and led the team into the Rio Olympics, on paper his result was good by winning two gold medals but we know he had nothing really to do with those gold medals. Moradi had no competition and he could win the gold with any other coach and Rostami, he trained by himself !

 

few months before the Rio (when Iran NT had no coach) Rostami claimed he wants to train by himself , on his own methods and separately from the rest of the team. things like that are quite unusual in Iran, our federation eventually let him do that mostly because they couldn't risk losing a possible gold medal, but they were saying they will fix that after the Olympics. he went to Rio and won the gold and broke the world record. After Rio they said that's enough and now he has to join the NT, but he said no, he didn't show up in the NT camp, even somehow indirectly threatening to leave Iran and compete for another country ! (which is not really possible) hey wasted few months to finally announce that they will let him train individually !

 

now this made the coach angry and Anoushiravani and his assistant Nasirshalal (another member of that 5-masketeer team) both resigned cuz they found it "disrespectful " !!! this is really funny because these two guys were fully supporting Rostami and Salimi when they were trying to change the previous coach. both of them didn't continue their career, still they didn't say that and came to defend their "teammates" to get rid of the coach who gave them everything ! now they are the coaches and the same guy got them being kicked out ! What goes around comes around

 

now few months before the WCh, the whole team is in disastrous situation, we could have our best ever team this year with 4 former Olympic champions plus couple more world class weightlifters but Mr Rostami ruined everything as he usually does ! He is a great weightlifter, (winning the 2016 IWF weightlifter of the year award) but a terrible person 

 

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on another news, Iran officially started the women's weightlifting, the Iranian WL federaton already told to their committees around Iran to start women's weightlifting, even though for now they are more focused on education and training the coaches, but probably in few years when they reach the certain level we will see Iranian women in international competitions. at least that's what I hope for.

Edited June 26, 2017 by MHSN

[heywoodu 16,142]

Out of curiousity, why is Rostami considered the bad guy in this situation? If he so desperately wants to train on his own, what's so horribly wrong with that even though it might be unusual? To an outsider like me it sounds more like those coaches are being babies who can't handle someone not training with the team  

[MHSN 3,785]

7 hours ago, heywoodu said:

Out of curiousity, why is Rostami considered the bad guy in this situation? If he so desperately wants to train on his own, what's so horribly wrong with that even though it might be unusual? To an outsider like me it sounds more like those coaches are being babies who can't handle someone not training with the team  

 

well countries have different culture I guess but in Iran we never ever had an athlete training individually in sports like this, they do that before the national trials but whoever wins the trials and gets invited to the national camp have to go to the camp, otherwise he is out. I can't remember any other example.

 

Coach says what if next time Moradi or Salimi and the rest also want to train on their own ? no national team will remain !

 

beside that Weightlifting is a unique sport,  when they are in the camp, officials control everything they eat and drink. we had a bad reputation for doping. they don't want another problem with IWF. even though Rostami signed something to takes responsibility for that and will be under doping tests several times.

 

and Rostami is a jerk, right couple minutes after his Rio gold medal he talked to the media (I guess that was even published in English) the first thing he said that "I trained alone, without a coach, blah blah" most people who don't follow sports took it as someone kicked him out of the NT and he had no support, I read so many comments like this "poor guy they didn't support him"

[MHSN 3,785]

I noticed I didn't update this thread for a LONG LONG time. almost a year ago, from now I'm going to give weekly updates about important sport news about Iran. in next few months most news about Iran will be about the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta.

 

* Iran national Handball team has a new coach Zoran Kastratovic from Montenegro (also Macedonia) they had to change the coach after the disastrous Asian Championship in South Korea. they had high hopes to even win the gold but finished 5th instead and missed the World Championship once again, as I always say our handball never fails to disappoint ! Kastratovic will coach Iran at the Asian Games. it's not clear if we can have all of our foreign based players or not for that tournament.

 

* Zlatko Kranjcar from Croatia is the new head coach of Iran U23 Football team. he didn't sign anything yet but that's a done deal. he was supposed to take this job 4 years ago for 2016 Olympics qualifier but the sport ministry rejected that idea because they claim he is usually "drunk" !! (Kranjcar was coaching Iranian clubs for a while)

 

* Iran finished 2nd in second division of World Team Table Tennis Championship and promoted to the first division for the first time ever. After humiliating defeat to Kazakhstan in 1st round they just woke up and beat USA, Spain, Luxembourg, Netherlands and Ukraine before losing the final to Hungary 3-2. Noshad Alamian was the key player for Iran he also improved his World Ranking and is now #59 in the world.

 

* During the Asian Mountain Bike Cycling Championship in the Philippines, Iran won two medals in Cross-Country events for the first time ever. Faraz Shokri won the men's silver and Faranak Partoazar won bronze in women's elite Cross-Country. if I'm not wrong Partoazar had won a bronze medal in a mixed relay CC team event before but if we don't consider that this bronze medal is the first ever medal for Iranian women in Asian Cycling Championship in senior level.

 

* We will have the Iranian national team trials in Wrestling starting from tomorrow, this is most important wrestling competition in Iran and very important to determine the national team members for the Asian Games and the World Championship. but most of Iranian top wrestlers (2016 Olympic medalists) already withdrew from the competition for different reasons mostly injuries. last year Iran won only and only one medal in freestyle and the situation doesn't look any better this year specially in freestyle.

 

* We are getting close to the Asian Games, the Iran NOC announced the list of sports for Iran to participate. this is a very long list Iran will participate in most of the sports . almost all of them except Badminton, Baseball (softball), Golf, Bridge, Hockey, Jet Ski, Paragliding, Modern Pentathlon, Rugby, Soft Tennis and Synchro Swimming. this is interesting that Iran is going to send athletes in Tennis ! Iran just relegated to the 3rd division of Davis Cup and Iranian players won't last even one round in the draw ! another interesting sport is Equestrian, apparently that lucky bronze at the AIMAG in Turkmenistan gave them a wrong idea about our level in this sport. and surprisingly Iran is going to send riders (male and female) to all 3 events ! I didn't even know we have Dressage and Eventing in Iran !

[MHSN 3,785]

Iran NOC announced the complete list of sports and number of athletes they are going to send to the 2018 Asian Games.

 

they list this by national federations for example we have the same federation for Canoeing, Rowing and Sailing or one federation for "other" martial arts sports (which doesn't have separate federations) and one for "other sports" they call it IFSA.

 

some federations are already upset about their quotas. for example Cycling wants more after their recent success at the Asian MTB Champs or in Gymnastics they said they will either send a full team or nobody ! but here is the list. more or less the final list.

 

in most sports ,they only send athletes who are capable of fighting for medals. they made some exceptions for few like Badminton, Tennis and Swimming and also they were less strict for female athletes as they want to develop women's program on those sports.

 

I checked it with our 2014 delegation, we are sending all 24 sports we sent to Incheon 2014 plus few more. beside "new sports" we are going back in Water Polo and Equestrian after 12 years. in Squash after 1998. Triathlon is the only debutant from existing sports !!

 

1. Cycling (Road, Track and MTB): 9M + 2W

2. Shooting: 8M + 10W

3. Canoeing, Rowing and Sailing: 21M + 16W

4. Aquatics

4.1. Swimming: 5M

4.2. Water Polo: 13M

4.3. Diving: 2M

5. Athletics: 8M + 2W

6. Equestrian

6.1. Dressage: 4 (gender TBD)

6.2. Jumping: 4 (gender TBD)

7. Judo

7.1. Judo: 3M + 2W

7.2. Kurash: 6M + 6W

7.3. Jujitsu: 8M + 2W

8. Gymnastics Artistic: 2M

9. IFSA (Sepaktakraw): 12M

10. Archery

10.1. Recurve: 4M + 1W

10.2. Compound: 4M + 4W

11. Football: 20M

12. Table Tennis: 4M + 4W

13. Boxing: 3M

14. Martial Arts

14.1. Pencak Silat: 4M + 4W

14.2. Sambo: 2M + 2W

15. Sport Climbing: 4M + 4W

16. Wrestling

16.1. Freestyle: 6M

16.2. Greco-Roman: 6M

17. Weightlifting: 7M

18. Taekwondo: 9M + 9W

19. Karate: 4M + 4W

20. Wushu

20.1. Taolo: 4W

20.2. Sanda: 3M + 2W

21. Basketball

21.1. Basketball: 12M

21.2. 3x3 Basketball: 4M + 4W

22. Kabaddi: 12M + 12W

23. Fencing

23.1. Sabre: 4M

23.2. Epee: 3M

24. Volleyball

24.1. Indoor: 14M

24.2. Beach: 4M

25. Handball: 16M

26. Squash: 3M + 2W

27. Triathlon: 1W

28. Tennis: 3M + 3W

29. Badminton: 1M + 1W

30. Paragliding: 2M + 1W

 

TOTAL: 392 men + 136 women + 8 riders (gender TBD) = 536

Edited May 10, 2018 by MHSN

[MHSN 3,785]

my weekly news

 

* We had the Asian Cadet Wrestling Championship last weekend, Iran won the team title in both Freestyle and Greco competitions. in Greco Iran won 4 Gold. 1 Silver and 2 Bronze medals while in Freestyle Iran was even better with 6 golds and 2 bronze medals. and most importantly they won all possible quotas for the Youth Olympics, maximum two in each style.

 

* Iran won the Asian Women's Futsal Championship trophy for the 2nd time in a row. they had a good draw and easily advanced to the final but beating Japan in the final 5-2 was a very good result. with this result Iran apparently qualified a girls futsal team for the Youth Olympics but looks like only one futsal team can go to the competition. and Iran will pick the boys team which is much stronger.

 

* Mojtaba Abdeini won a bronze medal in Moscow Grand Prix in Sabre Fencing. which is his second individual medal at a Grand Prix. with this medal he is back to the top 16 in World Ranking, alongside our other fencer Ali Pakdaman

 

* The most important event of the week was the Iran Wrestling team trials. UWW website had a long report about this, I don't need to post results here

https://unitedworldwrestling.org/article/hassan-yazdani-wins-iran-team-trials-abdevali-disqualified

I'm really disappointed with the results and level of the competition, so many big names missed the trials and based on the new announcement all of them will miss the Asian Games and the World Championship. there won't be a second chance for anybody. as mentioned in the article, the biggest news was Abdevali's disqualification, World Champion and Olympic bronze medalist had a fight in his second bout , got disqualified and today they banned him for six months.

[MHSN 3,785]

Due to current economical situation in Iran (the collapse of Rial) the sport ministry ordered all Sports federation to cancel all their abroad camps or competitions unless it's highly necessary I expect most foreign coaches to leave Iran after the Asian Games. the Iranian federations have to pay them twice of what they had to pay two months ago !

[MHSN 3,785]

This is the final list of Iranian athletes for the 2018 Asian Games, 378 athletes in total. 280 male and 98 female

 

	M	W	Total
Aquatics - Swimming	4		4
Aquatics - Diving	2		2
Aquatics - Water Polo	13		13
Archery	8	5	13
Athletics	10	2	12
Basketball	12		12
Basketball 3x3	4	4	8
Boxing	3		3
Canoeing - Sprint	11	6	17
Canoeing - Slalom	2	2	4
Cycling - Track	6	1	7
Cycling - Road	4	1	5
Cycling - Mountain Bike	3	1	4
Equestrian	5	1	6
Fencing	7	4	11
Football	20		20
Gymnastics - Artistic	4		4
Handball	16		16
Judo	4	2	6
Kabaddi	12	12	24
Karate	4	4	8
Martial Arts - Jujitsu	8	2	10
Martial Arts - Kurash	8	4	12
Martial Arts - Pencak Silat	6	3	9
Martial Arts - Sambo	2	2	4
Martial Arts - Wushu	4	5	9
Paragliding	3		3
Rowing	9	6	15
Sailing	2		2
Sepak Takraw	12		12
Shooting	10	9	19
Sport Climbing	4	4	8
Squash	2	3	5
Table Tennis	4	4	8
Taekwondo	8	8	16
Tennis	3	3	6
Triathlon	1		1
Volleyball - Indoor	14		14
Volleyball - Beach	4		4
Weightlifting	8		8
Wrestling	12		12
TOTAL	280	98	378

 

[Monzanator 4,828]

From volleyball: Milad Ebadipour has extended his contract with PGA Skra Belchatow and will remain with the team in the 2018/19 season.