Iran National Thread

[ledon 13]

I would like to post a little review about our performance in Rio.

 

Top performances:

1. Hassan Yazdani (wrestling):

I was excepting a medal from him, but not gold. The way he came back in the final was superb.

 

2. Kianoush Rostami (weightlifting): 

He had to break WR for this gold medal and he kept his nerves.

 

3. Mojtaba Abedini  (Fencing): We knew he was able to get a medal in Rio, but it is a different thing to actually perform like this in the Olympics. Sadly he lost the semifinal 15-14, but I believe Fencing is now much more popular in Iran.

 

4. Kimia Alizadeh (Taekwondo):

She could also be Nr. 1 in this List. Considering that she is the first iranian Women to win an olympic medal and her great Comeback on that Repechage match.

 

5. Komeil Ghasemi  (wrestling):

One of the few athletes who overperformed in Rio. Good for him.

 

Edited August 23, 2016 by ledon

[ledon 13]

Worst performance:

1. Farzan Ashourzadeh (Taekwondo):

I like this kid and he has a great future, but the way he lost his match in the first round was beyond stupid. 

 

2. Bashir Babajanzadeh (wrestling):

Didn't except anything from Babajanzadeh, but if you are in the Olympics you should at least try to win the match. Another iranian Sabah Shariati won the bronze medal in the same weight category for Azerbadischan!

 

3. Meissam Nassiri (wrestling):

Loosing in the first round against an average wrestler.

 

4. Alireza Karimi (wrestling): He is very talented, but since World Cup it was clear that he was not in good shape. Maybe I am wrong but I have the feeling that Jokar would have destroyed this American guy.

 

Actually you can add many athletes in this list like Ehsan Haddadi, Ehsan Rouzbehani, Javad Mahjoub etc. We had so many bad performances in this olympics. 

[Govind 9]

  On 8/23/2016 at 8:38 AM, ledon said:

We still got 5 medals in wrestling. That is not bad at all. You can hardly compare asian level with world level. Plus at least two of our wrestlers Reza Yazdani and Omid Nourouzi got robbed. I am much more disappointed with Taekwondo. 

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Past 3 Olympics.. Iran end us with only one medal in Taekwondo.. but No gold at Wrestling is bit disappointment .. Actually I follow more closely IRAN in Olympics and Asian games after India..

 

You lifter Kianoush Rostami is awesome.. I saw the match during Olympics..

 

Between I read the story of your flag bearer .. Mind Blowing ..

[MHSN 3,661]

  On 9/1/2016 at 8:37 PM, Govind said:

 

Past 3 Olympics.. Iran end us with only one medal in Taekwondo.. but No gold at Wrestling is bit disappointment .. Actually I follow more closely IRAN in Olympics and Asian games after India..

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Actually we won a gold this time in freestyle wrestling after 16 years.

 

as for Taekwondo, Iran won two medals in 2004 , in fact winning 1 medal out of 2 athletes in 2008 and 2012 wasn't also a bad result even though we always expect 100% medals in taekwondo. but this time because of new rules we had 3 athletes. two of them clear favorite for the gold but we ended up with nothing , for the first time ever our male taekwondo team finished empty-handed.

 

PS: we judge our men's team and women's team separately, as they have separate coaches and separate preparation system. Alizadeh won a bronze this time, but this has nothing to do with complete failure of our men's team.

[ledon 13]

  On 9/1/2016 at 8:37 PM, Govind said:

 

Past 3 Olympics.. Iran end us with only one medal in Taekwondo.. but No gold at Wrestling is bit disappointment .. Actually I follow more closely IRAN in Olympics and Asian games after India..

 

You lifter Kianoush Rostami is awesome.. I saw the match during Olympics..

 

Between I read the story of your flag bearer .. Mind Blowing ..

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Thank you! I am also following Indian sport results very closely. BTW what happened with your freestyle wrestling? I remember in 2012 two of our medal contenders lost against Amt Kumar and Yogeshwar Dutt. 

 

Actually we won one gold in Rio in wrestling (Hassan Yazdani). Freestyle wrestling results were ok in Rio. We got better results compared to London. GR wrestling results were disappointing this time. We had 3 gold medals in London, but tbh I knew we couldn't repeat these results in Rio.

 

But Taekwondo was the biggest Disappointment. We won 3 gold medals in last year WCH . Our men also dominated the asian games. I was excepting 2 gold medals for Rio. You have to keep in mind that we could have only two athletes qualifying per gender before Rio and our Women weren't medal contender before Rio. But this time we had 4 athletes and all were good enough to win the gold medal. Two of them were favourites for the gold (khodabakhshi and Ashourzadeh).

[Govind 9]

  On 9/1/2016 at 9:44 PM, ledon said:

Thank you! I am also following Indian sport results very closely. BTW what happened with your freestyle wrestling? I remember in 2012 two of our medal contenders lost against Amt Kumar and Yogeshwar Dutt. 

 

Actually we won one gold in Rio in wrestling (Hassan Yazdani). Freestyle wrestling results were ok in Rio. We got better results compared to London. GR wrestling results were disappointing this time. We had 3 gold medals in London, but tbh I knew we couldn't repeat these results in Rio.

 

But Taekwondo was the biggest Disappointment. We won 3 gold medals in last year WCH . Our men also dominated the asian games. I was excepting 2 gold medals for Rio. You have to keep in mind that we could have only two athletes qualifying per gender before Rio and our Women weren't medal contender before Rio. But this time we had 4 athletes and all were good enough to win the gold medal. Two of them were favourites for the gold (khodabakhshi and Ashourzadeh).

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Nice.. that I got reply from @MHSN and you at Same time... Now I understood your pain on Taekwondo.

 

Am I missed something.. Yesterday WIKI link doesn't reflect your Wrestling gold ..  .. Happy for your guys..

 

Yes its big disappointment for too in Wrestling .. After Narasingh mess....Yogeshwar lost in first round and Amit Kumar met with Injury before Qualification.. Men's Wrestling given big pain to us. Atleast happy that we got medal from Sakshi Malik in Women's freestyle wrestling after our medal hope in Women's team Vinesh exit in second round due to Injury..

 

But biggest disappointment is in Shooting for us where we send 14 people .. but return with empty handed... 2008 Gold medalist Abhinav finished 4th .. Consistent player Jitu Rai fails to qualify to finals in his pet event.. lot many stories .. But unfortunately every one in 14 member team has potential to win medal

 

Hope our federation will put the things right and focus for Tokyo 2020....Seriously we have good young talents in Archery, Badminton, Shooting, Boxing and Wrestling, Mens Hockey .. Yes ofcourse ... we rarely play other sports other than Cricket

[konig 1,510]

will we see an iranian song in the contest? http://totallympics.com/index.php?/topic/346-totallympics-open-international-song-contest-2016/

[hckošice 15,122]

Interesting reading about the very first historic Ice Hockey team of Iran. Team is in preparations for historic debut at winter asian games.

 

 

and the team even won their first ever match abroad against Kazakhstans club HC Almaty http://www.eurohockey.com/article/4650-iran-national-hockey-team-wins-first-ever-hockey-game.html

 

 

  

[hckošice 15,122]

Iran’s start in hockey

Middle East country gets first experiences

Iranian players during a friendly game with participants of the 2017 Asian Winter Games in Sapporo.

 

During the Asian Winter Games, Iran got its first experiences in ice hockey. While not having enough players to compete, they were welcomed by the Asian hockey family by playing four friendly games with and against players from other teams in Sapporo.

 

Iran didn’t officially participate in the ice hockey tournaments of the 2017 Asian Winter Games but collected first experiences in friendly games with countries participating in the men’s Division II tournament.

It was about one year ago when IIHF.com wrote about the interest of the vast country to start an ice hockey program with representatives reaching out during the 2016 Winter Youth Olympic Games about possibilities to join the International Ice Hockey Federation. Since then first steps were taken with the program such as bringing players of the national inline hockey team to the ice last summer in Asiago, Italy, after an inline hockey tournament.

At the Youth Olympics, Iran had two athletes – a male and a female skier. While snow sports have been practised for a long time in the country with mountain resorts, Iran wants to take steps to make ice sports more popular as three small-size ice rinks were opened in the last few years in the capital of Tehran, the second-biggest city of Mashhad and on the island of Kish.

“We’d really love to join the big ice hockey family. I hope we can become members and participate in ice hockey competitions in Asia. Iran is a huge country in Asia, we have a population of almost 80 million. Iran can be a really great destination for ice hockey. That’s why we want to work with the IIHF to have a vision for ice hockey in Iran,” Nasser Talebi, Chef de Mission of the Iranian team at the Youth Olympics, said one year ago and also mentioned the 12,000-seat multifunctional Azadi Indoor Stadium that was built for the 1974 Asian Games and could potentially be used for international ice hockey events.

While not everybody may think about ice hockey in Iran at first due to the hot summers, it can be said that some areas of Iran have cold winters too. Winters in Tehran tend to be slightly colder than in Hamburg in northern Germany and the winter temperatures in Mashhad resemble the ones of Stockholm. That’s also where one of the most famous hockey players of Iranian descent, the Ottawa Senators’ Swedish national team forward Mika Zibanejad, grew up.

“We have had skiing in Iran for 70 years so it’s time to also develop other winter sports. Iran is a huge country, we have cities that have -25°C now and others that have +25°C now. We can have summer and winter sports at the same time,” Talebi said. “We don’t have a championship yet but we have around 100 to 120 players, men and women, and it’s a new policy of Iran to improve winter sports, especially Olympic sports.”

The National Olympic Committee planned its international ice hockey debut at the 2017 Asian Winter Games that ended on Sunday, assembled players from Iran and recruited players with Iranian roots from abroad. That’s where the problems began. Despite being warned about the eligibility rules of the Olympic Council of Asia, which governs the Asian Winter Games, the Iranian delegation travelled to Sapporo with many players from abroad who have neither played nor lived in Iran and are citizens of two countries. The Iranians hoped to be granted an exception to compete in the Division II tournament but were treated by the same rules. In the end only eight players were eligible to participate – too few to play the tournament.

Luckily for the Iranians the ice hockey family got together and welcomed the remaining players with open arms. After discussions with the organizer in Sapporo, the scheduled games happened as friendly games and with some improvisation. The eight players were boosted by players from the other teams and the games were played without body-checking to make the start easy and do the best to avoid injuries for the new players and the other teams competing in the Division II event.

Like that the Iranian players had the chance to play with and against players from Macau, Indonesia, Malaysia and Turkmenistan. It wasn’t the planned official debut yet but still a happy ending and an opportunity to get first experiences in ice hockey games for the players who usually rather put on inline skates. And hopefully it will be the start of something bigger once ice hockey grows in Iran.

 

[MHSN 3,661]

Only few hours away from the Iranian new year of 1396, peopled voted in a TV program about the best Iranian athletes of 1395 year. this is not a very popular vote but  there is no other one

 

Men

1. Hassan Yazdani (Wrestling) - 2016 Olympics Gold medal

2. National Futsal team - 2016 World Cup Bronze medal

3. Kianoush Rostami (Weightlifting) - 2016 Olympics Gold medal - Set 3 new world records

4. Siamand Rahman (Paralympic Powerlifting) - 2016 Paralympics Gold medal - Set a new world record

5. Mojtaba Abedini (Fencing) - 2016 Olympics 4th place

6. Komeil Ghasemi (Wrestling) - 2016 Olympics Silver medal

7. Sohrab Moradi (Weightlifting) - 2016 Olympics Gold medal

 

Women

1. Kimia Alizadeh (Taekwondo) - 2016 Olympics Bronze medal (first Iranian women to win an Olympic medal)

2. Zahra Nemati (Paralympic Archery) - 2016 Paralympics Gold and Silver medals - 2016 Olympics participants and the flag bearer

3. Sara Khademalsharieh (Chess) - World Grand Prix 2nd place

4. Mansourian sisters ! (Wushu)  - ??? (I don't know why they are even nominated !)

5. Hamideh Abbasali (Karate) - 2016 World Championships Bronze medal

6. Sareh Javanmardi (Paralympic Shooting) - 2016 Paralympics two Gold medals

7. Elaheh Ahmadi (Shooting) - 2016 Olympics 6th place

 

As someone who knows almost everything about Iranian sport, I'm only fine with #1 for both genders. even though having some random athletes in women's ranking is not surprising since Iran usually have limited achievement here. for example Sara Khadem is here in this list only because of that bogus fair play story.

good too see people didn't forget Abedini and despite his 4th place finish still rank him above some Olympic medalists. he was just one touch away from the Olympic final and a historical medal.

Edited March 20, 2017 by MHSN