Wrestling UWW European Championships 2020

[MHSN 3,616]

32 minutes ago, phelps said:

 

no, you're not the only one...

until today, I've been watching all finals session (even if only delayed, therefore I'm not commenting that much nor posting medallists regularly) and a few preliminaries as well...

 

then, today was a really bad day for me for personal reasons, so unfortunately I couldn't watch anything...

 

I must say that the empty hall is really depressing, but still we've seen quite a few decent and entertaining bouts, despite most big names are not competing...

 

p.s. just noticing the difference between a wrestling Nation like KAZ and ITA...

look at the draw in the men's freestyle -74kg...Chamizo vs Demirtas and then the winner against Gadzhiyev...

or the -57kg always in freestyle: Davidovi vs Dukov and then the Romanian against Atli...

in certain Countries (KAZ is only one of them) it would have never happened...

 

 

I hope everything is fine now, I also had some bad days this week and had been busy with that, only today I was available to watch the preliminary rounds in the morning/afternoon.

 

speaking of empty hall, I was curious what was the TV coverage about it in Italy ? I know you have several sport TV channels , I wonder if it was live coverage for the finals in any of them ? (I remember I watched one night of finals on Rai Sport but that was just once)

 

and about the draw, obviously you are not Kazakhstan there is a reason why I never want them to host wrestling competitions. 2019 Worlds draw was a huge scandal, in any other sport it could be a big news but this is a shame wrestling is not a major sport and I understand major news websites need more evidences to publish something. I analyzed the brackets and I have solid reasons to believe it was fixed. (the same as 2018, for Hungary in Greco-Roman) if you look at brackets in different weights, you see some countries exactly in the same place in the draw in several weights, 9 out of 10 Kazakh freestyle wrestlers received dream draw, even if we don't consider all those facts, that can't be just an accident.

 

but UWW published something about changing the draw software and the whole draw process few weeks ago, so let's hope there are some better guys in UWW and they are fighting against this corruption, of course I don't expect them to make it public, I will be glad if they just don't let it happen again. specially for Olympic qualification tournaments.

Edited February 14, 2020 by MHSN

[phelps 7,669]

25 minutes ago, MHSN said:

 

I hope everything is fine now, I also had some bad days this week and had been busy with that, only today I was available to watch the preliminary rounds in the morning/afternoon.

 

personally, I "only" got a flu...

but today was also a sad day because my neighbour died all of a sudden because of a supposed heart attack...

we were not close friends (he was way older than me, actually had the same age of my dad more or less), but still he was someone I used to see around and speak with almost every day...therefore I'm quite down now...

 

25 minutes ago, MHSN said:

speaking of empty hall, I was curious what was the TV coverage about it in Italy ? I know you have several sport TV channels , I wonder if it was live coverage for the finals in any of them ? (I remember I watched one night of finals on Rai Sport but that was just once)

 

no tv coverage at all...we only have the finals sessions live in streaming on our public tv (rai) website (with awful picture quality, way worse than UWW's pictures)...

and absolutely no mention of this event on any other media (except for the usual couple of sports websites that at least always publish the results of the global championships and a few articles about Chamizo and the other italians, when they do something reasonably decent)...

 

Edited February 14, 2020 by phelps

[phelps 7,669]

after surviving   Demirtas,   Frank Chamizo today took the concept of "destroying" an opponent to a new level...

 

in the second round bout, he literally carried Gadzhiyev on his shoulders and slammed him on the mat with a "reverse"...

 

the poor Azeri even suffered a bad injury to his elbow because of the hard landing and basically had to let Chamizo pin him (he was shouting because of pain, not caring of anything else) before the doctor jumped on the mat to help him...

 

Azerbaijan's coach didn't look very happy for what happened, but I don't think Chamizo did anything wrong, their guy was just unlucky to end up in that dangerous position...

[MHSN 3,616]

5 hours ago, phelps said:

after surviving   Demirtas,   Frank Chamizo today took the concept of "destroying" an opponent to a new level...

 

in the second round bout, he literally carried Gadzhiyev on his shoulders and slammed him on the mat with a "reverse"...

 

the poor Azeri even suffered a bad injury to his elbow because of the hard landing and basically had to let Chamizo pin him (he was shouting because of pain, not caring of anything else) before the doctor jumped on the mat to help him...

 

Azerbaijan's coach didn't look very happy for what happened, but I don't think Chamizo did anything wrong, their guy was just unlucky to end up in that dangerous position...

 

no Chamizo did nothing wrong, it was his own fault, that's one of the basic things they teach to the kids on wrestling clubs, when someone is throwing you and you are on the air NEVER put your arm down.

 

this is a bit sad but if someone wants to watch the action

 

 

[MHSN 3,616]

Russia won 3 out of 5 gold medals in first day of freestyle finals, maybe people can say that's OK the rest of Europe won 2 gold medals but no both other gold medalists were also originally Russian. we know about Magomedmorad Gadzhiev wrestling for Poland for a while but now Belarus also has a former Russia NT member in Magomaedkhabib Kadimagomedov ! he won 79kg gold by a brilliant performance against Ramazanov in the final. but since he wrestled for Russia at 2017 I don't think he will be eligible for the Tokyo 2020 even if he cuts weight for 74kg.

 

ps: this is not even Russia #1 team except for of course Sadulaev

 

Sadulaev added another gold medal to his tally, I think some people will claim he is getting weaker but I'm not so sure , he is just changing his style, he still scores at will. he just doesn't want to score too much !

 

but the most impressive wrestler today was Kurban Shiraev. this kid has a bright future, he won silver medal in World Juniors in 2019 losing to our wrestler Maghsoudi, I wish Maghsoudi could improve with the same rate as him I don't know what Russian coaches will do about their team trials but this kid really deserves a chance to wrestle Rashidov in a trial. but it seems Russia already decided about 4 weights. nobody questions Sadulaev but their 2nd guy won gold at 57kg and 65kg (and we will see their 74kg in the final tomorrow) it will be a mistake in my opinion to just send 2019 World Champions without another trial.

[MHSN 3,616]

A bit about the last day of freestyle competition.

 

I think Frank Chamizo almost secured the Olympic place for Zaurbek Sidakov by beating his only rival Gazimagomedov ! Gazi had to win the gold to maybe (just maybe) stand a chance for a trial against Sidakov. I think Russian head coach Tedeev is now convinced to pick Sidakov without a trial. Sidakov beat Chamizo at the worlds relatively easily. but for Russia 57kg and 65kg will be more complicated to pick their best guy, they have the world champion in these weights but their 2nd guy also won the gold here and that kid Shiraev is not someone you can easily ignore. also at 86kg it seems Naifonov is their best guy, not sure if they really need another trial to prove that once again.

 

it was interesting to see someone from Switzerland in European final. that guy Scherrer was damn strong but almost didn't know anything about wrestling techniques. and Geno simply destroyed his Polish opponent in the final. Baran had some great results in preliminaries but then Geno is just the best.

 

now we have to wait for the Olympic qualifiers, it will be really hard with only 2 spots up for grab. and seeding won't do much because most of top seeds aren't really the best European wrestlers. for example what's the point of being seed #1 at Greco 77kg if you get Roman Vlasov in your bracket.

[MHSN 3,616]

haha, it seems Chamizo is trying to trick Russian coaches into not sending Sidakov to Tokyo

 

https://unitedworldwrestling.org/article/chamizo-wins-clash-against-gazimagomedov-claims-fourth-european-title

 

Quote

After the award ceremony, Chamizo stated he believes that Gazimagomedov is a lot better than the man that beat him in last year’s world finals, Zaurbek Sidakov. “(Sidakov) is a cool guy, and he’s training good, but I think (Gazimagomedov) is much better than him,” Chamizo said. “Look, (Sidakov and I) wrestled in 2018, and my training was about 50%. I didn’t perform. It was the same thing in 2019. My knee and ankle weren’t good. Right now, I’m good. But, where is (Sidakov)?”
 
After winning the Ivan Yariguin title, Gazimagomedov stated a similar opinion as Chamzio. He said, “In Russia, many understand that I will win against Sidakov, but perhaps we will not be allowed to meet on the mat because we don’t have a very transparent selection system.”

 

As it sits now, Sidakov is the top choice to represent Russia at the Olympic Games. But, Gazimagomedov’s Yariguin win and European silver-medal finish further his case that he deserves at least a wrestle-off to show just how worthy of a competitor he is.

 

personally I'm not sure winning silver in Euro is something to be proud of for a Russian wrestler. they have higher standards. Gazi himself is a double world champion but at 70kg. he is a great wrestler but then they you have a two time World Champion in the same weight who happens to be younger,

[hckošice 14,818]

Just read that Russian born Boris Makoev won bronze medal for Slovakia here.

 

but still nice to notice that the coach screamed and communicated with him only in Slovakian language all the time

 

[phelps 7,669]

9 hours ago, MHSN said:

A bit about the last day of freestyle competition.

 

I think Frank Chamizo almost secured the Olympic place for Zaurbek Sidakov by beating his only rival Gazimagomedov ! Gazi had to win the gold to maybe (just maybe) stand a chance for a trial against Sidakov. I think Russian head coach Tedeev is now convinced to pick Sidakov without a trial. Sidakov beat Chamizo at the worlds relatively easily. but for Russia 57kg and 65kg will be more complicated to pick their best guy, they have the world champion in these weights but their 2nd guy also won the gold here and that kid Shiraev is not someone you can easily ignore. also at 86kg it seems Naifonov is their best guy, not sure if they really need another trial to prove that once again.

 

it was interesting to see someone from Switzerland in European final. that guy Scherrer was damn strong but almost didn't know anything about wrestling techniques. and Geno simply destroyed his Polish opponent in the final. Baran had some great results in preliminaries but then Geno is just the best.

 

now we have to wait for the Olympic qualifiers, it will be really hard with only 2 spots up for grab. and seeding won't do much because most of top seeds aren't really the best European wrestlers. for example what's the point of being seed #1 at Greco 77kg if you get Roman Vlasov in your bracket.

 

tbh, I'd really like to see a trial between Gazimagomedov and Sidakov...

 

I've watched both yeasterday's final (of course ) and the Yariguin's (it's free on Youtube...and in very high picture quality ) and I think he should stand a chance...I'm not convinced Sidakov would have an easy task against him (though, I think Sidakov would eventually win that trial, if ever they'd make it)...

 

by the way, we also have to remember that all the Russian wrestlers are still "under threat" because of the WADA sentence...they could be swept out all together if CAS doesn't change something in that sentence...the risk to see the Olympics without them is still high...

[MHSN 3,616]

3 hours ago, phelps said:

 

tbh, I'd really like to see a trial between Gazimagomedov and Sidakov...

 

I've watched both yeasterday's final (of course ) and the Yariguin's (it's free on Youtube...and in very high picture quality ) and I think he should stand a chance...I'm not convinced Sidakov would have an easy task against him (though, I think Sidakov would eventually win that trial, if ever they'd make it)...

 

by the way, we also have to remember that all the Russian wrestlers are still "under threat" because of the WADA sentence...they could be swept out all together if CAS doesn't change something in that sentence...the risk to see the Olympics without them is still high...

 

I think everybody likes to watch that. but I assume they will held one match wrestle-offs behind the closed doors as they did last year

 

but for Dzhambolat Tedeev (Russia head coach) it's not about who can beat who between them, it's about who can win the Olympic gold ! and it seems Sidakov has more chance to achieve that. even though he had close matches against Burroughs and Chamizo in past couple of years. it's not like he dominated everybody in 2018 and 2019.

 

yes sometimes we forget that about Russia but even if they fail in CAS I think  they will be allowed to send their athletes under another name, these guys had no doping history so I assume they are fine to wrestle in Tokyo