Wrestling Discussion | Qualification to Summer Olympic Games Los Angeles 2028 Road to LA 2028

[heywoodu 16,060]

1 hour ago, MHSN said:

it took two Olympics (and 4 years) for UWW to finally realize there is a big big flaw in their current rules (we have this since early 2021)

 

in Greco-Roman, in high level specially in heavier weights it's just hard to score. in this case sometimes the match ends up 1-1. (1 pt for passivity caution for each) under current rules lots of wrestlers decide to be intentionally passive in first 2 minutes to receive the first caution. this created lots of ugly scenes in Olympics. for example  Yasmani Acosta won an Olympic silver in Paris without doing a thing! he was passive in his 3 pre-final matches and won all of them 1-1 

 

UWW will test a new rule at the European Championship next week, only in case of 1-1 and only in Greco-Roman whoever gets the first point wins. I believe this will become an official rule soon, they should make this change long time ago but yet late is better than never

 

https://uww.org/article/uww-test-new-greco-rule-2025-european-championships

I wonder if there is some drawback to this, we'll see I guess, but this sounds like an excellent change I think? I remember Acosta in Paris, that was....not amazing  

[MHSN 3,783]

1 hour ago, heywoodu said:

I wonder if there is some drawback to this, we'll see I guess, but this sounds like an excellent change I think? I remember Acosta in Paris, that was....not amazing  

well, there is no perfect solution, sometimes nobody can score in a Greco match and someone has to win. they could leave it to the referees to decide who is more "active" but we had this before, that usually means corruption and double standards and lots of protests, another option was having overtime until somebody scores but that could mean endless matches which I still prefer but I understand why UWW doesn't want that.

 

as I said this is not perfect but at least with this new change nobody will be passive intentionally. in Paris we had some matches where both guys wanted to be passive and that was really ugly.

 

 

[Federer91 3,039]

Wrestling is getting a complete overhaul here and the scandals have began as usual.  I will lay a not so quick summary of the situation.

 

Last month there were Elections for the Wrestling Federation, where the legend Stanka Zlateva (2 OG medals, 5 World & 6 European titles) was elected President. Earlier in the year she very vividly blamed in the media the old guard for bringing in an armada of foreigners and allegedly destroying the Bulgarian kids in the sport. She also said, that they wanted to take away her junior wrestlers from her club and move them to national selections with different coaches, while she wanted to continue working with them.

 

After getting lots of attention Zlateva decided to run in the elections. She again was mentioning, that it was unacceptable to have so many foreigners and wrestling needs an overhaul. Going into the elections she had support, but wasn't a favourite. Don't know what exactly happened on the day, but everyone else (including the old regime) withdrew and Zlateva was the only one left. 

 

A few days after she was elected there were news, that the majority of the Federation's employees were quitting and didn't want to work for her (probably encouraged from the old regime). At one point there were concerns that the teams could miss the European Championships, because of these organizational issues, but luckily they sorted it out. 

 

Now that the Euro is over, today they announced that all National team coaches were fired.

 

The new NT coaches are:

 

Men's Greco - Stoyan Dobrev - UWW Coach of the year in 2023, he led Serbia to 4 Golds at the 2022 Worlds. After the revolution he did for Serbian Greco he is coming home to take over GR.

 

Men's Freestyle - Radoslav Velikov (Olympic Medalist, World Champion). As a coach, alongside Simeon Shterev, he had coached the Women's National teams of China, Azerbaijan and Russia until Covid. Then they returned to coach clubs here.

 

Women's Freestyle - Simeon Shterev - A veteran of coaching Women's wrestling for 20-30 years. He discovered Stanka Zlateva and was the biggest figure here during her reign. After her career there were some issues and he was practically exiled, hence why he went to lead the NTs of China, Azerbaijan and Russia like i mentioned above.

 

We will see what happens next and how they will try to "revive" Bulgarian wrestling, but it's not been a good start.

 

Yesterday there was another semi scandal. The Greco team returned from the Euro with a Gold and Silver and there were many people to greet them, but no one from the new Federation....

 

[MHSN 3,783]

18 hours ago, Federer91 said:

 

Yesterday there was another semi scandal. The Greco team returned from the Euro with a Gold and Silver and there were many people to greet them, but no one from the new Federation....

 

so what happens now ? I mean for likes of Ramezanov and Novikov ? our media follow the story and they reported Bulgaria will kick them out. is this correct ? (I assume not, that doesn't make sense) because in this case they have to retire, they can't wrestle for somewhere else per UWW rules. 

[Federer91 3,039]

43 minutes ago, MHSN said:

so what happens now ? I mean for likes of Ramezanov and Novikov ? our media follow the story and they reported Bulgaria will kick them out. is this correct ? (I assume not, that doesn't make sense) because in this case they have to retire, they can't wrestle for somewhere else per UWW rules. 

Nah, they are too good to be kicked out. I presume anyone who is currently in the teams will remain, but they won't be naturalizing new wrestlers going forward. For now at least 

[MHSN 3,783]

Last week our federation announced half of the team for the 2025 Worlds (7 in Greco, 3 in freestyle) 

 

we have a very very weird and complicated trial process  those guys already met the criteria or in another word nobody else met the criteria to challenge them. 

 

we won 8 medals in wrestling in Paris, 4 of those guys already confirmed their places in 2025 team.

 

but the most important part, it's confirmed now that Hassan Yazdani is not going to wrestle in 2025  he had another shoulder surgery after the Olympics (this time in France) and they think it's better for him to not rush it if he wants to have a shot for the 2028 Olympics. he was a national team member from 2015 to 2024 and won 10 World/Olympic medals in 10 consecutive years. and beside that, when/if he comes back he will move up a weight or two. he won't wrestle at 86kg anymore.

[clemsonbeav 230]

BTW, the U23 WCh just finished: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_U23_World_Wrestling_Championships

 

 atop the Men's Freestyle Team leaderboard!  

[MHSN 3,783]

everybody knew this for couple of months but UWW officially confirmed that  Bahrain will host the 2026 World Championships. if I'm not wrong Slovakia was the other candidate but I assume the UWW won't host major senior competitions inside the Schengen area until Sadulaev's ban expires. 

 

it's also almost a sure thing that  Las Vegas will host the 2027 Worlds (which is also the main Olympic Qualifier) which is a terrible news for our team  two years is a long time though. Vegas will host the 2026 U23 Worlds too, we will see how they will deal with the visa thing one year before the senior event.

 

another important thing is that they also moved the dates for the next year Worlds, it was supposed to be in early September but now it listed in UWW website from 24 October to 1 November

 

it probably has something to do with the Asian Games in late September. but I think this is even worse having the AG before the Worlds.  will be a tough decision for our federation, is it wise to send the A team to both events ?  will we see Japanese top wrestlers in this home Asian Games ? most of them wanted to participate but now this will ruin their World Champs chance. it's easier to go the Worlds first and then recover your body for AG (which is a mini tournament with few very good wrestlers in each weight)

[El Analyzer 308]

4 hours ago, MHSN said:

 

it's also almost a sure thing that  Las Vegas will host the 2027 Worlds (which is also the main Olympic Qualifier) which is a terrible news for our team  two years is a long time though. Vegas will host the 2026 U23 Worlds too, we will see how they will deal with the visa thing one year before the senior event.

 

 

I presume (hope) there should be an easy process route for athletes to participate in such big events, I keep hearing that the visa issue could restrict supporters only not athletes (still not fair but at least good to see high level athletes participating)

[MHSN 3,783]

10 hours ago, El Analyzer said:

I presume (hope) there should be an easy process route for athletes to participate in such big events, I keep hearing that the visa issue could restrict supporters only not athletes (still not fair but at least good to see high level athletes participating)

 

you are right partially but it's not exactly like that

 

for non-athletes they can't even ask for visa, will be rejected immediately

 

but it doesn't mean that athletes can get their visa smoothly, hell no. they usually reject half of the team for no reason just to show they can do that. and that was even before the orange baboon, obviously I don't expect things to get better with the current administration.

 

USA Wrestling guys are nice and respectful, I'm sure they will work hard to prevent that. but well it's not up to them.

again 2 years is a long time. lots of things can change. we will see.