MHSN

big big news regarding Olympic bronze medalist and two time World Champion Zurabi Datunashvili https://ita.sport/news/the-ita-acknowledges-cas-add-decision-sanctioning-wrestler-zurabi-datunashvili-for-anti-doping-rule-violations/ to be honest everything was suspicious about this guy, his sudden improvement since 2021, his body, his sudden retirement in 2023 . its great to see him finally getting caught. they will reallocate the medals later after the end of the process but his Olympic bronze will go to Ivan Huklek, I think that will be the first ever wrestling medal for Croatia his 2021 World title will go Maskevich and the 2022 gold goes to Bisultanov Bisultanov will benefit more than anybody else, he also gets a bronze from 2021 and Kessidis will get a bronze from 2022.

official startlist https://iwf.sport/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2024/11/2024_IWF_WCH_StartBook.pdf

Russia and Iran will meet in both Greco (22 November) and freestyle (23 November) in Moscow this weekend. not a serious competition but, there is prize money and both teams are bringing lots of World and Olympic medalists. our Greco team is more complete, only 2-3 guys are missing but in freestyle this is somehow half of our A team. for Russia it's hard to say what's exactly their A team right now because of the suspension. but this team is close to be the A team without the best of the best Sadulaev.

crazy week in Asia, KSA lost to Indonesia, so called Asian Champion Qatar lost 5-0 to UAE and Korea dropped 2pts against Palestine once again. Australia was lucky to escape another defeat vs Bahrain by a late goal. Japan will most probably secure the qualification spot (as the first team) in March. Iran also has 16pts so far but the performance is far from good. our team still plays terrible but somehow manages a way to win matches. Group C is really interesting, behind Japan we have Australia with 7pts and 4 more teams with 6pts! everything is possible, BRN, INA and CHN they all have a chance to even clinch a direct qualification spot. Bahrain could end this week with 6pts but some crazy things happened in extra time for them and they ended up with just 1 !

in a sport like wrestling, if you are #1 in your country and win World or Olympic medals you can make money otherwise you get nothing. that's not the case in table tennis. being #2 in your country behind the world #1 (who happens to be from the same country) is a terrible situation. you know you are good enough to win medals but someone always blocks your way, most of these Russian wrestlers try to win the Russian nationals and win medal for Russia (which pays much better) but when they realize they are getting old and they can't beat a certain local wrestler they move to somewhere else. that's still bad but I don't really blame them, nobody wants to end his career without a major medal. it's not a bad idea if UWW somehow follows what IJF does. but I don't think that happens anytime soon.

It was a very weird game against the weirdest team in the world, North Korea it looked very easy at half time, 3-0 lead. but then a very early stupid red card in the 2nd half. 2 dumb own goals, Taremi missing a penalty ... and then in last 25 minutes PRK missed something like 6-7 golden opportunities to tie the match. have to admit Iran was very lucky to collect all 3 pts. the 2nd half was probably one of the worst matches I ever seen. despite this terrible match, things look good in the standing, 13pts after 5 matches and I believe 3 more pts will do.

you are right but those countries like Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan also spend huge money on their own program. I mentioned some countries because they simply forget developing young wrestlers and focused only on buying foreigners. which is really sad because some of these countries used to be pretty good. I always use Bulgaria as an example which was a superpower not long time ago. btw I wonder how this will affect Bahrain, they simply has no local wrestler. they bought a full team of 6-7 Russian wrestlers in freestyle. now they can use only 2 of them for each tournament and they have to send 2 homegrown wrestlers with them (that number will increase to 4 from 2027). I assume they will pick up two random guys from the street

as I said so many times in this forum Rostami is a total jerk. he wants to work alone, doesn't participate in trials etc, just simply go to the main events on his own. of course the weightlifting federation said no therefore he decided to compete for another NOC. but last thing I heard if our WL federation doesn't let him, he needs to wait 1 year before switching nationality. and our WL federation doesn't grant him that permission. so as things stand he won't be allowed to participate in this event (will be eligible next year)

UWW's new rules for change of nationality this doesn't look great for likes of Bahrain, Albania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Serbia and few more. still it won't make a huge huge impact for the next Olympic cycle because each NOC still can use 2 mercenaries per style in each tournament but after 2028 it will be reduced to just 1. some of those countries already have 3 or 4 (or more) Russian mercenaries per style. from now on they have to pick 2 of them for each tournament. I assumed the new rule applies to previous mercenaries too . https://cdn.uww.org/2024-11/change_of_nationality_regulation_eng_oct2024_final.pdf also you can't wrestle for another country without a passport. (UWW allowed that for some years) current non-national wrestlers can continue like that until the end of 2026 though. it could be better but in general I'm OK with new rules. good job by UWW.

surprised, he is not injured this time most of the time when I hear his name in our media, it's about his new injury

I love to see more competitions but we had the highest level for 6 weights in Paris, non-Olympic events also needed a top tier competition for this year of 2024. considering the fact that the IOC is shrinking the competition to just 16 per weight, it wouldn't that bad to have a full 10 weight competition for each style, giving the chance to everybody. but we would see lots of big names not participating because of the Olympics (and the recovery time after that) so I think that was the best solution. ps: if it was up to me entirely I think 8 weights is good enough for men (6 is too less, 10 is too much) and all of them should be in the Olympics. but unfortunately it's up to King T. and his goons.

This is the World Senior Championship final, not a high school match and this kid is under 20 (won the world U20 this year) and destroyed everybody (including Olympic Champ Uguev and World Champ Arujau) in his senior debut. injuries and lack of motivation play a big role, but if this kid stays healthy and motivated, I don't think anybody beats him in next 10 years. he is lightening fast, his gut-wrench is deadly and he can throw at will. that's the complete package. not sure what Olympic weight he picks. Japan has the current Olympic Champion in both 57kg and 65kg. I think it's fair to say Japan is currently the best men's freestyle team in the world. (despite being weak in heavier weights)

Sport is not only about the Olympics (which is somehow ruined by the IOC, mixing it with the politics and for this specific sport limiting the number of athletes to just 16 per weight) it was a great competition (despite having a terrible host) . yep the freestyle competition ended up very badly for our team but it was great pleasure watching Masanosuke Ono and likes of Abdulrashid Sadulaev, Jordan Burroughs, David Taylor and Zavur Uguev. watching Masanosuke Ono itself makes my day.

what a tough night. Ghasempour was just 2-3 seconds away from beating the best wrestler of all time (in my opinion) he did just 1 mistake in the entire match and that was enough. to make things worse, Nokhodi beat the great Jordan Burroughs and was leading 6-0 in his SF until the last 30-40 seconds but then bang, he gave up big points and bottled it. our 18 years old at 70kg also lost in the worst possible way, he could win the gold too. looks like our freestyle team is cursed , no gold in Paris (while 3 or 4 was possible) and again no gold here. --------------------- I have to say the Japanese kid at 61kg, Ono is the best wrestler I ever seen. he won the junior title this year and just destroyed everybody here (including Olympic Champ Uguev) on his way to the final. if he stays healthy he can win 10 world/olympic titles.

what a night for Azerbaijan, they won 3 gold medals not a bad day for Iran either with 1 gold and 1 silver. Ali Geraei finally won the world title he wanted badly in his 8th try last year in Belgrade he threw a bottle of water to the mat to save his dead tired brother. that worked but Ali himself received 1 year ban (well-deserved) . later UWW shortened his suspension but that didn't help him since he already missed our internal Olympic trials and therefore he missed the Olympics. which forced him to move up one weight and now he won the gold here. life is weird sometimes.

women's finals 55kg: Kiyooka vs Zhang 59kg: Kinjo vs Tserenchimed 65kg: Zelenykh vs Long 72kg: Ishii vs Bekbergenova only one non-Asian finalist , Ukrainian girl representing Romania

Tomorrow finals 55kg: Azizli vs Dadmarz 63kg: Mammadli vs Zharlykassyn 72kg: Ganizade vs Ghanem 82kg: Szilvassy vs M.A. Geraei great day for AZE with 3 finalists + 1 in the repechage. for us it was OKish to have two in the final. if could be zero, both semifinals were close. I believe our 63kg got robbed but that's mostly his own fault for having no Plan B. Ali Geraei made up for his brother's terrible day who lost to a random American guy in the first round I expect 2 silver medals, I hope I'm wrong

even when Russia is banned they still have the refs in their pockets, Sefershaev and Lalaev didnt' deserve to be in the semifinal but the refs brought them here. most of the better refs had been in Paris therefore they are using 2nd/3rd tier refs here. I saw lots of terrible calls today (some of them got corrected by the challenge review panel)

Yep. we just had a redraw and now we have the biggest match of all time (OK maybe the biggest ) right in the first round. Taylor vs Sadulaev and Ghasempour is also in the same half. so at least one of these guys will go home with nothing.

The brackets are out but there are some reports of a possible redraw the seedings were wrong, the UWW made a huge huge mistake. their software automatically removed 2023 World Champs points from the ranking after the Olympics. for all 10 weights but they shouldn't do that for the non-Olympic weights. that is stupid nobody noticed this until after the draw

Today in Albania (World U23 Champs) both guys got disqualified obviously A bit warmup for the real deal. World Championships (non-Oly weights) and the big battle of Taylor/Sadulaev/Ghasempour

Technical Handbooks https://drive.google.com/file/d/13bUy7zMkEZwEBekpYN6cLR_khK6lvadS/view

0-0 in Tashkent is not a bad result considering Iran played the entire second half with 10 men but Iran got robbed of a penalty in 94th minute. it was clear handball to me, the ref called it but then the VAR room made him change his originally (correct) decision for some reasons we have to play our next home match against Qatar in neutral venue (UAE) on Tuesday. a win there will put Iran in a very good position to qualify. I'm still confident they can get the 3pts against the so-called Asian Champion. and looking at other results, S-Korea scored a big win in Jordan (they got eliminated by the same team at the Asian Cup) and Japan also beat KSA in KSA. I think JPN/KOR are safe to qualify as usual. it's between Australia and KSA in Group C and Iraq/Jordan in Group B

I assume this is one of the biggest surprises ever in this sport World #1 Wang Chuqin lost to 14 years old Benyamin Faraji at the Asian Championships today. China still survived the team match 3-1 (OK I know Wang is not playing well recently but still) ps: it's unbelievable but Iran actually had a chance to do the impossible and beat China, Noshad was competitive in both of his matches against Lin Shidong and Wang Chuqin.

no names mentioned, even the number of athletes is not finalized yet, the report says 4 in CC without mentioning the gender. I assume if she is still competing (not retired) she will be going , hard to find anything about winter sports athletes in the summer (or even in the winter )