MHSN

thanks I didn't know that, what about the Olympics, is it 1st vs 8th, 2nd vs 7th etc ? or something like you said for the World Cup ?

Iran will use the reserve guys in the Hungary Sabre World Cup in team event. I wonder if that affects other teams for the Olympic qualification, but I assume not much . it's between France and Russia but one of them may face Iran in the 5th-8th classification

Draw https://results.ittf.com/ittf-web-results/html/TTE5279/results.html#/knock-outs

we have Russian nationals this weekend, the winner most probably will go to the Olympics. Zaur Uguev (57), Zaurbek Sidakov (74), Artur Naifokov (86) win the nationals, 65kg final is scheduled for tomorrow but Gazhimurad Rashidov is expected to win. at 97kg, the great Abdulrashid Sadulev was exempt and didn't wrestle here, he will be in Tokyo. and Russian's main guy at 125 (Shamil Sharipov) didn't wrestle here too, why ? because he has to wrestle in Hungary next weekend for the Olympic quota. he will wrestle Sergey Kozyrov (125kg winner here) in April. this is the only weight Russia failed to qualify in Nur-Sultan. this is the 74kg final, where a VERY DUMB mistake by Razambek Zhamalov most probably cost him an Olympic medal, he was leading 2-0 against World Champion Sidakov, gave up a pushout in last 10 seconds, still leading 2-1, gave up another in last 2 seconds because he thought he had a 2pointer and 2-2 would be enough for him! which was a mistake, he had 1+1

UWW confirms the rumor I heard long time ago the former world champion Khetag Tsabolov will wrestle for Serbia, in UWW database they are showing Serbian flag instead of Russia for him https://www.iat.uni-leipzig.de/datenbanken/dbwrestling/daten.php?spid=8D1E74B679C345E2B5B08857723DC54C still he will miss the European Qualifier next week since he wrestled for Russia 3 years ago in the 2018 European Champs but if I'm not wrong he will eligible to wrestle in the last chance qualifier in Bulgaria. he is a very tricky wrestler, at the age of 29 he is not in his best shape but he beat world champion Sidakov in the Russian nationals last year. he can beat anybody in the world if his opponent makes a mistake. if he qualifies, he will be one of the medal contenders in Tokyo.

the rest of Asian qualifiers 2nd round will be held in June and one venue is announced for each group. in 6 groups the top seed team is going to host the other 4 teams, only two top seeds won't host it. Australia and Iran. I assume Australia didn't want it, but Iran wanted it desperately and everybody here is angry about the new FIFA/AFC decision. because Bahrain will host the group which is worst possible host for any Iranian team. any other country would be fine. it will be very hot in KSA, USA, KUW, BRN and QAT in June but who cares. they lobby better in AFC and host most important competitions. CHN, JPN and KOR will host the remaining 3 groups. apparently no other AFC match will be held in Iran in near future, because their sponsors can't work here because of the sanctions! when Iran lost to Bahrain and Iraq with that conman Wilmots. we were hoping to make up for that at home. but now again we have to play in Bahrain. Iran has to win all remaining 4 matches to make sure about the qualification. I think 10 points will be enough too (not a sure thing though) but our football NT usually plays better in Asia with its back against the wall. 2006 and 2014 WCQ were mission impossibles (they had to win some away matches in a row to qualify) but they made it. let's see if our new coach can survive the biggest task of his coaching career. it doesn't look like mission impossible on paper, Iran has a much better team than both IRQ and BRN but I know our neighbors , they always play 10 times better when they face Iran

I think if Slovenia draw both Sweden and Germany it will go to the number of goals these 3 teams scored against each other. not the GD against Algeria.

this is just a mistake, he can't qualify in another weight per rules

entries for the European Qualifier in Hungary https://unitedworldwrestling.org/article/european-olympic-games-qualifier-entries the freestyle competition looks a bit "weak" to me. but it will be a huge task for anybody to qualify in Greco-Roman. I think Russia will complete its max 12 quotas in men's wrestling here. of course draw and luck will play a big factor. UWW removed the Olympic ranking from its website so I can't say who is going to be seeded.

the last K1 event on WKF calendar in Morocco (for the Olympic ranking) is now replaced by K1 event in Portugal from 30 April to 2 May for the Olympic qualification https://www.wkf.net/news-center-new/karate-1-premier-league-rabat-postponed/1495

it seems IWF got IOC's permission to extend the Olympic qualification period https://www.iwf.net/2021/03/05/update-extension-tokyo-2020-qualification-period/ the Olympic event in their calendar will finish on 31 May, so it seems 31 May is the new deadline.

and Kuwait won a bronze medal by beating .... nobody the Russian guy withdrew from the bronze medal match. the level isn't great in general here. there are some big names in some weights but in general both the qualify and the quantity aren't great. no surprise we will have the European QT in couple weeks. Kazakhstan and Hungary brought almost their full squad here. probably kind of their internal trials. Russia is here with "almost" A team but their guys for the European OQT are absent as expected. hopefully the level is better in freestyle, we only sent two FS guys here. don't ask me why just 2 , why not a full team, (or even why not sending nobody) our federation is sometimes "hard" to understand.

not really interesting, that was too easy for Mohammad Ibrahim he will have another Russian in the next round. I expect another W

yes I read CAS statement, I could never trust this lawyer guy for another case in another sport. he somehow didn't tell the entire truth once again. still any kind of suspension is better than the indefinite one. (which will kill the sport completely) I mean from the Iranian athletes point of view. it seems IJF was too much excited after making that Hollywood story to impose a ban which doesn't even exist in their rules. and btw this Pavitt guy once again has some mistakes in his article. but that's pretty normal for ITG. I will be surprised if I see an article without a mistake from them.

according to Iran Judo Federation lawyer, CAS lifted IJF's ban on Iran JF. that was very surprising for me, this case was like a thief who did lots of robberies (and didn't get caught) but got arrested for a crime he didn't commit (framed by a conman) but still evidences from the previous crimes were there. it seems even CAS judges didn't believe the Mongolian hero/bastard lies. only stupid people would believe him but then as I said previous evidences were too much to ignore. I prefer to wait for the official confirmation, but even if this is true we won't see Iranians in international judo competitions, because the problem is still there (and is not going to be solved anytime soon, specially considering the current tension) and I'm sure IJF will be looking really hard for another story. but at least they can participate in the Asian events without being worried about the draw. well Judo is a lost cause for me but at least this will be a great news for something like 60,000 people in Iranian judo community. I know most of them wanted to switch to another sport (mostly Kurash), but right now they have a reason to continue training, 2022 Asian Games is around the corner.

watch how a random Kyrgyz guy (well not really random, I knew him for a long time but still) makes the great Artur Aleksanyan fly today in an international tournament in Ukraine. executing this technique is really hard against anybody 100kg, let alone against the Olympic champion, one of the best wrestlers in the world. this is the last match of the video ra

I mean the whole winter sports community most of them are related. you always see familiar surnames. and they (I mean all of them, officials, coaches, athletes and even commentators) always make the same excuses after each competition, their mentality is like we go to a competition, have fun, finish last, come back home and make excuses. and they are lucky nobody cares about winter sports here. PS: obviously that labor camp part was a joke. the point is they are not trying hard to improve. it's just having fun for them. like a family holiday

just checked Iran Ski Fed website, they sent only 8 athletes (plus 2 coaches) to Germany. no idea how there are 12 names on the list when they registered only 8. btw if it was up to me I would shot down the ski federation and send them all to a labor camp in North Korea, complete waste of time and money. each year they participate and always make the same excuses after getting extremely poor results. this year will be even worse, most ski resorts were closed until few weeks ago.

that will be amongst the runner-ups in 5 regions. that was easier in the men's side because India is 1 and 2 and one of them will finish 2nd in South Asia region. but remember that will be based on April's ranking. not the current one but I assume not much change (don't know how many events left though) for the women's part, Thailand's SAWETTABUT is first by a good margin ahead of Batra (India), the other girl from Thailand is 3rd. right now I see 5 girls from Southeast Asia in the list. (that means a round robin competition) but I was thinking if those two Thai girls have to decide the winner (probably in the last match), maybe the better girl losses intentionally to help her teammate. she will qualify later as the best runner-up.

I wonder if the registration deadline is over or not, North Korea should get the men's quota but as far as I know they stopped sending their athletes to anywhere since the start of the coronavirus crisis. so no surprise if they don't send anybody here. India still has to go through Pakistan which will be super easy for them but then they will qualify 2 instead of 1 their guys are #1 and #2 in Asia (among non-qualified athletes) so whoever losses their direct match will most probably get the quota as the best ranked runner-up among the regions. that Kazakh guy is not that far from them, he can be a threat only if he finishes 2nd in central Asia, otherwise 2 quotas are safe for India.

The great Lithuania was a centimeter away from elimination from the EuroBasket. that last block by Kalnietis saved them great job Denmark, this time Lithuania brought a better roster but still Denmark made it as close as possible.

we have a new date for the Asian OQT , 21-23 May in Jordan. they changed the date few times already, hopefully this is the final date.

well it seems Croatia learned enough lessons from the previous match to take Georgia serious. too serious actually

Greece GK couldn't save a thing during the 32 minutes but then he had two super saves during the penalties well this is sport congrats to Greece, sorry for France, they had a great day and were just inches away from beating Greece and btw what was the logic behind eliminating the extra time ? I know it happened few years ago but still this is something stupid.

Greece scored 7 goals in 9 minutes and nothing after that. from leading 7-4 to trailing 7-10 !!