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That was quite a week for Hungary, qualification for Euro and now this.

Yes I think so, our wrestling federation usually publishes all letter they receive from UWW and they have some guys inside UWW, I assume they would know about it if UWW has another plan. they started the training camp for this WCh and tested everybody before the start but apparently one of the wrestlers was infected (and we know tests are not 100% accurate) and almost the whole Greco squad plus some freestylers got infected. as far as I know they are all OK and showing minor symptoms, only the Greco head coach had to be hospitalized for couple days. Iran won't send a full team to this World Cup in Belgrade but they said it's possible to send some few wrestlers. since this is not a World Championship anymore, I assume most countries will do the same. even though I read on Russian websites that Russia will send the A team.

no as far as I know. in Iran they sent everybody home and closed the training camp (also because almost everybody inside the camp got the virus ! ) you heard something about it ?

he is a pretty good wrestler actually also a bronze medalist in CISM Games few years ago. but with this limited quotas remaining I highly doubt he can qualify for the Olympics. but yes I think if they meet, Kesho (I didn't know that's his nickname ) will beat him relatively easily. he is one of the guys I'm looking forward to see in Tokyo. I know there are some very good wrestlers like Borrero at 67kg but I expect "Kesho" to win a medal in Tokyo. and maybe something better than bronze or silver he got robbed a medal last year against Stabler. hopefully the officiating will be better in Tokyo. even though with this coronavirus it's really hard to predict anything. I don't know how they are training nowadays. we had some unbelievable surprises in our own trials last week.

UWW just cancels the 2020 Worlds there will be a nonsense event called "Individual World Cup" instead . which is just another international tournament in my opinion. https://unitedworldwrestling.org/article/wrestling-organize-individual-world-cup-lieu-2020-world-championships

Last weekend we had 3 international competitions in Croatia, Russia and Poland, they are the first international competitions since March ! I was checking the list and in total 22 countries sent wrestlers to these 3 events. I consider it as a sign that they will most probably participate at the 2020 World Championships (if UWW doesn't cancel it) 18 of them are from Europe ! on other hand we know USA and Japan officially withdrew, apparently Kazakhstan and Cuba did the same. and most probably Canada. I also heard Germany is considering withdrawal too 18 countries finished in top 10 (at least in one of those 3 styles) in last World Championship, 6 of them are in the list above, 4 of them most probably will withdraw, (still not sure about Germany) I know Iran and India will participate for sure, Armenia is not a sure thing because of the war, GEO, MGL and UKR are likely to participate, and I have no idea about China. Serbia just hosted the World Sambo Championship in past few days ! so I guess unless some huge changes happen they are OK to host the competition. UWW claims something like 70 NOCs registered to participate but I think we won't see more than 40-50. probably even less. it will be a weak World Champs specially in women's wrestling without Japan and USA. but as long as Russia sends A team (which they will) this is still a prestigious World Championship.

so you are saying Conyedo are Nikoloz are 100% confirmed. but Kudiamagomedov is still injured ? and won't recover in time ? what was their chance (I mean all 3 of them) if IOC wouldn't postpone the Olympics ?

@phelps can you give us any update on the current citizenship of naturalized Italian wrestlers ? beside Chamizo, we know Kakhelashvili also received his citizenship, what about Conyedo and Kudiamagomedov ?

while I'm very happy that I don't have to see this guy anymore (or least much less) but it's still really disappointing to see he gets more than 70 million votes (in a democratic and free election). he represents every bad thing you can imagine in a man. sexism, racism. lying consistently, ... I know most (if not all) politicians are not "clean" but he was 10 times worse than anybody else.

I know people in western world mostly have a wrong idea about the rest of the world (not completely wrong though but mostly exaggerated) things like that don't happen in established governments unless you are doing something against the dictators . and Jordan has an established government. I'm almost sure the chance of someone getting killed in jail in Jordan is the same as Italy, USA or Japan ! jails are not the safest possible place everywhere in the world. yes Libya is different, the country is ruined (unfortunately) and nobody is really in charge. there is no rule there (even a bad rule) but Jordan is a completely different story. on contrary in these countries (including Iran) famous people usually get away from their crimes. I mean even if they go to jail that will be a "soft jail" means they will have some privileges. unless as I said they are against the dictators. which I don't think that's the case here for Abu Ghaush.

I don't know about Jordan specifically but It's not really like that. and Jordan is not Saudi Arabia, Syria or Yemen. beside that he is their only Olympic medalist in history after all. I don't know anything more about this case but I somehow consider it as " if you put me in jail. I'm not going to win medals for you anymore" beside that he had a surgery few months ago (he got injured right before the end of the Olympic qualification period) maybe that's his reason and not anything else.

this election probably doesn't change a thing for Argentina but for my country it's a matter of life and death or maybe slow death and quick death. personally I don't except any big change because the unfixable damage is already done. but at least that's the hottest topic here. almost everything is on standby waiting for the result. or as the intro for the video I'm posting says, even babies don't born waiting to enter the world after the 3rd November. but nothing can stop our sense of humor .

@Vic Liu Do you know anything about Chen Lijun's injury ? I was watching the replay of Chinese Nationals and it looked like a serious injury. will he miss the Olympics ? his gold medal in Tokyo was something like 99% guaranteed

Erdogan is an opportunist who uses every singly opportunity to pursue the dream of becoming the muslim world leader ! I know he is very unpopular in this forum but I used to like him, he is showing his true color slowly though. still I prefer him over most of Muslim World rulers/dictators. I rarely comment or judge on other countries internal affairs. but I think France (and specially Macron) could handle this much better. if it was in Canada for example I wouldn't expect Trodeau to say such things. New Zealand handled a deadly terrorist attack for example without creating more hatred. I don't believe in any religion myself. and I might say lots of things when I'm talking with my friends about religions but I think it's not really hard to not disrespect religions in public. for some people it's a matter of life and death. and as you said they are easy to manipulate.

Did I ever say that ? I'm almost sure I never did. I might say such a thing about other things but not doping . or maybe you just quoted me by accident

how this out of competition tests work ? do they notify the athlete minutes/hours/days before their arrival ? or they just appear at the door ?

Today Iran's deputy health minister finally admitted what we already knew, (but somehow didn't want to believe) that the number of daily deaths from coronavirus are almost twice the official tally. because of the low capacity of testing. the official number only shows people with positive coronavirus test. already in the 3rd peak, records are being broken day after day. today was the highest with 279, per the line above you can read that as at least 500 deaths. and almost all hospitals in most of the country are in their maximum capacity. there is no light at the end of the tunnel, the economy is already in the worst possible situation, makes a complete lockdown impossible, some kind of loose quarantine is started again in dangerous places including my town.

This is a terrible decision and most importantly in the worst possible time ! I just checked and apparently IWF's electoral congress will be in 2021 and after December 2020 when IOC will decide about the 2024 Olympics. which means no time to fix this stupid mistake. btw I probably didn't like some of Papandrea's decisions but I think she was a good person (unlike most of IWF guys)

a bit surprising, but UWW confirms 2020 World Championship in Belgrade in December tonight https://unitedworldwrestling.org/article/executive-committee-confirms-wrestling-world-championships-belgrade-december while as a wrestling fan I'm happy with this but I'm still not sure if it's possible. why Serbian government is doing such a sacrifice ?

This qualification system is terrible, athletes can miss the Olympics only because they were injured a year ago, also this closes the doors for the new generation, there is no chance for a 20 years old weightlifter who just becomes good recently. BUT they can't change it in middle of the qualification, that's not fair. they had to consider everything before inventing such a weird, complicated and terrible system. obviously they didn't.

why that's surprising ? this is traditional music (not much active these days except for singers like him and his son) the poem/lyrics itself belongs to 120 years ago. some/most of those central Asian countries used to be a part of the bigger Persian empire. obviously you should see the influence in their culture. I'm not much familiar with Arabic music but I think it mostly belongs to Lebanon and North African countries. not related to Iran at all.

Mohammad Reza Shajarian probably the biggest singer in the long history Iran passed away yesterday from cancer. he revived the Persian traditional music, you wouldn't expect his style to be popular for the new generations (whom prefer cheap and nonsense music) but he was still extremely popular, if it wasn't for Covid we could see millions in his funeral, but even Covid didn't stop so many. he was also popular for his humanitarian activities, which made him "unpopular" for the hardliners. this is one of his most famous works, "Morghe Sahar" or "Dawn Bird"

I wonder who is your Muslim friend, someone we know ?

the AFC Champions League group round is ongoing in Qatar (all matches in Qatar) and the defending champion Al-Hilal (KSA) is in trouble. almost their whole squad is COVID positive but they don't want to withdraw ! in few minutes they will start their last group match (against an Emirati team) with only 9 players ! they have only 11 players available including 3 GKs Al-Hilal is already qualified, they don't care about this match but in 3 days they have to play Round of 16 and it's not clear if their players will recover in time or not, funny story for the richest club in Asia. ------------------ AFC cancelled the match because of some AFC regulations (13 players are necessary to start a match) and also forced them to withdraw (somehow disqualified) from the competition.

I have to correct few things about this case, my reaction was negative at first mostly because of those fake "Wrestler Champion" part. when you see a lie you don't believe everything at first. but the more I learned about the case the more suspicious it seemed to me. he was indeed a wrestler but in a low level, never won anything in his own state to even makes it to the nation-wide competitions. but to me his story looks like some Hollywood movies when some powerful guys kill someone and then they find a weak uneducated random guy to take the fall, (remember Prison break season 1 ?) except this guy happened to be a random wrestler and his story made it to the public. and his execution in such a hurry broke so many laws (I'm talking about the current Iranian laws !!) which makes things much more suspicious. some people (including myself) don't think he didn't even get executed. he was probably got murdered (by accident during a fight or beating or maybe intentional) @heywoodu I thought I should mention you, since you were interested in this story and I gave you some wrong information