MHSN

I had to open the link to see which one it is cuz Iranian GKs together scored 3 goals today I just hope they don't underestimate UAE in the QF, the last time one of our teams underestimated the host team, it ended up very badly in Doha couple weeks ago.

we do care, we even had our trials (parts of it) for non-Olympic weights already. some of our good (but not great) wrestlers decided to stay in their non-Olympic weights rather than moving up or down to Olympic weights (would be a desperate try most probably) and Albania becoming the host was a terrible and worrying news for them. and non-Olympic weights started to exist since 2016. that year UWW had a WCh only for those weights. 2021 was a special case because of COVID. they already signed the contract with Norway. My point is they never plan a full-fledged Worlds in the Olympic year. with only 6 weights in the Olympics and limited number of quotas (thanks to IOC) lots of good wrestlers will miss the Olympics. a World Championship in non-Olympic weights is just the right thing to do. of course it's hard to find a host for that.

it was a very heartbreaking defeat vs a strong Portugal. our guys had match points in first 3 matches but ended up losing 3-1 . with three 3-2 defeats Nima lost a 2-0 lead. Noshad lost a 2-1 lead. Hodaei had multiple match points on 10-7 fifth game.

According to UWW calendar we will have a World Championship this year for non-Olympic weights. Albania will host it right after the World U23 Championship also Zagreb in Croatia will host the 2025 World Champs Croatia is OK but Albania can be troublesome. last year they didn't let our team participate at World U23 and UWW rewarded them with another competition I understand that nobody wanted to host this non-Olympic weights World Champs and UWW had to settle for this terrible option but I hope no problem this time.

taking a look at the African Champs results. I can see only one change in the Olympic ranking top 10 AboKahla (EGY/89kg) moved up to #6 by lifting 381kg. he was already in top 10 though. https://iwf.sport/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2024/02/Final-results-egypt-pdf.pdf

Startlist https://www.cairoworldcup.com/_files/ugd/b4e22c_925e7875129645ff8b02694b523e6cd9.pdf https://www.cairoworldcup.com/_files/ugd/b4e22c_2596414b59fe48b2884bbfe7445c95c6.pdf

Turkey and Azerbaijan won most of the gold medals (half of it to be accurate) but I think it was a strong tournament for Russia winning 8 medals. they were TERRIBLE in Belgrade winning only 1 medal in a non-Olympic weight but here they proved they are still the boss , this isn't even their best team in some weights. this 97kg guy Murtazaliev was very impressive. he is a 87kg wrestler who had to move up weight and wrestle here in a short notice because apparently UWW denied Musa Evloev's entry. and this guy almost beat the great Aleksanyan if they participate in Euro Qualifiers, Russia will have a good chance to grab some quotas.

sorry I wasn't online and missed the morning session if you check this guy, he covers everything, but sometimes switches between mats (and might now show the match you want) https://vk.com/video/@sportwithoutborders

Kayaalp had 12 golds and 1 silver until today, he wanted to beat Alexander Karelin's record of 13 gold medals in Europe but in a moment of madness Semenov stopped him. (technically Kayaalp has 11 Euro golds, but most sources count 2015 European Games as the European Champs too) this is the famous throw. https://www.instagram.com/p/C3TLfhXxHbP/

wow. what a finish for the first day of finals. A fantastic throw from Semenov to pin the great Kayaalp. Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Komarov (SRB/RUS) won the remaining gold medals today.

Pakdaman was great in the individual event winning a silver medal but I knew whenever he does good he chokes the next day in the team event losing 45-44 to Egypt could be very costly. once again Pakdaman went for his trademark move at 44-44 (which he always does and he always loses ) but both Japan and China failed to score big points here which means Iran still has a good chance to qualify. JPN/CHN at least one podium finish performance in next two WCs. not impossible China almost beat KOR today in the QF. ps: some other teammates accuse Pakdaman of not really caring about the team quota since his individual quota is guaranteed. that's complete nonsense obviously but I think that puts extra pressure on him in the team event which resulted in his poor performance today. I hope they survive the next two WCs and qualify. then they have enough time to sort their problems out.

it's really stupid to have a 3rd place match! just because someone may withdraw later! nobody ever rejected a continental quota in Taekwondo and doping disqualification is also rare in this sport. these 3rd place matches are absolutely useless. last night GEQ girl even celebrated her 3rd place match win with the flag and more. I don't know what she was told but she looked like someone who doesn't know there are only 2 quotas available

and at the end Egypt and Nigeria grabbed the last two quotas at women's 67kg. both very very one-sided matches if we consider the top seeds. only two seed 1 athletes failed to qualify and both are from Morocco. Laaraj (W57) and Bassel (M+80) Tunisia is the only African country with 2+2 quotas. perfect tournament for them

+80kg quotas for Niger (former world champion Issoufou) and the Gambia (Obame lost 0-0 in the 3rd round)

68kg, Egypt and Burkina Faso qualified (both matches came to the very last second of the 3rd round) women's 57kg, Gabon and Tunisia qualified

Senegal and Niger also won 58kg quotas

Semifinals (Olympic qualification matches) already started

First day draw https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=959000332455010&set=pcb.959000479121662 only 5 competitors in women's +67kg and men's 80kg in Africa some athletes always withdraw before the draw. there are only 5 athletes registered for women's 67kg (will be held on Sunday) I won't be surprised if couple of them withdraw and someone qualifies for the Olympics without throwing a kick

IWF will probably update its website with Asian and African Championship results after few days (or weeks) lots of World Records had been broken by PRK weightlifters, also Rahmat Erwin did great and broke the WR once again. but from what I can see there are not much changes in the Olympic ranking. in the women's side Kim Su-hyeon made a big move into top ten (Women's 81kg) by 254kg record yesterday but today in men's 102kg we had a new sheriff in town. Akbar Djuraev made his debut at 102kg and moved up to the 3rd place in the ranking by a 400kg record. he is a very good weightlifter, an Olympic Champion but a year ago he participated at the Asian Champs weighted almost 130kg. hard to imagine he can cut 30kg "normally" and still lifts great. it will be interesting to learn what they eat in Uzbekistan

Yes you are right. my comment was mostly refereeing to the freestyle wrestling. and to be honest I added Tuskaev later to that list. he wasn't in the list when I wrote the leading line I should had edited that line

OK, semifinal curse again . 7th semifinal defeat in a row. and I'm old enough to remember 4 of them. this is not suppose to happen and I'm sure it won't happen anytime soon, most probably never. that was 2004 all over again, Iran eliminated the best team of tournament, celebrated too much and choked against a not-so-good host team. today they missed so many chances when the score was 1-0 and again 2-2 but then lots of mistakes, some stupid subs. a very very bad day for some of our key players and here we go. we managed to lose to the weakest possible team we could face in the semifinal. at the end Qatar won fair and square. congrats to their team and their fake fans in the stadium.

actually he wasn't excluded by the AFC. they even supported his red card decision (which was technically correct but wrong from a football fans point of view) he left the tournament himself because of some security threats for his family in Australia. some guys in Iraq published his phone number and home address in Australia. (obviously not for sending him flowers) but you are right he won't get big matches in Asia for the reason you explained. having dual nationality isn't probably a great idea for a football referee.

more mercenary Russians transferring to non-freestyle wrestling countries 2020 World Cup Champion Shamil Sharipov (125kg FS) will represent Bahrain World U23 Champion Chermen Valiev (74kg FS) will wrestle for the the great Albania former European Champion Azamat Tuskaev (57kg FS) is now from Serbia

wow. what a match by Jordan it will be interesting if they win the Asian Cup but fail to qualify for the 2nd round of World Cup qualifiers. I wonder how many times in history a team loses a group match on purpose and ended up winning the trophy ?

so Uzbekistan choked once again , what a familiar story it will be Qatar vs Iran in the semifinal. I feel more confident against Qatar. but you never know. hopefully we break the semifinal curse after 48 years and after losing 6 semifinals in a row in past 11 editions ! ps: Qatar's GK saved 3 PKs today, it's interesting to know he is Olympic Champion Mutaz Eisa Barsham's brother