MHSN

UWW announced the new qualification system https://unitedworldwrestling.org/sites/default/files/2020-04/200428_final_qs_wrestling.pdf no change except the age limit and China, Morocco, Hungary and Bulgaria will host the remaining OQTs in March and April 2021.

2020 Asian Championships (also Olympic Qualifier) is now scheduled to be held in China from 10 to 13 December. of course only if the situation gets better.

they simply don't have enough hotels for all those athletes, officials, fans, spectators. AG is still a big event but we know not so many people travel to watch the competition. and while Qatar and Bahrain always naturalize but it's very different when Qatar hosts, they buy an entire Handball team when they host the WCh, how many players they added to that team ? not much. as far as I know in other times it's more like those athletes offer themselves to Qatar. while when they host Qatar simply search the world for eligible athletes to buy. well OCA let Indonesia drop as many events as they wanted from 2018 AG (for different reasons off course) I'm not sure if they push Saudi into hosting anything they don't want. it will be an interesting challenge. I'm not so sure about things in Saudi Arabia, my knowledge is limited about them but as far as I know the country is not ready for this yet. this is tooooo much for a country where most women don't even leave the house without their husbands. and nobody else (I mean no other men) never saw their faces in their entire life ! (except husband, father, brother) you can't simply jump from 0 to 100. things should develop slowly

That's how I always think, for example I really like Sadulaev and always enjoys watching him but I always want him to lose for the same reason but that specific match was different, that was the last match of his career. I think you always want a great athlete like him finishes his career with a win. and Gardner was kind of an anti-hero, he didn't really beat Karelin by his technique , he was defensive the entire match and won it thanks to those rules, he did nothing wrong though, when you are weaker you have to count on your luck too. it's hard to score on SHW Greco-Roman, even nowadays lots of matches are decided just by cautions.

if I'm not wrong they simply can't host the Olympics because of the city size. even during 2006 AG some teams (finished their competition in first week) were told to leave the village soon to make room for other teams not arrived yet. if Qatar hosts we will have a new wave of naturalization in almost every sport, they usually do that when they host big events. but it's interesting to see Saudi Arabia in the race, I used to have Saudi sport channels and even during the Olympics (for athletes competition for example) they cut the live stream whenever it's a women's race. (they do that in Iran too for most sports) so it's hard to imagine how they want to host beach volleyball events for example. but with this MBS guy you never know, he wants to show the world his country is modern and doesn't care about anything else. 10 years is a long time though, both countries can go bankrupt if the oil price stays this low ! btw in a very unpopular opinion I like this Sheikh Ahmad guy. OCA takes some stupid decisions here and there but in general they are not doing bad comparing to other continents and specially the IOC.

another trip to the history this is the biggest upset in wrestling history, (I consider Saitiev losing to Brandon Slay as the 2nd) Aleksander Karelin lost the last match of his career to Rulon Gardner (USA) in 2000 Olympics final. here is a short documentary about that match, I could post the whole bout instead but that was boring (Greco-Roman in higher weights are always boring) you can hear this in the documentary too I have to repeat it that Karelin was undefeated for 13 years ! he didn't give up a point for 6 or 7 years. there is a mistake in this documentary about old rules, here they say when the score was tied or the difference was just 1 point the match goes to the extra time, that's wrong. in that time wrestlers had to score 3 points or more to win the match after 6 minutes, otherwise 3 minutes of extra time was needed for tied matches or if the score was 1-0, 2-1 or 2-0. unlike current rules, in case of passivity they would just give a chance on top to the opponent to score in par-terre. (currently they also give 1 point to the attacking wrestler) Gardner was penalized for passivity 3 times but Karelin failed to execute his famous "Karelin Lift". even in those times when someone was VERY passive and visibly fleeing they could penalize him with caution and 1 point. but they didn't in that specific match. some people think they should but I think that was correct because at the time you had to be very passive to be penalized like that. and Gardner's passivity wasn't like that. last and the most important thing, there was a rule from 2000 to 2004, named as clinch (or chest to chest) they changed it several times but in 2000 it was happening in case of 0-0 after the first period, they would start the 2nd period in chest to chest to make sure someone scores. and that's how Gardner scored on the great Karelin, because Karelin opened his locked fingers (accidentally or intentionally to execute an attack) I think Karelin would never lose to this guy under current rules , right now they punish the passive wrestler with no mercy (even though sometimes refs are not fair) but Karelin vs Lopez would be the best of the best. Lopez senior career started a year later, he never faced Karelin.

I remember during the election time in Brazil I read a lot of negative comments from our Brazilian friends about this guy and I was thinking, "come on , they are exaggerating, this guy can't be that bad. and Brazil is not like my country where one guy can make a huge difference" but it turned out I was very wrong

apparently the world "allow" means different in different places, Iran simply don't recognize dual citizenship but has no problem with that. but yes that's illegal for dual citizens to take government places. we hear sometimes here and there that some guys accuse the others of being dual citizens ! (and therefore not eligible to be a minister or deputy minister or something like that)

I stopped following the news about the coronavirus since a week ago, I mean I still read important news and specially advises but not much spending time on that, after 2 months this is too depressing. I accept the fact that this virus will stay with us for a very long time. more than a year maybe. right now all I can do is to be responsible, follow the advises 100% and taking care of my family. the worst part is I can't see my niece, because my sister works for healthcare system and we decided to keep the distance until this is over. a little update about the situation, since yesterday life is almost back to normal in Tehran, except something like 70% are wearing mask ! high risk activities (schools, gatherings, sport) are still banned. still no barbershop so I had to give myself a haircut but traffic in Tehran is crazier than ever, according to stats 75% more than same time last year why ? because people are using their own cars and not the public transports. Iran had never been in a total lockdown, we had some strict restrictions only during new year holidays when most offices were naturally closed. those holidays had ended 16 days ago (still businesses were closed until a week ago and in Tehran until yesterday) so we were supposed to see some jump in the numbers right now but the numbers are still steady and even slowly they are going down ! (someone with a magic pen ?) we will see what will happen after a week or two. but my general feeling also is the situation is not as bad as a month ago. I have to go to a hospital tomorrow and do some software check there for few hours even though I was told the hospital is perfectly safe and is not in a critical situation as it was 45 days ago (the last time I went there) but still a hospital is the last place you want to go these days

technically no but for the reason I explained in reality that's true. nobody really tries to give up nationality and that's usually not necessary because Iran doesn't require people to do that. yes, more than half those passengers were only Iranian but some of them (something like 30) had dual citizenship, they entered and left Iran with their Iranian passports which means the Iranian government didn't know (and didn't care) if they had other passports or not.

I know some people who have both Iranian and Dutch citizenship you know one of them too, Reza Ghoochannejhad in Iran you actually can give up nationality legally but that's a lengthy process and has to be signed by president himself ! I mean for each case, and since usually the president is busy running/ruining the country, he has no time for that. in short that's almost an impossible process. while that's legally available I assume nobody tries that. but the Iranian solution is to simply ignore the dual citizenship, and don't recognize it. so if you are Iranian, you are Iranian, it doesn't matter how many other passports you have. that doesn't sound bad so far, half my relatives have dual citizenship and never had any problem with that. but then when you are in trouble in Iran your other country can't do anything to help you legally because for the Iranian government are only Iranian. and in times of crisis like right now, being dual citizen put a target on you. specially if you are from certain countries.

there is nothing to watch these days ,so let's see some old matches so many wrestling fans (including myself) consider Buvaisar Saitiev as the best freestyle wrestler of all time. he is 3 time Olympic Champion, 6 times World Champion and 6 times European Champion. if we count World and Olympic titles, only Aleksander Karelin has more gold medals than him (10 comparing to 9) but then Karelin was a SHW and it's always easier to dominate in heavier weights. if you look at him, and his muscles he doesn't look like a great great wrestler, but he was the most technical wrestler ever without doubt, his hand work was the best ever. always forcing his opponents to collapse. Saitiev lost couple times in Russian nationals, but as far as I know in his senior career he lost only twice in international competitions, 2000 Olympics group stage to Brandon Slay (USA) and quarterfinals of 2006 World Championships to Mihail Ganev (BUL) , interestingly these 2 guys were not such big big names, Slay only represented USA once and won silver in Sydney Olympics (after beating Saitiev) but then his silver turned to gold after the gold medalist Leipold (GER) tested positive for doping, Mihail Ganev won a world title 4 years later but he didn't even medal in that tournament he beat Saitiev., Saitiev lost that match mostly because he gassed. kind of interesting to watch these matches, rules were completely different back then. even from 2000 to 2007 we had big big changes. I'm not sure how many times Saitiev lost in Russia but I'm aware of two matches (I assume he didn't lost any more matches) once in 2002 Russian Nationals to Magomed Isagadzhiev and once at 2007 Nationals to Makhach Murtazaliev. from 1995 to 2008 Saitiev was always Russian repersentative except those 2 years he lost their trials and also 1999 when he gave the spot to his brother Adam Saitiev.

you know Judo changed its format to this only when they started having a proper ranking system, now they separate top 8 in the draw, and they can reach QF without facing each other, wrestling has no proper raking system. with this format you may end up having two best wrestlers facing each other right in the first round and it happened so many times before.

I think you probably know it but still for info Taekwondo has no repechage system in all other competitions, that's only for the Olympics. there is no perfect system, I prefer Olympic Taekwondo format, specially that bronze medal match against the SF loser from the opposite side of the draw. but I think the old format in Judo was probably better, all semifinalist loseing opponents could have a chance for bronze. in wrestling they tried so many different formats in past, some of them unbelievably unfair, (can you believe there was a guy who won all of his matches and still left the Olympics without a medal ? ) I follow wrestling since 1994, they tried so many formats before 1993: 2 groups, double elimination, group winners to the final 1993-1994: direct elimination, everybody goes to the repechage except losers from 2nd and 3rd rounds !!! I know some wrestlers lost intentionally in the first round to avoid the world champion in the next round ! 1995-1998: direct elimination, everybody goes to the repechage, that sounds fair but then sometimes you have to win 6-7 matches in repechage to win the bronze ! 1999: group format of 3 or 4 wrestlers, with group winners and some of runner-ups advance, the number of runner-ups was based on the bracket, for example they wanted to have 8 or 16 or 32 wrestlers for the knockout round, (the ugliest wrestling match I remember was from 1999 WCH , when two wrestlers from Iran and Hungary both wanted to lose to avoid Adam Saitiev, the Iranian managed to lose but then the next day they found out their calculation was wrong and he was out) 2000-2004: group format of 3 or 4 wrestlers, with only group winners advanving to the knockout round 2005-: current format

of course it is, even though they worked on accent to make it sound Indian (as much as they could) first this is just fun and also a commercial clip (about energizing drinks) so don't except it to really make sense this is the whole clip. this is based on cliche we remember about Bollywood movies from something like 20 years ago, Bollywood movies were really popular back then, this guy always makes fun of Iran national TV (mostly the news channel) at the beginning of the clip the news said, Corona itself made an statement that it's not afraid of China, USA, North Korea and even ISIS but it is afraid of India ! because Salman Khan himself went to a hospital, pull the virus out of a patient's throat, beat it and kill it ! other bollywood actors are joining him ! even though the Indian police still made 7 million butts red ! and in the movie part, this guy after being in quarantine for a month drunk some of those energizing drinks (apparently got horny) and went out, but met the police and the police tracked him to his mother's place, after a brief fight, the police's daughter came looking for his dad and this guy fell in love at first sight this is the lyrics for the music part

A little joke with our Indian friends the whole clip is something like 5 minutes about Coronavirus in India and how Bollywood actors will beat the hell of it but I post only this music part , it looks and somehow even sounds very Indian.

If I'm not wrong you already did that there is an embassy but with no ambassador. you have to think of something else

CHINA 12 HUNGARY 11 ISRAEL 10 SERBIA 9 BULGARIA 8 GREECE 7 MEXICO 6 ITALY 5 GERMANY 4 FRANCE 3 POLAND 2 INDIA 1 These were the votes of Iran. Thank you all.

HUNGARY 11 ISRAEL 10 SERBIA 9 BULGARIA 8 GREECE 7 MEXICO 6 ITALY 5 GERMANY 4 FRANCE 3 POLAND 2 INDIA 1

technically Iran always awards medal to Israel by letting team walk free to the next round.

IRAN Hello fellow Totallympians, this is Iran calling! Here are the votes of the Iranian National Jury: ISRAEL 10 SERBIA 9 BULGARIA 8 GREECE 7 MEXICO 6 ITALY 5 GERMANY 4 FRANCE 3 POLAND 2 INDIA 1

So I guess it's my turn now

http://www.fiba.basketball/news/fibas-executive-committee-confirms-global-calendar-update EuroBasket and AmeriCup are now scheduled for 2022, but no big change for Asia and Africa which means teams like Iran have to play the continental Championships right after the Olympics ! there are only 9 days gap between those 2 events, probably one extra week for teams being eliminated in the first round .

I can't say I didn't like it but it has a very slow pace , I remember there was an episode about trying to catch a fly in the lab ! so my answer is No, if you didn't like the first episode I don't think you will enjoy the rest.

Well I was 10 at the time but I remember 1994 WC very well, probably even much better than 2018 ! and Bulgaria was my 2nd favorite team (behind Italy) and they beat the main favorite (as the defending champion). I usually support the underdog even when I was a kid I think I still can name the entire Bulgarian squad (starting 11) without googling and I almost hurt myself after Letchkov's header, another reason to never forget that specific match.