MHSN

I watched lots of recorded matches from WCs but they never leave a memony, so I limit myself only to those I watched live. (which means from 1994) and I think the word "best" is relative. this is the list of my memorable WC matches and not finals 1. 2006 Italy vs Germany 2. 1994 Bulgaria vs Germany 3. 1998 Argentina vs England 4. 2010 Germany vs Argentina 5. 1994 Italy vs Spain

so that's the reason why we never had full lockdown here and even those restrictions (semi lockdown) are planned to be lifted . to not face a strong second wave, we let the first wave to continue and become a tornado. I always knew we are starter than the rest of the world

ask @Sindo I can't remember the details it was few years ago (maybe 8-9 years ago ! wow I can't believe I'm here in this forum for this long) but I think Sindo should remember better, he was the one being threatened not me

UWW is postponing all Olympic Qualification Tournaments to almost the same date in 2021, small changes in dates are possible and hosts won't be changed.

actually I wanted to use the Olympic flag but Sindo told me some lady from IOC contacted her (or something like that) telling him that's illegal so I changed it to my favorite Olympics logo, while I also followed 1996 Olympics and remember few things from 1992 too, but 2000 was the first Olympics I watched as much as possible. even though it was NOT in summer, the timing was very bad and all of 3 Iran gold medals happened when I was at school or on the school bus on my way to school well and at the time there was no internet (I mean not like now) or smartphones to follow everything even when you are not at home still that's my favorite Olympics.

from what I saw in past couple of days, life is back to normal like nothing has happened, Tehran is back to its own crazy traffic , only people are wearing masks and do the same things ! and it's not only the capital , other cities are facing the same situation more or less. things were somehow under control in past couple of weeks but I'm afraid that won't stay the same. meanwhile the Rouhani government took some smart decisions * All less-risk businesses, industries and shops (which means almost everything except sport activities, concerts, religious gatherings etc) will be back to normal from 11 April, only in Tehran province the date will be 18 April. * All government offices, banks etc are now working with 33% capacities, that will be 66% from 11 April, and again only in Tehran that will be from 18 April * Inter province travels are banned until 18 April, with the exception of travels between Tehran and Alborz (where I live) no restriction for that. * universities will be open for PhD and MS students from 18 April, but schools and universities (for the rest) will be closed until 18 April, and the government will decide about it later. Southern provinces in "white zone" can open schools even from 13 April (that will be up to local officials) !! bottom line, we have some spare beds in hospitals, let's put them in use by making more patients. it seems we are determined to climb that worldometers table once again.

I was joking but giving advises through the phone is not as effective as pushing someone consistently to do something as @Griff88 said his mother pushed him doing that and I know what he mean, when my mom wants me to do something, she is always successful but you know the culture here (and probably some other eastern countries) is to live with your parents until you are married. of course nowadays things are different and as you said more people prefer to live alone and have their independence, but still the majority follow that culture . and beside that when parents get older (specially if one of them passes away) they usually go live with one of their children. sending your parents to a nursing home is considered some kind of treachery . so we stick to our parents this culture is not necessarily a good thing but I assume that helps here in a situation like this. maybe that's why the death rate in Iran is not as high as it should be.

well believe me, you really owe her big time I don't know why people don't like living with their parents, they always give you wise advice only if I was living with my mother at the time ( I moved in with my parents after the crisis) I never shaved my head and I really hate it but that's probably an option right now

do any of you guys having problems with your hair ? going to a barber shop is exactly against the idea of social distancing and I'm not even sure if barber shops are open ! with a bit of exaggeration, I look like Marcelo (Real Madrid player) right now

Decision on Thailand and Malaysia Weightlifting federations https://www.iwf.net/2020/04/04/independent-member-federation-sanctions-panel-imfsp-issues-decisions-thai-amateur-weightlifting-association-malaysian-weightlifting-federation/ Thailand is suspended for 3 years.

Saturday is the first day of the week and today was the first workday of the year. and to everybody's surprise, Tehran's streets became something like this ! despite the fact almost all shops have to remain closed. and most offices were supposed to work with 1/3.

well that's what everybody is afraid of , even though I think some (or maybe most) of those travelers were already forced to go back to their towns. and most things will remain closed, but still no restriction if you want to go out.

Today was 13th day of new year in Iran, the last day of new year "holiday", since million years ago there was a tradition about going out to nature in this day to avoid the "bad luck" of this 13th. of course nowadays nobody really believes in that bad luck thing but still that was always a huge tradition. but this year in past few days everybody was begging everybody to stay at home. and it was somehow successful. and Rouhani was very happy about it, bragging about how successful their strategy was. something like "look, we didn't force people to stay at home, we convinced them to do so" yes we probably survived the day but what about tomorrow and Friday when most of those 8.5 millions will travel back to their towns and while numbers don't show any kind of improvement, Rouhani was claiming the situation is "improving" in all 31 provinces. (while the number of deaths passed 3000 today ) but one thing is true that hospitals are not full anymore. and they are much more prepared for the possible patients in future.

Athletics too but that's not my point, for example Iran won't qualify so many athletes in Athletics and Swimming and in Taekwondo Iran never send A team to a competition like this (same as 2017) so technically it won't change much. but few months before the Olympics, NOCs will only focus on that, even if we survive this crisis , there will be financial problems . I don't think NOCs will have much money for preparing their teams for an event like this.

Good luck having a "successful" competition in that time 3 months before the Olympics. I think if they don't cancel the games most NOCs will only send few athletes only to respect the OCA. not seriously sending a delegation. I really expect Iran to do that, only sending less than 10 athletes in one sport. (probably just a futsal team) because OCA always asks NOCs to participate. only two new sports, Floorball and Netball ! we used to see organizers adding weird sports ino the AIMAG program. but seriously I hope they change the name, this is probably the worst name ever "Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games" !! what about Asian Games B !

Some changes in WT calendar http://www.worldtaekwondo.org/postponement-of-tokyo-2020-and-subsequent-impact-on-wt-calendar/ interestingly , we still will have a 2021 World Championships but they changed the date to somewhere in last 3 months of the year.

yes we heard that yesterday even though I don't think he is in any serious danger. Iran stopped all sport activities very early, but we knew it was about time, he is the first famous Iranian athlete being infected and probably not the last one. even though these professional athletes can handle the virus much better than ordinary people.

wow, that's too much Iran got close to Russia only in past 10-20 years but Khomeini was strongly anti-soviet. actually he was anti everything. their slogan at the start was "No East, No west, only Islamic Republic" I really don't hear that these days. not at all, Khomeini and his friends used some of those communist groups (like any other anti-shah group) to make the revolution happen but after 1979 they arrested and executed most of communist leaders (it was called "Tudeh Party" at the time) even though I have to say some of those groups were as bad as him, MEK (or as I call them the Iranian version of ISIS) killed so many high rank officials, they had so many successful terrorist plans, including killing president Rajaei. those actions actually gave Khomeini more power and excuse to go further and silence all opposition groups. including Soviet-backed parties. I'm not sure why Saddam started the war, I'm still trying to read more about that, but he knew Khomeini is his eternal enemy ( as I said he wanted to murder Khomeini when he was in Iraq) and Iraq was a Shia-majority country. he was probably afraid of Iran. he was also at war with Iran under Shah but they made peace later. after the revolution they destroyed most of the army, arresting and executing most of top army generals, so maybe Saddam saw an opportunity to attack a VERY weakened Iran and he was counting on Iranian-Arabs to support him. people in Southwest of Iran (oil rich provinces) are ethnic Arab but he was wrong and they didn't support him. Saddam invaded few parts of Iran, but then Iran regrouped and after 2 years they kicked Saddam's army out of Iranian lands. but the war didn't stop, Khomeini has a very very famous quota. "The Road to Quds (Jerusalem) passes through Karbala" in his wildest dream he was dreaming the Iraqi Shias supporting him taking religious parts of Iraq. Khomeini never wanted to stop the war, after 6 years finally some politicians managed to convince him that it's useless and since the whole world is somehow supporting Saddam and Iran is running out of everything, and Saddam was starting to use chemical weapons. (thanks to some European countries/companies) Khomeini only accepted the ceasefire because he had no other option, and drunk the "cup of poison" as he said himself. of course there are still lots of secrets about that bloody war we still don't know.

yeah, but to me dates around 1977 to 1988 is like a black hole, you rarely can find information about those days. I mean from reliable sources because as I said earlier everything is biased. yes of course he underestimated Khomeini, he had multiple opportunities to murder him but he didn't, Khomeini was in exile in Iraq for something like 15 years and from what we know now, Saddam Hussein asked for MohammadReza's permission to murder Khomeini few times but he didn't want to do that, mostly because he was religious himself ! killing a grand Ayatollah was crossing the line for him. Shah has a very famous speech on the national TV (or maybe radio) two months before the revolution, there is a famous line "People, I heard your voice of revolution" saying that could save him a year ago but he "heard" the voice when it was too late, he had to flee the country few days after this speech (and never had the chance to come back) his last prime minister Shapour Bakhtiar is one of the people I respect the most, he was jailed by the same Shah but Shah released him from prison only few weeks before the revolution asking him to save everything. he tried to help only because he knew what's going to happen when Khomeini captures the power. but as I said it was too late, Bakhtiar later got murdered brutally in France. I'm not sure if other countries had anything to do with the revolution, they probably just let it happen but it was really people's revolution, Khomeini deceived everybody. it wasn't really an Islamic revolution at the start, there were other groups involved too. Khomeini was charismatic and indeed smart and took advantage of the situation, I recently watched a documentary on Sadegh Ghotbzadeh , he was very very close to Khomeini during the revolution, they were like father and son, he played a huge role, risked his life so many times but then got executed by the same person he was adoring , of course he was really planing for a coup but mostly because there were people like him believing their revolution is being hijacked by the islamists. in fact there is a famous picture, when Khomeini arrived in Tehran (from France) 10 days before the revolution, everybody on that plane risked their lives because it was always possible that Shah Airforce decides to shoot down the plane , what's amazing is nobody in that airplane is in power in Iran right now, they all got jailed, executed, or fled the country. as I said most of these things don't make sense in 2020, I really can't understand most of these comments, decisions, actions etc. the whole war with Iraq doesn't make sense, I know Saddam started the war, but Iran could end it after 2 years, but they fought 6 more years for nothing, Khomeini was still extremely popular when he died, only after his death people started to open their eyes and learn about his true nature. what I never understand is what people were seeing in this man from the first day ?

as much as you want they closed shops, parks, and almost anywhere possible. but if you just want to go out, no restriction for that. YET

Since we have LOTS of free time these days, I decided to read more about the history of Iranian politics. I'm not talking about the million years ago, I mean years around 1979, the Islamic revolution, the problem is it's impossible to find neutral and fair sources, everything is biased. if you listen to IR sources the Shah was a brutal dictator and his SAVAK killed lots of people, the whole "corrupt western world" (and even eastern) was supporting him. Khomeini was an angel falling from the heaven, it was only an "Islamic revolution" and other groups had nothing to do with it (which is in fact a big lie) and if you listen to anti-IR sources Shah was such a nationalistic gentleman but since the "western world" was afraid of him of being the next superpower, they plotted against him, they "made" Khomeini ! and BBC played a big role they still call it Ayatollah BBC, (if you don't believe me, just google that, you will be surprised ) ---------------- recently I got my hands on some old newspapers, reading them is a very interesting experience for me, most of those comments and interviews at 1980s sounds extremely stupid and unbelievable right now in 2020 but the reason why I brought this up is a sport-related reason, it was always my question why exactly Iran boycotted two Olympics in a row. both Moscow and Los Angeles. today I found a newspaper from 1984, statement from the Iranian prime minister at the time about boycotting the games, I'm going to translate the most important part: Because USA continues to meddle in middle east countries affairs, specially USA government's support for the "Zionist regime" and because of the crimes they are committing in Latin American countries specially El Salvador !!! The Cabinet decides that our athletes don't participate ... really, El Salvador ?

Iran had the record number of more than 2200 positive cases today. but they say that's only because they are improving the testing capability, beside that the situation is still the same, the number of deaths is still around something between 120-150 per day I think right now the only country not in lockdown is Iran even though we are slowly going to that direction, there will be more restriction starting from tomorrow, they are just wasting time. a complete lockdown is inevitable eventually, we can't keep the numbers "steady" forever.

actually Moradi is not the only top Iranian athlete recovering from a surgery, Hassan Yazdani (Olympic Champion and probably our best athlete right now) is in the same situation, I can add Hamideh Abbasali to the list , people who followed Karate qualification probably remember what happened to her ACL a month ago in Salzburg. she is probably the only Iranian female athlete with a very good chance to win medal (even gold medal) in Tokyo. I was thinking and except some of our basketball players, none of our top athletes were supposed to retire after Tokyo, and the majority of them are young, so at least it doesn't hurt Iran (I mean only from this point of view, of course the virus hurt everybody)

only young athletes ? because I can name Sohrab Moradi, he is still recovering from a surgery and one more year will give him a better chance to reach his max records. even though he is also getting older and beside that he still has to "qualify" and we have to wait to see the modified qualification rules. but one athlete I can name is Amir Hossein Zare in wrestling, he is 19 and he beat several world medalists already (including world champion Geno Petriashvili) but I think he needs 1 or 2 more years to become world #1. also I can name that Russian kid Kurban Shiraev I think he will beat world champion Gazhimurad Rashidov next year to be Russia's representative in Tokyo

I didn't mean summer obviously, maybe in December or November, even though I know that's unlikely/impossible. at least I hope they don't cancel 2021 World Championships, just reschedule them. it's hard to qualify for the Olympics and there are some non-Olympic events, therefore cancelling the 2021 Worlds means two years without Worlds/Olympics for so many athletes