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Iran finished the competition with 5 gold, 1 silver, 3 bronze and of course a doped wrestler ! plus the team title. it wasn't a bad tournament but still some of those defeats were disappointing, and that Hedayat accident overshadowed everything else. half of these guys are not #1 here , almost all Olympic weights except 97kg. almost all of them were 21 or 22 with one or two exceptions. looks like we have a new generation in our Greco program. but most importantly our wrestling federation released a statement regarding Behrouz Hedayat and 87kg semifinal accident. these are important points * he was tested during Takhti Cup (which was indirectly Iranian trials and was held a month ago), they sent the samples to Germany and since coaches were suspicious of this guy they asked the German lab for quick results. * Our coach didn't want to send him to New Delhi but they had to because they had no proof of his guilt and they didn't receive the news from Germany in time. * They received the preliminary results from Cologne only minutes before his semifinal match and told him to lose ! because when you test positive in an international competition your national federation has to pay something as fine. I believe there are some lies here, there was only 40-50 minutes between QF and SF, hard to believe they received the news only in that short period of time ! they claim they told him to lose because it wasn't "fair" for other wrestlers, what about not just participating at all ?! and what about the Uzbek wrestler he beat in the first round ? personally I guess they found out about it in India when it was too late to replace him with someone else, after receiving the draw he had to wrestle Uzbekistan in the first round which was Iran's direct rival for the team title. they let him beat and eliminate the top favorite for the gold medal and then told him to lose, but since he wasn't smart he played it very bad and now everybody knows about it. this is just my guess but that was unfair and unsportsmanship they had to kick this guy out of the team the moment they received the news. Iranian team was good enough to win the team title even with one less wrestler.

is this final and confirmed ? or the preliminary test result ? I know it will be confirmed soon but as long as it's not confirmed Iran has to send someone to the Asian qualifiers. but well I would prefer quota in another weight this one was 99% guaranteed in Asian qualifiers, I assume this is a good news for other 125kg Asian wrestlers and also huge news for Kosovo !

Reading the regulations it seems there will box-off to determine all Olympic quotas. http://boxing.athlete365.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/IOC-Boxing-Task-Force-Tokyo-2020-Event-Regulations.pdf

strict limitations but not a blanket ban but Iran can't host the women's competition. it seems if a country wants to host the Olympic qualifier (the way it was supposed to be) it has to host both genders. that's the issue otherwise Iran would host all those Olympic qualifiers in all sports (and I'm not exaggerating) and actually they are thinking about it. that's impossible in sports like waterpolo or wrestling. but at least in taekwondo they already offered WT to host the competition as well as the Asian Championships. of course not in mainland Iran but in one of the islands where rules are let's say a bit less strict but honestly I think FINA could find a solution for this if they were really committed. maybe separating men and women competitions, finding a host for each one, or having the competition in Italy and the Netherlands if nobody is interested, cancelling the event was the worst possible solution.

this is what I heard, apparently Iran Swimming Federation contacted other national federations to see if they can create something against this decision but they didn't receive any positive response, therefore they are protesting alone. China is apparently OK with the arrangement, and others simply don't care since they had no chance.

it seems both China and Kazakhstan are OK with that decision and the only country upset about it is Iran ! our swimming federation believes they have a chance against Kazakhstan (even though they admit the chance is very slim) but at very least they prepared the team for couple months and paid their Serbian coaches they want to play Kazakhstan at least. Iran sent some letters to IOC and FINA asking them to not cancel the Asian qualifiers. they offer FINA two options, 1) having a match between Iran and Kazakhstan anywhere in the world ! 2) both teams participate in World qualifiers in the Netherlands and the best ranked Asian team qualifies.

it seems your guess was correct, or at least that's what he claims. he is training in Oman and UAE these days and works in an Emirate club. he claims he has no intention to represent another country even though he knows it will be an uphill task for him to find his way back to the Iranian national team.

2nd day finalists 60: Fumita vs Sharshenbekov 67: Bakhshilloev vs Ryu 72: Kavianinejad vs Magomadov 82: Ebrahimi vs Choi 97: Saravi vs Lee the live stream (and also live scoring system) was terrible today, the stream was off for more than an hour during the QF/SF and when it came back only 2 mats were working. personally I have to adjust my work schedule and shorten my sleeping time to be able to watch the entire session. it feels terrible to do all these things but end up watching almost nothing ! so thanks UWW and thanks the organizers for ruining my day. can't write much about the matches because I missed more than half of them. but with 3 wrestlers in the final and 2 in bronze medal match Iran is guaranteed the team title. (which I know is important for our coaches) I was sure about Kaviani and Saravi, it's good to see a 3rd wrestler in the final as well. 60kg semifinal defeat was a bit disappointing but Mohsennejad isn't just that good. we have world bronze medalist in this weight but 67kg is surely our weakest link. it's really hard for Iran to qualify this weight, Asadi did OK by reaching the semifinal and he wasn't that bad against former World Champion Ryu Han-Su but still not good enough to beat him. I know our coaches tried all possible options in this weight to find a reliable wrestler but I think right now they are probably thinking about making one of those 72kg wrestler to cut weight for this. it will be really hard for Iran to qualify this weight for Tokyo. interesting to see 3 Korean wrestlers in the final, Ryu was expected though.

that's unlikely because the Uzbek guy apparently got busted after the 2018 Worlds, and it seems IWF doesn't like to touch World Champs results unless the athlete in question tested positive exactly in that competition. but his case is still open, we will know more when IWF officially disqualifies him (specially about when he got caught) but they have to be quick. all these disqualifications have direct impact on 2020 Olympic qualifications. (I mean the number of disqualified athletes which will determine how many quota they can win maximum) I think Reis has more chance with his Rio Olympics 5th place ! because they test Olympic samples so many times in next few years and there are some suspicious guys above him in the final standing. but he has a good chance for a medal on the competition day in Tokyo. if nothing special happens, we will have at least one new country on the Olympic podium. it will be either Brazil, Algeria, Syria or Turkmenistan. Reis has the 4th best result in the Olympic qualification period among eligible weightlifters for Tokyo, and if we remove both Armenian guys (I assume they won't participate in Tokyo) he will be 2nd behind only Talakhadze !! he will be 3rd though when they update the ranking, still that means podium.

IWF officially disqualified almost the whole Thai squad from 2018 World Championships (not exactly the whole squad but still) there are lots of medal reallocation. mostly in favor of China and Romania ! 45kg: Gold: Sukcharoen ===> Jumabayeva Silver: Jumabayeva ===> Nanthawong Bronze: Nanthawong ===> Echandia 49kg: Gold: Pamongkhol ===> Hou Silver: Hou ===> Jiang Bronze: Jiang ===> Andries 55kg: Gold: Srisurat ===> Li Silver: Li ===> Zhang Bronze: Zhang ===> Iovu 64kg: Bronze: Wamalun ===> Toma +87kg: Bronze: Chaidee ===> Kim in general Thailand lost 3 gold and 2 bronze medals. 2 of those golds went to China and one of them to Turkmenistan ! 3 bronze medals also went to Romania ! and Echandia became the first ever female world championship medalist from Venezuela !

That's a very good question, and there is no way we can find a logical answer for that. I just assume he is not a smart guy. that's the only answer I can find. so far our wrestling federation and our Greco coaches didn't make a comment about it. but they have to. maybe tomorrow after the end of Greco-Roman competition or after the end of entire competition. I'm sure there will be some kind of explanation

here we go, the sound was off entirely in morning session on Mat A, that's why they put a music on it. it was great if we could hear the conversations though.

yes Naserpour was man of the day. it was something like 4 hours between matches, he had enough time to recover that's just a little mistake if you check UWW website it's 2VFO, which means both wrestlers are disqualified, apparently their software just show one of them as XXX df XXX. but in fact all 3 wrestlers got disqualified. they awarded only 1 bronze medal. there was no second guy on the 3rd place podium. I assume those 2 other guys just didn't know they had to wrestle the repechage and left the stadium. if you watch the end of Hedayat-KGZ match, most people didn't notice what happened at the end. they were probably watching from the distance and left the stadium when they assumed the KGZ guy lost the SF and therefore eliminated them. rumors here say he failed a drug test in Iran, and he received the news only today ! I'm not really sure but one thing is for sure he knew he was on drugs and will fail a real test for sure. but I have to tell you some tests inside Iran are not accurate, because of the sanctions and mostly financial reasons they can't test everybody in qualified and legit labs. I know our wrestling federation created some kind of tests to just check the wrestlers in the first place, if they find the results "suspicious" they will send the sample to a lab in Germany for more investigations. it seems he received the news about "being suspicious" I'm sure he will get a long term suspension, either by WADA or by Iran NADO, this got viral in Iran and now everybody knows about this accident. and wrestling fans are extremely angry on him for "ashaming" the history of our wrestling. even if he doesn't fail a drug test, they will ban him from the national team because of that behavior. I will post the video later that was really shameful.

all finals were one-sided today, 4 of them ended up with technical superiority ! Iran won 2 golds, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and India won one gold each. Iraq and Tajikistan will also bring back home a bronze medal but not because they are improved ! but because they were lucky with the draw. Iraqi guy had to beat Jordan for the bronze ! and the Tajik guy had to beat Kuwait ! but the most funny things was 87kg podium with only 1 bronze medalist ! the Iranian guy Hedayat obviously didn't want to win any medal. but there was a little problem both other guys in the repechage didn't show up for the repechage match, I assume they were confused too they didn't notice the guy who beat them (from Kyrgyzstan) won his semifinal (despite being down 7-0 and only 6 seconds left) and I assume they already left the stadium. it was nobody to wrestle Hedayat for bronze therefore they didn't award that bronze medal. 2 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze and 1 fake injury for Iran in the first day. both of those 2 defeats were really disappointing, they both lost by technical superiority ! Poshtam won the World Military Games few months ago beating some top guys like Nemes, but then he was like a harmless baby in the final. obviously he is only good against certain type of wrestlers (like Nemes for example) for tomorrow I expect nothing less than gold from Kavianinejad and Saravi. it will be much harder for 3 other guys.

1st day finalists 55: Naserpour vs Ortikboev 63: Tasmuradov vs Song 77: Poshtam vs Shadukayev 87: Sunil vs Salidinov 130: Mirzazadeh vs Kim it was a good day for Iran until the last 30 minutes, Dalkhani was really disappointing in his semifinal against Tasmuradov. I was expecting much more from him but I saw one of the most disgusting things in 87kg semifinal. our wrestler Hedayat was leading 7-0 against Kyrgyz guy until last 6 seconds but all of a sudden he fell on the mat and got injured and told the ref no no I can't continue ! with only 6 seconds left ! even the Kyrgyz guy was confused , it was like what the hell just happened, why I won ?! and after the match the way he went down the stairs he was no way injured, this guy came out of nowhere this year beat everybody and made the national team, I didn't even heard his name until few months ago and today we found out the reason of his improvement ! to me this is obvious he didn't want to win a medal , why ? because he knows what's in his fucking body and tried to escape the anti doping test. he beat world bronze medalist Assakalov in the first round, this is totally unfair for him. Assakalov somehow got robbed of a sure gold medal. damn I'm so angry to see some stupid cheaters like this guy. but I'm glad it happened here and not in Olympic qualifiers. we still have 3 wrestlers in the final but I'm not sure if Nasserpour is capable of wrestling the last match, he was almost dead after the semifinal. he couldn't stand on his feet and simply collapsed after the final whistle. he really gave his everything to defend that super strong Indian guy who knew nothing about wrestling techniques but was extremely strong. Nasserpour was down 7-1 at some point but came back magically to win it 8-7. our other guys Poshtam and Mirzazadeh will be favorites in the final but none of them impressed me. they are both #3 in Iran and even winning gold in Asia doesn't change that.

brackets are up for the Greco-Roman competition, as expected the level isn't great but still I see some big names in South Korea and Kazakhstan squads. few more in other teams too, as for Iran this is almost our best team in non-Olympic weights but of course I don't expect any of these guys (except one) to go to the Olympics. and it's kind of interesting, Iran won 11 gold medals in Asian Championships last year but none of these 11 guys are in the squad this year ! actually nobody from last year 20-man team is here ! this is an entirely different team ! it's also interesting to see world champion Kenichiro Fumita here !

Asian Championships relocated to Uzbekistan https://www.iwf.net/2020/02/17/asian-championships-relocated-uzbekistan/

I think everybody likes to watch that. but I assume they will held one match wrestle-offs behind the closed doors as they did last year but for Dzhambolat Tedeev (Russia head coach) it's not about who can beat who between them, it's about who can win the Olympic gold ! and it seems Sidakov has more chance to achieve that. even though he had close matches against Burroughs and Chamizo in past couple of years. it's not like he dominated everybody in 2018 and 2019. yes sometimes we forget that about Russia but even if they fail in CAS I think they will be allowed to send their athletes under another name, these guys had no doping history so I assume they are fine to wrestle in Tokyo

haha, it seems Chamizo is trying to trick Russian coaches into not sending Sidakov to Tokyo https://unitedworldwrestling.org/article/chamizo-wins-clash-against-gazimagomedov-claims-fourth-european-title personally I'm not sure winning silver in Euro is something to be proud of for a Russian wrestler. they have higher standards. Gazi himself is a double world champion but at 70kg. he is a great wrestler but then they you have a two time World Champion in the same weight who happens to be younger,

A bit about the last day of freestyle competition. I think Frank Chamizo almost secured the Olympic place for Zaurbek Sidakov by beating his only rival Gazimagomedov ! Gazi had to win the gold to maybe (just maybe) stand a chance for a trial against Sidakov. I think Russian head coach Tedeev is now convinced to pick Sidakov without a trial. Sidakov beat Chamizo at the worlds relatively easily. but for Russia 57kg and 65kg will be more complicated to pick their best guy, they have the world champion in these weights but their 2nd guy also won the gold here and that kid Shiraev is not someone you can easily ignore. also at 86kg it seems Naifonov is their best guy, not sure if they really need another trial to prove that once again. it was interesting to see someone from Switzerland in European final. that guy Scherrer was damn strong but almost didn't know anything about wrestling techniques. and Geno simply destroyed his Polish opponent in the final. Baran had some great results in preliminaries but then Geno is just the best. now we have to wait for the Olympic qualifiers, it will be really hard with only 2 spots up for grab. and seeding won't do much because most of top seeds aren't really the best European wrestlers. for example what's the point of being seed #1 at Greco 77kg if you get Roman Vlasov in your bracket.

yes it seems so, in the new ranking, they show Ganjzadeh in green so obviously the final rank in the weight class has the advantage. that means Aktas and Horne also will play a big role in this battle between our guys. it's also very important for Kvesic and Arkania, I think both of them most probably will finish 3rd in their classes, it will be up to the Iranians to decide about them

this is not "one more" , only one of them will be counted into the ranking. right now they are counting 2019 Euro but after the end of 2020 Euro, they replace those points with 2020 results. at the end only one of them will be counted. what I did here is I just removed those 2019 points . but yes other continents can protest about the fact that why European Championships is the last event !? that's not fair because European athletes know exactly what they need to qualify. that's not fair, the last tournament should be a worldwide one.

and for women Women's Kata Sandra Sanchez - 10582.5 Q Viviana Bottaro - 6585 Q Grace Lau - 5790 Sakura Kokumai - 5197.5 Dilara Eltemur - 3667.5 Women's 50kg Serap Ozcelik - 10342.5 Q Sara Bahmanyar - 5497.5 Li Ranran - 4350 Shara Hubrich - 4117.5 Bettina Plank - 4057.5 Radwa Sayed - 4012.5 Junna Tsukii - 3697.5 Alexandra Recchia - 2895 Women's 55kg Anzhelika Terliuga - 8992.5 Q Wen Tzu-Yun - 6510 Jana Messerschmidt - 4927.5 Women's 61kg Yin Xiaoyan - 9975 Q Giana Lotfy - 7140 Q Jovana Prekovic - 5362.5 Merva Coban - 5047.5 Rozita Alipour - 4897.5 Gwendoline Philippe - 4440 Haya Jumaa - 4387.5 Leila Heurtault - 4365 Alexandra Grande - 3675 Laura Pasqua - 2437.5 Women's 68kg Irina Zaretska - 8647.5 Q Elena Quirici - 5445 Gong Li - 5422.5 Feryal Abdelaziz - 5325 Silvia Semeraro - 5130 Alizee Agier - 4230 Halyna Melnyk - 4057.5 Miroslava Kopunova - 3150 Women's +68kg Hamideh Abbasali - 6007.5 Meltem Hocaoglu - 4897.5 Sofya Berultseva - 4897.5 Eleni Chatziliadou - 4575 Clio Ferracuti - 4237.5 Gao Mengmeng - 3150 Shymaa Abouel-Yazed - 3075 Titta Keinanen - 3052.5 Anna-Laure Florentin - 2895 Maria Torres - 2857.5

WKF is extremely quick in updating the ranking I made some calculations, this is the list of athletes with realistic chance (even small chance) to qualify directly to the Olympics. I removed points from 2019 European Championships which will be replaced by 2020 results. that's why this ranking is a bit different than WKF athletes in bold are 100% qualified and keep in mind European athletes have 1 more chance the rest. which means they can gain something around 3000pts in remaining events. Men's Kata Damian Quintero - 8737.5 Q Ali Sofuoglu - 5512.5 Q Antonio Diaz - 5055 Q Mattia Busato - 3870 Ariel Torres - 2677.5 Ilja Smorguner - 2040 Men's 60kg Darkhan Assadilov - 9817.5 Q Angelo Crescenzo - 7350 Eray Samdan - 6772.5 Men's 67kg Steven Dacosta - 7950 Q Vinicius Figueira - 6622.5 Ali El-Sawy - 5902.5 Men's 75kg Bahman Askari - 8272.5 Q Luigi Busa - 6300 Rafael Aghayev - 6045 Thomas Scott - 5017.5 Stanislav Horuna - 4387.5 Yermek Ainazarov - 4117.5. Abdalla Abdelaziz - 3322.5 Erman Eltemur - 3142.5 Logan Da Costa - 2880 Gabor Harspataki - 2662.5 Noah Bitsch - 2632.5 Men's 84kg Zabihollah Poursheib - 8775 Ugur Aktas - 8392.5 Ivan Kvesic - 5767.5 Daniyar Yuldashev - 4537.5 Valerii Chobotar - 4065 Anton Isakau - 3300 Men's +84kg Sajjad Ganjzadeh - 8287.5 Jonathan Horne - 7042.5 Gogita Arkania - 6060 Alparsalan Yamanoglu - 4162.5 Dnylson Jacquet - 3487.5 Mehdi Filali - 3390 * The situation between Poursheib/Ganjzadeh makes the combined +75kg qualification is a bit complicated for everybody, Poursheib is guaranteed a top 2 finish which will guarantee Iran a spot but not for himself because of Ganjzadeh. right now Poursheib has more points but WKF shows Ganjzadeh in green ! because he is #1 in his weight and Poursheib is #2 (with Aktas still having his 2019 Euro points) still I'm not sure what will be the main criteria in this case for 2 athletes from the same country. 1) number of points or 2) rank in the category. right now I assume it's number 2.

it seems the Olympic dream for Sajjad Ganjzadeh is gone Poursheib won the gold after a great comeback. he was down 1-4 but finished it 7-4, that "Ashi Barai" at the end of the match was wow Zabih is now leading by something like 500pts and I don't see him not collecting enough points in remaining events. the level in 84kg is just not as good as +84kg. Edit: in WKF new ranking they still show Ganjzadeh in green and not Poursheib (despite having more points), I assume that's because Ganjzadeh is #1 in his weight class.