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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.

The last one at +68kg was kind of weird, she was sitting on 3 cautions (Hansoku Chui) and made a terrible mistake asked her coach to challenge a decision, and that's illegal and she received her 4th caution and lost by disqualification !!

2020 Asian Taekwondo Championship in Lebanon got cancelled , no need to say why no update if they postponed the competition or changed the venue but Asian Taekwondo Confederation noticed all national federations about this.

Russia won 3 out of 5 gold medals in first day of freestyle finals, maybe people can say that's OK the rest of Europe won 2 gold medals but no both other gold medalists were also originally Russian. we know about Magomedmorad Gadzhiev wrestling for Poland for a while but now Belarus also has a former Russia NT member in Magomaedkhabib Kadimagomedov ! he won 79kg gold by a brilliant performance against Ramazanov in the final. but since he wrestled for Russia at 2017 I don't think he will be eligible for the Tokyo 2020 even if he cuts weight for 74kg. ps: this is not even Russia #1 team except for of course Sadulaev Sadulaev added another gold medal to his tally, I think some people will claim he is getting weaker but I'm not so sure , he is just changing his style, he still scores at will. he just doesn't want to score too much ! but the most impressive wrestler today was Kurban Shiraev. this kid has a bright future, he won silver medal in World Juniors in 2019 losing to our wrestler Maghsoudi, I wish Maghsoudi could improve with the same rate as him I don't know what Russian coaches will do about their team trials but this kid really deserves a chance to wrestle Rashidov in a trial. but it seems Russia already decided about 4 weights. nobody questions Sadulaev but their 2nd guy won gold at 57kg and 65kg (and we will see their 74kg in the final tomorrow) it will be a mistake in my opinion to just send 2019 World Champions without another trial.

no Chamizo did nothing wrong, it was his own fault, that's one of the basic things they teach to the kids on wrestling clubs, when someone is throwing you and you are on the air NEVER put your arm down. this is a bit sad but if someone wants to watch the action

there were lots of petitions and campaigns (or whatever you can call it) in social media to change that stupid policy and finally it was successful. Iran NPC officially changed its policy (at least regarding team sports) but it was already too late for the football team they didn't confirm their participation before the deadline and therefore their quota goes to Thailand ! but at least it wasn't too late for wheelchair basketball and they will participate in Tokyo paralympics. but the whole story is unbelievable, and those poor blind footballers will pay the price I wonder if there is any other country in the world with this level of mismanagement

yes that's a valid reason, but for some reasons I prefer she doesn't qualify directly this qualification format is too complicated, you have to consider so many things , for example I hope Iran qualify 2 girls directly and Alipour wins the Asian quota. but then it's only possible if nobody from Africa uses 61kg quota. there is a girl from Morocco on 11th place position. and I hope Egyptian girls at 55kg and +61kg stay ahead of her in the ranking which means I hope they collect points but not "lots of points" to qualify directly I still hope Feryal wins the final because that Chinese girl is also a candidate for the Asian spot. and btw as you said even if Feryal stays 5th or 6th, that's still possible if Shaymaa qualifies directly in Paris . so I guess I should count more on your 50kg girl but then you also have Yassmin Attia in this weight and she is also capable of qualifying in Paris.

taking a look at today results, we may have some major changes in the Olympic rankings. no change in the most predictable event men's Kata though. Iran brought two in the final and 2 for bronze but it was really a bad day for Olympic qualifications, It was a terrible day for Sajjad Ganjzadeh, he lost in the 2nd round (while leading until the very last second), both Horne and Arkania made it to the final but that's not the worst news for him because he still has more than 1000pts lead but that was at 84kg, Zabih Poursheib made it to the final and now he will lead Ganjzadeh by a good margin. Iran NT coach made it clear that he is not going to interfere in Ganjzadeh-Poursheib competition, whoever wins more points will go to the Olympics and right now that will be Pousheib Poursheib is such a great guy and probably most respected among Iranian Karatekas but Ganjzadeh is my favorite and I think he will do better in Tokyo. it's hard to say but I think I'm going to cheer for whoever faces Zabih in next two events. (and also the tomorrow final) this is also a very bad news for Ivan Kvesic. if Poursheib qualifies directly, he will lose his quota to Arkania. he can't do anything about it himself. Aktas and Poursheib are out of his reach. at women's 61kg, top 4 won't be changed after this event but our Rozi Alipour will make herself closer to Prekovic and Coban . even if Alipour can't make it to top 4, still every single points matter since she has a chance for the Asian quota. and surprisingly our reserve girl Alisaadi made it to the final ! at women's 68kg, now we have two other candidates, Feryal and Li, they are collecting points too fast to catch up with both Quirici and Semeraro. even without that she will be #1 candidate to take the African spot, even though I'm sure she wants to qualify directly to open the door for another Egyptian girl at 55kg. Semeraro was the biggest loser of the day in this weight. but superheavy weight was a total disaster for Abbasali if she could beat that Kazakh girl it was almost a done deal for her. but now things don't look good for her. Hocaoglu made it to the final and Berultseva and Chatziliadou will fight for bronze. Abbasali will still be #1 in this weight in the new ranking but they will shorten the gap. beside that I believe Hocaoglu has more chance than anybody else, she won almost nothing at the 2019 European Champs, she will only gain points in the next European Championships.

I hope everything is fine now, I also had some bad days this week and had been busy with that, only today I was available to watch the preliminary rounds in the morning/afternoon. speaking of empty hall, I was curious what was the TV coverage about it in Italy ? I know you have several sport TV channels , I wonder if it was live coverage for the finals in any of them ? (I remember I watched one night of finals on Rai Sport but that was just once) and about the draw, obviously you are not Kazakhstan there is a reason why I never want them to host wrestling competitions. 2019 Worlds draw was a huge scandal, in any other sport it could be a big news but this is a shame wrestling is not a major sport and I understand major news websites need more evidences to publish something. I analyzed the brackets and I have solid reasons to believe it was fixed. (the same as 2018, for Hungary in Greco-Roman) if you look at brackets in different weights, you see some countries exactly in the same place in the draw in several weights, 9 out of 10 Kazakh freestyle wrestlers received dream draw, even if we don't consider all those facts, that can't be just an accident. but UWW published something about changing the draw software and the whole draw process few weeks ago, so let's hope there are some better guys in UWW and they are fighting against this corruption, of course I don't expect them to make it public, I will be glad if they just don't let it happen again. specially for Olympic qualification tournaments.

March ? the scheduled date is April, and they can't postpone it because April is the deadline for Olympic Qualification. I assume and hope things will be much better about the virus outbreak in April but I was checking the ranking, Chinese weightlifters already participated enough tournaments for the Olympics qualification, they simply can withdraw for the Asian Championships. I'm sure they don't care about Asian Championships medals. and beside that if the tournament gets cancelled there is another solution, they can let Asian weightlifters to participate in other continental Championships. that happened before in 2016.

it seems I'm the only person interested in European Championship so let me talk to myself once more I'm sure most users here don't know Ibrahim Bolukbasi, because he never won anything big but this guy was always a tricky wrestler and today he almost pinned the great Sadullaev. he had the lock and only the great Rashid could survive that. I admire Sadullaev and consider him the best wrestler in the world right now and one of the best wrestlers in history but I would love to see someone beating him in freestyle wrestling when you lock head and one of the legs that's impossible to escape. but Rashid did the impossible. nd

it was a big day for Crescenzo of Italy, he made it to the final and his direct rival lost in the first round. he will take Samdan's position in the next ranking and will have a good lead over him with only 2+1 events left. also even a bigger day for Figueira of Brazil, he is in the final and El-Sawy (EGY) lost in the first round to our Mehdizadeh, and since it was Figueria's lucky day, Mehidzadeh got injured in the next match and therefore eliminated the Egyptian and also made it much easier for Figueia to go into the final. (I just hope that's nothing serious, we need him for the Paris qualifier) also at 75kg, Stanislav Horuna had a good chance to catch up with the American Thomas but lost in the repechage, still he will receive something like 300pts from here and will be very close to the 4th place in the next ranking. interestingly we will see another Busa/Aghayev in the final, like old days I think Busa already guaranteed his Olympic quota with this. no big change in women's kata, women's 50kg and 55kg. even though it could be a disastrous day for our Bahmanyar as she lost early to Spain but luckily for her the Spanish girl made it to the final and Bahmanyar will fight for bronze on Sunday. if she wins she will have something like 1000pts advantage over the rest. which is good (but not safe) with only 2 events left.

there are news here that Kazakhstan doesn't want to host the Asian Championships in April and the competition is about to be cancelled. that will be a terrible terrible news for some Asian weightlifters regarding the Olympic qualification, specially for Iran. the whole plan was to get Moradi ready to set the necessary record in April. if they cancel the Asian Champs. there is no other tournament in April even March is almost empty. there is just one tournament in Colombia !! but this is not important for China to participate, they already have enough points to qualify a full team, maybe they can have the competition without China ?!

of course for the same reason as India, they don't want Chinese nationals on their country as long as this virus exists. that's why it's hard/impossible to find a willing country to host Asian competitions these days, China can afford not participating in normal Asian tournaments but they are not OK missing Olympic qualifiers.

if it was an official news I would not use the term "it seems", and you are not supposed to find everything in English speaking media

that was smart, you made me to confess I made it up myself

we don't know that yet.

it seems Korea, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan refused to host the Asian qualifier ! now UWW is offering Kyrgyzstan to take it.