MHSN

well at least someone was interested at 81kg competition but weightlifting qualification process is way too complicated, it's impossible to have an idea about who is going to qualify and who is not. some athletes are appearing in ranking in more than just 1 weight class, comparing points is really hard because some athletes participated in less events and still can move up massively but the most important thing is those limitations, for example Belarus has just 1 quota, and the same goes for so many countries (including Iran) and we don't know what will be their picks until the end of the qualification process. I really think this qualification format was a total disaster, yes the whole idea was good but it needs lots of modifications for the next Olympics

@Griff88 OK it wasn't that hard, this is yesterday's competition https://www.telewebion.com/episode/2204292 it was 61kg/67kg/73kg combined !! all 3 weights classes being held at the same time you can have the startlist here

I just finished watching 96kg competition where Rostami bombed out AGAIN ! but I assume you are interested in lower weights because there were some Indonesian entries, it's a bit hard to find that in the archives since it was yesterday, but let me see what I can find but just to give you an answer (which I'm sure you are not interested) this is 81kg competition https://www.telewebion.com/episode/2204534

Olympic medalist and multiple World Champion in wrestling Bilyal Makhov tested positive for doping https://tass.com/sport/1115731

this will be the 2nd world Cup in history without Italy so far and are in and are qualified for the playoffs

I have the start list and no he won't. and he is not training with the national team yet, which is not a good news, he is supposed to participate at the West Asian Championship in UAE. they also registered both him and Rostami for a tournament in Colombia in case. but the Iranian federation is "making room" for both of these guys, they removed other Iranians at 96kg from the list to make sure none of them finish higher than these 2 guys on the final ranking. Beiralvand, Miri and Mousavi they all could qualify relatively easily.

it seems the Asian QT will be held 12-16 February in Kazakhstan and on the men's competition, 4 teams will participate I think we already can predict even the order of teams

I have to mention that Finland was leading Portugal 2-0 until the last 2 minutes a second penalty mark and a power play goal in last 2 minutes somehow saved Portugal. Finland's defense was really good and Portugal despite having someone like Ricardinho really had hard time to create chances against them. Finland is an ultra defensive team, I don't think they can beat Belarus but if they will, one between ITA/POR will be eliminated unless they finish in a 3-3 tie !

interesting results in Europe. Italy sometimes struggles against lower European teams, Belarus is also a good team, even play-off berth is not guaranteed for Italy. and in group 3, Russia now needs to beat Croatia by 2 goals to qualify. Azer-brazil-jan also still has a chance for playoffs, but they have to beat Slovakia first. there are also 2 Iranian players in their squad it was 4 in the previous round btw I really think Europe should have more quotas, 8 or 9 at least.

well of course I know him but I think you should not expect much from him. he was around the national team for a while because of his father, and never achieved anything. but coming from the Iranian taekwondo school he won't be a weak competitor, but I highly doubt he can qualify for the Olympics from Europe. btw with this rate, at 2025 half of the competitors at the World TKD Championships will be Iranian-born !

host countries usually try to take advantage but in certain countries in certain sports, there is no limit for them, they do EVERYTHING they can to get results. I'm saying this after years of following sports in Asia, specially this sport of wrestling ! Kazakhstan hosted the World Championship not long time ago and their average freestyle team finished 2nd !!!! I think they never even made it to top 10 before but this year all of a sudden 9 out of their 10 wrestlers received unbelievable easy draws ! I'm sure none of you guys believe me when I say the draw was fixed. you probably think "no way, that's not possible" but this is not co-incidence UWW changed the draw system after that.

because of new policies, Iran is going withdraw almost half of the Paralympics quotas ! including quotas in team sports like wheelchair basketball and 5-a-side football !! which is unbelievable because Iran finished 4th in last edition of World Championship in W-basketball and also this football team won the silver medal in Rio Paralympics !! never been a huge fan of Paralympic sports but this is unbelievable

https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1089790/asian-olympic-qualifier-coronavirus we have 3 candidates to replace China, perfect candidates. Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and South Korea !!! if I was a wrestler I would prefer to take that risk and go to China instead of going to those 3 countries for an Olympic qualifier. all 3 of them are notorious when they host wrestling competitions. they cheat with no shame. Kazakhstan already cheated big time in World Championships both with officiating and with the draw. and it seems even that is not enough for them and they want more !

I heard that too but there is nothing like that in the official document https://www.wkf.net/imagenes/campeonatos/olympicsestadisticas-olympic-karate-tokyo-2020-001.pdf I assume it's up to Japan to send whoever they want.

from the World ranking obviously only Haya Jumaa has a chance, she is 6th right now, she is currently 900pts behind Prekovic and 1500 behind Coban, still very possible to surpass one of them to qualify. even though you can reduce 1000pts from Coban and 330 from Prekovic. which makes it much closer. those points from 2019 Euro wlil be replaced by 2020 Euro. of course Coban can win the gold medal once again to defend her points. but as of now if we reduce those points, Jumaa is something like 600pts behind them. with 3 events left that's still very possible but she needs big results. none of the Canadians won gold at the Pan American Games, so no chance for the continental quota. so the Paris qualifier will be the last chance.

Yeah I just noticed that today, even though it probably won't change much for those athletes in the list, they will qualify most probably even if they fail in Paris but I think athletes from Europe and Asia should be more careful because they are last in line of the continents. it's possible to see some of these "already qualified" athletes getting the quota in Paris and that changes few things in term of quota availability in some weight classes. yeah of course surprising, before the start of the qualification period I would be happy with 1 quota. now they have a chance for all 3 Kumite quotas. that's quite an achievement, Iranian girls are very new to international Karate. they were allowed to participate in Asian events since 2010 and in WKF events since 2014 ! that's quite a progress in just 6 years. on other hand it's disappointing how come they simply gave up 67kg quota. they had a chance for the "Asian spot" but some of our better guys in the ranking are not even participating and they only focused to prepare Amir Mehdizadeh who is suppose to be our guy for the Paris qualifier. btw I think between Creszenzo and Maresca it's not that bad to give the spot to Maresca, after all it will be 67kg at the Olympics. not 60kg. Creszenzo not qualifying directly isn't really a bad news for you guys. (of course only if Maresca takes his place as European quota)

I was reading the document again and something else caught my attention, the order is 1) Olympic ranking, 2) qualification tournament in Paris and 3) continental places !! maybe it means everybody has to participate at the qualification tournament and the continental place will be available after that. meaning some of these athletes may qualify through the Paris tournament !! that doesn't make sense but this is how they wrote the document but not considering that , this is how the qualification looks like Men Kata: 67kg: 75kg: +75kg: Women Kata: 55kg: 61kg: +61kg:

WKF announced the new ranking VERY fast right after the Paris K1 event. I was taking a look at the ranking and the following athletes are 100% qualified. I mean even mathematically. I considered the fact that 2019 European Champs results will be replaced by 2020 edition. Men's Kata Damian Quintero Ali Sofuoglu Men's 75kg Bahman Askari Men's +75kg Ugur Aktas Sajjad Ganjzadeh or Zabihollah Poursheib Women's Kata Sandra Sanchez Women's 55kg Serap Ozcelik Anzhelika Terliuga Women's 61kg Yin Xiaoyan * Viviana Bottaro and Irina Zaretska are also very very close but still mathematically possible to not qualify.

actually I think she made up 180pts, per rules when you win your first match, "bye" in the first round will be counted as a win. which means she had 3 wins and 30*6=180. but yeah just winning that QF (which she was leading 5-3 until the last seconds) was enough to probably double her points at least. considering this and the fact we have to remove 2019 Euro Champs points (which will be replaced by 2020 scores) Semeraro is actually leading the Swiss girl right now it wasn't a good event for Iran in term of general results but it wasn't that bad for Olympic qualification, Abbasali and Bahmanyar will make their situation better in new ranking, specially Abbasali if she wins the gold tomorrow. with gold medal she will be more than 1000pts above the rest at +68kg. but it was a total disaster for Alipour, not that she lost in the first round, all of her opponents made it to the medal rounds ! but still if both other girls win the quota directly, I think Alipour has a very good chance for the Asian quota.

no matter how, Uzbekistan always chokes in football. that's something you always can bet on

rumors say UWW is considering moving the Asian Olympic Qualifier from China to Qatar !

it seems Jordan will host the Asian Olympic Qualifier

yeah it seems so, but once again there is nothing in ATTU website about it, even though my source was Iran TT federation General secretary and it can't be wrong but still it doesn't make sense to give free quotas to a region with only 1 country !! even though if I'm not wrong in previous years no other South Asian countries participated to challenge India, so it seems they have no problem with 3 or 4 players from 1 country battling for that only spot ! and I think this way North Korea is also guaranteed a male player if TPE and HKG qualify too.

oh wow that's even better, Mongolia it seems if Korea and Hong Kong qualify only Macau and Mongolia are left in East Asia and since Macau is not eligible. that's free quota for Mongolia unless ATTU has a rule about not giving free quotas to regions with less than 2 countries !! I can't see anything on ATTU website about how they will determine those 6 Asian quotas but one of our guys attending ATTU meeting told the news that it will be 1 for each region + 1 quota for the best Asian players in the WR.

Slovenia narrowly beat Iran (Iran had lead in all 3 defeats) India will be huge favorite against them with Bojan Tokic not in a great shape and hopefully you qualify both teams for Tokyo (even though I know Romania will be favorite in the women's event) but there is something interesting, if India qualifies a team, we will see someone from Sri Lanka at the Olympics !