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Afghanistan is not suspended or anything, there are Afghan athletes here representing Afghanistan, I don't know which athlete you are talking about but that's probably a refugee or something. of course they can do whatever they want. specially if IJF sponsors them to participate here they don't want to upset IJF even if they personally don't like Israel.

this is weird but even for the women's semifinal they revised the order. but still it doesn't change much unless Abdelaal surprises everybody. I really don't see that happening. Casse himself is pretty good though. you asked the question about Egypt. I know for sure the following countries don't face Israel anywhere, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Algeria and Kuwait. I know Saudi Arabia and Bahrain had the same policy even few months ago, I don't know where they stand right now, (UAE is not in the list anymore, their girl fought Israel in this tournament and obviously lost it) I know Egypt and Jordan don't have this policy. but I have no idea about other middle eastern countries, but I assume most of them still don't face Israeli athletes. I think we can find at least 10 more countries with the same policy. probably Tunisia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, maybe even Libya, Sudan, Bangladesh. but you rarely see those countries in non-continental competitions, so we never know.

I don't know if the athlete himself likes it or not, but Egypt don't have such policy. they fought against Israel before. even though for example one of them didn't shake hand ! Mollaei's SF will be before Muki, I can guess he will lose the SF, it will be risky to win and wait for the Egyptian to do something, his chance looks less than 10% to me. and Mollaei won't try for bronze too, he won't attend the medal ceremony with Israel being the gold medalist. in situations like this I always stupidly hoped for a miraculous change of policy in the last minute but now I'm old enough to know it's not going to happen. I feel really sorry for Mollaei

my reaction when Fujiwara made a mistake in last 10 seconds. De Wit and Albayrak are also out. all seeded athletes in bottom half except for guess who, Muki ! it seems even if Mollaei wins his own matches, (which is a big IF, considering his 3rd and 4rd round opponents) he has to lose/forfeit somewhere unless someone stops Muki who is in a great shape.

It seems Czech's mission here was only to beat Iran and ruin Iran's chance of a medal they lost to Belarus today while other Group B teams managed to win the eight finals, even Bulgaria beat Brazil. Russia vs Italy in the final looks very possible now. Quarterfinals vs vs vs vs

8 minutes of extra time ! sorry for Tajikistan, they lost both bronze medal matches.

it was supposed to be between ISR and ALG I wonder if anybody wants to scream about banning this or that. or making up phantom interviews ?! or sending letters to IJF asking/ordering them to do something ? guess not, nobody will even notice this. the exact same thing happened in another sport just 2 weeks ago and of course nobody noticed. that's only for Iran while something like 10 other countries or maybe more have the same policy (which I believe is extremely stupid but that's not the point here)

now I know why some (or maybe all ?) Brazilian users here didn't want this guy to be elected. Trump is quite a gentleman comparing to him. politics aside I respect someone like Macron who at least married someone he loves (even if she is 100 years older) much more than all those rich guys who marry several times with younger women and everybody knows those women are with them only because of their money and their position.

only few quotas for Asian athletes. I was hoping to China to at least qualify in men's C1 1000m. that could give Iran a good chance to qualify in Asia. but China failed therefore I guess there is absolutely no chance for Iran to qualify anything in this sport to Tokyo.

Rashnonejad only lasted 3 minutes in Tokyo. he won silver in Asian Champs (which is a big achievement considering the level of Judo in Asia) in his first year with Iran national team but then left Iran with some funny claims like "they were mean to me in Judo federation" apparently nowadays that's good enough for being a refugee despite living (or whatever else) in the Netherlands he still has to participate under "IJF" name, not a loss for the NED. I highly doubt he ever achieves anything for any NOC.

well I couldn't see the pic at first and I thought Haddadi did something. but Taftian ?! that's really surprising. everybody gave up on him after the Jakarta disaster. I assume that means the Olympic qualification. the standard was 10.05. good for him,

it wasn't that much "yayy". he is a world bronze medalist from 2017 in the same event. going to the final was the very least expected from him.

I opened that link last night and it was different than current version, still that phantom interview wasn't there. still it was nonsense because the article was saying both Mollaei and Mohammadi-B are withdrawing. I don't know if they had an earlier version with that phantom interview or not. but their last night version was also total nonsense. unfortunately I didn't save the last night version but I saw that myself, so if they can make up such a nonsense story about Mollaei, they can make up quotes too. I know the situation VERY WELL and threatening family and even himself was never included. since the 1979 revolution only one Iranian athlete actually faced Israel and only because he didn't know about such policy, it was only few years after the revolution and at first newspapers here even considered it a good news (beating Israel in wrestling) but when the news went to "big guys" they called the whole team back from France. and suspended the team managers. since then it never happened so nobody knows the exact penalty for "facing Israel" but I can assume it will be only expelling from the national team. This is a documentary made by Al Jazeera about 3 young Iranian wrestlers, one of them had to face Israel in World Youth Champs, you can see how the doctor is telling him to withdraw. I have to say the translation is not 100% accurate but you can get the point. even though after all the didn't have to withdraw and the Israeli kid lost the match before him

I can't see the part you quoted in that link. where is the source for that specifically ? the whole thing is nonsense, because Mollaei was never supposed to withdraw, it was only about Mohammadi-B. and yes they forced him to withdraw and I explained it in details here, which is still very sad, I know how much he loves Judo. (his dad died from heart attack while watching one of his matches) Mollaei and his coach are in Japan for few days, so how he can give an interview about "extremely sad about the decision as he was well prepared and considered the favourite" but well yeah. this is about Iran, you always can add more things to the story and make it more interesting I said this so many times before, Iranian athletes can't face Israel in head to head matches. (they were in the same race in World Canoeing Champs and nobody withdrew) if they do, they will lose their place in the national team.(most probably forever) that's it. anything else is nonsense and exaggeration . and the Iranian government always award them prize money for that.

what the hell, where exactly he said such things ? did you call him yourself ?

2018 World Bronze medalist Mohammad Mohammadi-Barimanloo announced retirement on his instagram. (out of anger and disappointment) because he was told they are not going to send him to Japan for the World Championships. the official reason is visa issue !! but according to himself this is just a lie and there are "other reasons" behind that. he didn't say what are those reasons but that was obvious. he says he was busy in past few days about that but the final answer was no, Iran was supposed to send only a 2-man team now it's just one. I really feel terrible for our Judokas. until this year they at least could try their chance for not getting the Israel draw. but the new policy after that stupid letter to IJF is "not participating whenever Israel is there" which only limits them to continental tournaments this is almost no difference than suspension. this is self suspension which is extremely stupid., I guess IJF is happy now. they can still continue to stupidly claim they reached agreement. now I don't care if they ban or something. the outcome will be the same. our Judo is cursed, If that was up to me I would ban any kind of activity of this sport. problem solved for everybody.

wrestling is not like Tennis. some top wrestlers prefer only 1 or 2 competitions per year. it's based on 2018 World Champs, 2019 continental champs and 4 selected international tournaments. for example in that 86kg weight our guy who is the clear favorite for the gold, is ranked 3rd because he didn't wrestle in Asian Champs. only went to one of those international tournaments. that result + his 2018 Worlds result was only good enough for 3rd place in the ranking which I believe he doesn't care because the only wrestler in the world capable of challenging him is unseeded and can be anywhere in the draw. as I said, the best thing about being seeded is receiving a bye in the first round. beside that it's not a sure thing if it helps. I see only in 3 weights (74, 97 and 125) all of gold medal favorites in top 4. for other weights there is at least one gold medal favorite being unseeded

Yes and if they reach in semis. it will be 1 vs 4 and 2 vs 3. another important thing is they will most probably receive a bye in the first round. unless for example 32 wrestlers enter, then nobody will get a bye.

UWW announced the seeded wrestlers for the World Championship based on the preliminary entry list. only top 4 will be seeded and unlike the previous year if one of top 4 doesn't make it, they will move up the next ranked wrestler into top 4. top seeds in freestyle, this is based on UWW list, they just had a mistake in 61kg which I fixed but you can't count on this 100% because for example I'm pretty sure Batirov will enter one of the Olympic weights. so in short, this is most probably accurate for Olympic weights but not that much for non-Olympic weights. only 3 seeded wrestlers for Russia. not because they are weak. but because they are sending different wrestlers. USA leads with 5. 57kg: 1. Atli 2. Uguev 3. Takahashi 4. Sanayev 61kg: 1. Bonne 2. Aware 3. Lomtadze 4. Okhlopkov 65kg: 1. Bajrang 2. Otoguro 3. Kilicsalayan 4. Okassov 70kg: 1. Batirov 2. Kaipanov 3. Emami 4. Safaryan 74kg: 1. Chamizo 2. Burroughs 3. Sidakov 4. Kentchadze 79kg: 1. Dake 2. Hasanov 3. Kotanoglu 4. Teymouri 86kg: 1. Erdin 2. Makoev 3. Yazdani 4. Punia 92kg: 1. Cox 2. Karimi 3. Yankouski 4. Mtsituri 97kg: 1. Snyder 2. Sadulaev 3. Batzul 4. Conyedo 125kg: 1. Petriashvili 2. Deng 3. Akgul 4. Gwiazdowski

Yesterday was the anniversary or 28 Mordad coup d'état , as someone who read a lot about the Iranian history (which is very long and complicated) I can say that day was probably the most important day in modern history of the country. 63 years ago USA (and UK) overthrew the democratically elected prime minister since they wanted their puppet dictator to stay with maximum power. at the time the new Shah was weak (and already left Iran) and the prime minister Mosaddegh was trying to use the situation to weaken the Shah's position and give more power to the parliament. but of course western powers didn't like that mostly because of Iran's oil. they arranged the coup, captured Mosaddegh (later died in exile) gave maximum power to Mohammad Reza Shah (who came back after the coup) and he later created a much more brutal dictatorship, few years later people after losing hopes on politicians turned into someone else Rouhollah Khomeini who took the opportunity (still a big question mark for me how the hell people thought something good will come from this guy, he never really tried to show himself as a good person) made a revolution and overthrow the whole system and created a new one which is indeed a mess. probably even worse than the previous dictatorship. I always think that day was the turning point of Iran, the country was moving into less dictatorship but since then everything has changed. and USA (and lesser degree UK) is responsible for that. @Olympian1010 I wonder if people in USA are aware of such things. or they always were told Iran is the bad guy and we are the good one.

looks like this format gives something to cheer about to Speed specialists. they can be happy but not too much ! you can't win a medal by winning the speed and finishing last in two other events but you can still qualify for the Olympics and have a respectable place.

Today's first session was disastrous for Iran, only one made it to the semifinal and he also lost badly there. so no final tomorrow. maximum 2 bronze medal chances which is terrible. but at least we won most of medal matches from yesterday, 2 gold and 2 bronze is good result but to be honest none of these guys impressed me. winning gold medal just by passivity caution isn't that great. I was expecting much more from our 130kg guy. but he decided to win this match in Heiki Nabi's style. (doing nothing and waiting for cautions coming your way) I was checking last year results. from last year Greco team there is a possibility to see 4 of them in 2019 World Senior Champs. (2 for sure, 3 highly possible and maybe even 4) but I'm quite sure none of these guys will make the senior team next year for the Olympics.

I think they considered the overall result . not the qualification. but they removed the other athletes from the list. (for example speed specialists who didn't enter other events)

and it's not good for heart if you are watching . speed will be in 2024 Olympic program. I really hope they change the format by then. a best of 3 run won't take too much time.

his cousin I always hated this one-run format for speed finals. all top 4 are out now. including Alipour