MHSN

His draw isn't "that bad" actually. Badr Achab is different that Jaouad Achab, very young , I saw him in YOG final. won't be a problem for Seif Eissa if he is half ready. if I had to make a prediction I think his only "tough match" will be in quarterfinal which is normal, you have to expect at least one tough match before the medal round. but yeah Abu Ghaush in this weight is surprising, if I'm not wrong his points still will be counted for his 68kg Olympic ranking. so that will be a smart move if he medals here but I doubt that. Rafalovich will be the favorite from that quarter. btw it seems Iran has actually two teams in this tournament. because that "refugee team" is almost a complete team of Iranians ! each day when they publish the draw I see some more new names competing under the code "WT" ! this time Kasra Mehdipour. it seems the number of Iranian refugees are bigger than people from Yemen or Syria or Iraq where there are "real wars", of course by lying

It's very rare to see Lee Dae-hoon losing and this guy is such a nice person, there were at least couple of very dubious kyunggos against him and he lost it by 1 point at the end but he didn't protest even a bit. he is one of the best athletes ever in this sport and without doubt the best right now

That's funny because nowadays it's kind of a joke here. there is a famous book and a famous TV series based on that book called "My Uncle Napoleon" and the main character there had Anglophobia who thinks that UK (or as we call them England even though I know that's wrong) is responsible for everything bad happens it was true at some point if someone read the Iran's history. nowadays it's kind of a joke. that people use it to taunt others who believe in consistory theories , "Yes, The English are behind it " even when a cat falls from the tree people still use this phrase

Semifinals Men's 54kg: Melo vs Bae Popov vs Hadipour Men's 68kg: Lee vs Sinden Perez vs Denisenko Women's +73kg: Walkden vs Acosta Pole vs Zheng

well this is not a direct Olympic qualification tournament and UK is not India. so I'm sure no. and I'm almost sure there will be no penalty for them. the maximum WTF could do about it was letting him to participate even if he could make it to Manchester tonight (they said to Iranian officials they will have weight-in only for him few minutes before the competition) but no chance even for that.

now it's a sure thing that Mirhashem Hosseini (2017 World Silver medalist and 2018 Asian Games Champion) will miss the World Championships. at least by our own coach he was considered as our best chance for the gold medal. beside that now his Olympic qualification is seriously in jeopardy . he wrote a very sad post in his instagram that he is thinking about ending his sport career (at the age of 20) and he will decide about it soon. incident or not, that was a good news for his rivals in Olympic qualification ranking, not-so-surprisingly one of them is British, Bradley Sindon. they are giving visa to the rest one by one, (only one more left) of course how they will perform in the competition after being under huge stress for few days is another story. --------------------------- we had a heart breaking defeat today, Palangafkan losing to Farag (EGY) 10-9 despite having 9-6 lead with 3-4 seconds to go but then Momenzadeh made up for that with a great comeback, she was down 20-9 with 70 seconds to go but came back strongly to win the match 30-20 ! at the age of 17 she will become only the second Iranian girl to win a medal in TKD World Championships.

Semifinals Men's 58kg: Braganca vs Plaza Jang vs Guzman Women's 46kg: Tan vs Momenzadeh Sim vs Khantikulanon Women's 73kg: Ble vs Lee Kus vs Espinoza

After being without a coach for 4-5 months, finally we know the name of our next coach (well we heard the rumors for few days but it's official now) Marc Wilmots he is more like a downgrade comparing to Queiroz. and I can say the general response from the fans and media here was very negative. he achieved nothing with the golden generation of Belgium and couldn't bring CIV to the World Cup. he was a big name as a player not as a coach.

speaking of "mixing sports with politics" there is a chance for Iran-Israel in 3rd round of men's 58kg, I hope Egyptian athlete takes care of that. even though our youngster has to go through Olympic silver medalist from Thailand to go there. so that Iran-Israel is not very likely for now. I was checking the draw, in the first day there are two athletes participating under the name of "WT" ! both of them originally Iranian. ironically that guy Hosseini (who lives in Germany but apparently not a citizen yet) will start here against another Iranian Meisam Rafiei (who is representing Iceland for a long time) but this is interesting to see Dina Pouryounes is listed under WT, she participated for the Netherlands before and under their flag in World and European Championships, so what happened to her ? now she is 3rd in the World Ranking, why she is countryless again ?!

as of now, 3 athletes are still without visa, Armin Hadipour received his visa Tuesday evening and will fly to UK tomorrow in the morning. he will arrive in the location couple hours before the weight-in. (what he will do in the competition after being under huge stress for 2-3 days and not sleeping well two nights before the competition is another question) but it seems Mirhashem Hosseini is going to miss the competition he has to be in Manchester tomorrow afternoon for the weight-in and still no visa for him. and the last flight from Tehran to UK before the weight-in is 5 in the morning. soooo only couple hours left. two more are still in Tehran Sajjad Mardani and Erfan Nazemi. women's team had no problem getting visa, and for the men's team, which is very young this time, only 3 of them had been to World Championships before, and these 3 are our only chances in the ranking to qualify for the Olympics, they had been to Manchester only few months ago for the World Grand Prix and all 3 of them finished on the podium. and surprisingly all 3 of them (plus another one Nazemi) denied visa in 1st and 2nd try. just a co-incidence ? PS: from what I heard the whole Armenian team also denied visa Iran's ambassador in UK is still hopeful

This time Draws will be held daily after the weight-in for each weight. to avoid lots of not showing / not making weight here is the first day draw http://www.worldtaekwondo.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Draw-Day-1-Manchester-2019-WTC.pdf

One day before the competition, half of the Iranian team are still in Tehran and still without visa. this is funny that almost all of our top athletes (and not the youngsters) denied visa , Hadipour, Mardani and Hosseini they are all former world medalists, top 10 in World Ranking and had been to UK so many times before (the last time few months ago for the Grand Prix). I can't see any logical reason denying or delaying their visa . I hope they get the visa in time but mostly I blame our own federations for not doing anything about it. Sending the whole team together (and not in pieces like this) or nobody at all.

I know even though I think Tormund, Samwell and Gili (and Ghost) left the series when they said goodbye to Jon Snow. and I don't think we will see Nymeria again.

well I was thinking

wow. what a dramatic end . the ball danced on it for a second but decided to go in !

yeah but IJF made it a big news like they already achieved something. and from now on it will be impossible to simply ignore that (as they did so far) and I have to say the letter is confusing but anybody who knows a thing about the politics in Iran knows that Parliament doesn't have the last word regarding these matters. (or anything important) and not facing Israeli athletes was never a "legal rule" ! ironically the man who signed that letter "Arash Miresmaeili" is the biggest victim of this. if they really want to make a change, they know who to talk with and that's not the Parliament. people probably didn't notice but Iran didn't participate in any World Cup or Grand Prix after what happened in Paris. (they only sent a team to the Asian Championships) and that's probably what they will do in next months/years. to lay low. lowering the risk of getting Israel in the draw. maybe after couple years people forget this. and who cares if that jeopardizes the Olympic qualification and the whole Judo community in Iran in general.

IJF posted these news regarding Iran https://www.ijf.org/news/show/historic-agreement-reached-by-ijf-and-iran https://www.ijf.org/news/show/historic-breakthrough-iran-judo-to-end-boycott-against-israel they call it a "historic agreement reached by IJF and Iran" !!! but if you read the letter they never say they are going to compete with Israeli athletes. actually they never officially said "We boycott Israeli athletes" they always make other excuses. that's an unwritten rule. I wish that was true but unfortunately this is just misunderstanding from IJF. even Iranian media are surprised and confused by this, still no word from the Iran Judo Federation or the Iran NOC though regarding this letter but Mr Marius Vizer will be surprised next time Iran gets Israel and still boycotts the match. so I assume the suspension of our judo federation is going to happen soon. specially at this moment and current situation in Iran, nobody cares even if IOC suspends them from the Olympics. PS: it also made few things more clear in Molaei's story. it seems IJF was involved in his decision not going to the Asian Championships. it seems they promised him somethings. I won't talk more about it since I'm not so sure.

then you should hope Wushu never makes it to the Olympics (even as a temporary sport) because if that happens, we will have Taolu and not Sanda. the international wushu federation only tries to get Taolu into the Olympics. and btw I really don't think this is worst than Poomsae. Poomsae is simply the most boring thing I ever seen (well maybe 2nd, only after Ju jitsu)

Houston missed a golden opportunity to take the lead against Golden State after Durant's injury . I hate to see Golden State winning another title but they are on their way to the West Final.

Every day we hear about more "sanctions" I wonder if there is anything else for them to do in Washington beside threatening Iran ? but while you don't expect humanity from Trump, it's hard to believe how stupid those in charge here in Iran are , they can't see the opportunity here. the only move they have right now (beside waiting for Trump to not get re-elected) is to keep the whole country united for the upcoming war. and that won't happen unless the wounds from 2009 are healed. but they are too ignorant to understand this. but the worst and saddest part is whenever we have such news, if someone checks the social media , there are thousands of jokes about this. to me this is disgusting that our own people are making jokes about our/their own misery. I know social media suck in general but still ... I guess our biggest enemy is ourselves.

Rumors in wrestling world say Ismael Muskaev (Russian national Champion. Euro U23 Champion and Yarygin silver medalist) is now Hungarian citizen ! and will wrestle for Hungary in World Championship this year

I was checking some results and there is funny thing about Barcelona. for some "reasons" they always hosted the second leg in knockout round for so many years but that changed the recent years and they had to play the 2nd leg away sometimes and since 2011 there is just one time they managed to win the home/away series despite not hosting the 2nd leg ! which was against Bayern in 2015. so if UEFA still dreams of a Real Madrid - Barcelona final they have to make sure Barcelona always host the 2nd leg. no idea how they can bring this broken Real Madrid team to the final. I really hope Ajax doesn't choke tonight, because if that happens I have to listen to my friend (who is a Premiere League fan) for the rest of my life talking about this year with 2 English teams in UCL final and two other (most probably) in Europa League final

Happy for Higgins he was down 12-7 at some point and then 16-15 but he delivered in crucial moments. feel sorry for Gilbert though he has chance in the last frame. still a great tournament for him.

UWW announced the World Ranking in freestyle. there are still 2 ranking series tournaments left in the calendar before the World Championship. Sassari in Italy and Yasar Dogu in Turkey. but I can guess the final ranking will be more or less the same. I think most top wrestlers won't participate in these two tournaments. but I can be wrong. they even predicted the World Championship semifinalists here. of course we don't know if these guys make their own national teams https://unitedworldwrestling.org/article/punia-and-atli-ascend-top-freestyle-world-rankings-after-continental-title-runs 57kg there is no clear favorite here. so the seeding doesn't matter that much. Atli (TUR), Uguev (RUS), Takahashi (JPN) and Sanayev (KAZ) are top 4. I only agree with top 2. 65kg: Bajrang being #1 is fair enough. Otoguro didn't wrestle at the Asian Champs. so he is 2nd. Chakaev is 3rd not sure if he makes the Russian team.that Turkish guy in 4th place isn't really good. we will have 1 or 3 "weak" seeded wrestler here. Haji Aliyev European Champion is 9th and most probably won't be seeded. 74kg: the top 3, Sidakov, Burroughs and Chamizo are separated until the semifinal. (still not a sure thing for Sidakov to make the Russian team but that's expected) Chamizo is 4th now but if he wins something in Sassari he will go to the 2nd or 3rd place to face Burroughs in semifinal instead of Sidakov. 86kg: this is funny to see Fatih Erdin as the top seed ! there are two huge favorites here, Taylor and Yazdani and the are currently 2nd and 3rd. it will be great if Yazdani drops a place and be in 4th place. on other hand it's possible for Taylor to win another tournament and finish 1st but I assume we won't see him in international competitions before the World Championships. whoever Russia sends will be unseeded most probably. no real treat to Taylor and Yazdani but that will be a nightmare to anybody else 97kg: good thing that Sadullaev and Snyder are #1 and #2 and will only meet each other in the final. I think from there it doesn't really matter who is 3rd or 4th. 125kg: Geno despite losing the Euro title is in 1st place and Akgul is 4th but Akgul needs just 1point to surpass Khizriev. I think it's just fair to not have Akgul and Geno in the same side of the draw. Deng in 2nd place is somehow funny. he lost to our 3rd wrestler in Asian Championship final but it seems he collected enough points to be seeded for sure.