MHSN

I wrote the medalists in order, South Korea.

Asian Qualifiers draw, Doha will host the event 17-27 October Group A: Group B: Group A is a joke, Qatar and KSA are already in semifinal. Kuwait is back after few years of suspension.

That's a good point from someone outside of the middle east. here we are doomed to know Bahrain exists (which was a part of Iran not long time ago) but that's still confusing, this way people learn about Bahrain in a bad way ! I'm sure you are not in love with Bahrain I was joking about the moral code obviously. actually Qatar is more "moderate" comparing to other Persian Gulf countries. specially Bahrain. but the difference is , in recent years, Qatar didn't buy these athletes. they go to Qatar in young age because they have better chance to improve in Qatar. that's still bad but at least you can give credit a bit to Qatar because they were nobodies when they started in Qatar. but Bahrain buy already established athletes. or simply whatever possible. honestly I don't know if there is a policy about not-buying women in Qatar or that's simply because women are less interested in sports (athletics in particular) in north African countries (where most of Qatari athletes come from) Qatar was also like Bahrain, they had athletes like Said Saeed Shaheen or their whole handball NT, their Bulgarian weightlifters and there are lots of examples but I'm talking about the recent years after creating the ASPIRE academy

Ilyin only came out once in CJ, lifting 185kg and finishing 5th with 345kg. he is not going to qualify for the Olympics with such results but here he just wanted to have a result otherwise he had no chance for the Olympics. Tian Tao tried the World Record of 231kg twice but failed. poor guy Fares El Bakh bombed out on 220/222 while even 15kg lower could give him the silver medal which went to Ayoub Mousavi of Iran. Korea won the bronze.

Ilyin finished 5th in Snatch with just 160kg this is facebook livestream, better than nothing

well I don't know. Iranian sources only focus on this story I just know Kazakhstan, South Korea and Hong Kong finished in top 3 of the team time trial competition. and in women's team title trial, Korea, Kazakhstan and Hong Kong.

looks like they have a moral code in Qatar, they never naturalized a female athlete. (at least as far as I remember) but Bahrain naturalizes everything available I wonder really why ? I'm sure nobody in Bahrain cares about these results. they are not even "that rich" comparing to Qatar.

Yep. just two medals and couple of 4th place finishes. we usually get better results in Asian Champs (comparing to the Asian Games) obviously because the level is higher at the AG but this time was different. mostly because our Asian Games medalists weren't "motivated" enough.

Finally I could watch something live thanks to a facebook livestream Olympic champion Nijat Rahimov bombed out and the Korean Yu Dongju won the 89kg gold medal in his last CJ attempt. Ali Miri won the silver for Iran 1kg behind Yu. another Iranian Chatraei only won a silver in Snatch. I think our best chance for gold is 102kg and there are also chances in 109kg and +109kg. no chance for gold tomorrow with Tian Tao and Ilyin.

Something funny happened during the team time trial event here, the Iranian team started the race 8 minutes later ! (thanks to the team manager) therefore Iran finished 9th out of 9 teams. but less than 8 minutes after the 2nd team which means they could win the silver medal behind Kazakhstan

Second day medalists 61: 1. Ehsanpour 2. Liu 3. Aware & Fujita 74: 1. Kaisanov 2. Dhankar 3. Otgonbayar & Nokhodi 86: 1. Ghasempour 2. Gamidgadzhiev 3. Punia & Gankhuyag 92: 1. Karimi 2. Viky 3. Sun & Matsumoto 125: 1. Mohebbi 2. Deng 3. Sumit & Kim

2nd day finalists 61 Ehsanpour vs Liu 74 Dhankar vs Kaisanov 86 Ghasempour vs Gamidgadzhiev 92 Karimi vs Vicky 125 Mohebbi vs Deng we had only one close match today and youngster Nokhodi lost that one in last 30 seconds to India Ehsanpour, Ghasempour, Karimi and Mohebbi they all won all of their matches either by superiority or fall. Ghasempour and Karimi will win the gold for sure, this is really a shame that all of our best wrestlers are in the same weight ! (Karimi is a 86kg wrestler) both Karimi and Ghasempour will miss the Olympics because of Hassan Yazdani. it won't be that easy for Ehsanpour and Mohebbi they both will face China. this chinese guy Liu impressed me before in Worlds U23 and Deng is a world silver medalist but still I believe Ehsanpour and Mohebbi will be the favorite here.

Iran didn't win the title last year not even in Greco PS: I have to say it was wrong saying Uzbekistan is a B team here. they had Novruzov and Khasanov today (both didn't medal) I think they are only missing Abdurakhmanov and Ibragimov. also their big guy Modzmanashvili is now suspended for his doping back in 2012 Olympics..

with Ghasempour and Karimi highly favorite for the gold tomorrow, I think Iran will win the team title for sure. the biggest surprise today was Atri winning the gold. this guy is unpredictable. sometimes he makes you think he is the next world champion and then few minutes later he loses to someone random. winning gold in 57kg in Asia is a huge achievement. I hope that improves his confidence. Yazdani has some shaky moments but he came back strongly in the final against tough Mongolian wrestler. and for Teymouri it wasn't that hard. I can say Uzbekistan is here with almost B team (with few exceptions like Shavkatov) but the rest are here more or less with A teams. of course they all are missing 1-2 big names. for Iran we obviously didn't send our best in 3 weights but this is almost our best available team. in 65, 70 and 74 our coaches are trying different wrestlers in different tournaments to find out who is the best. I'm afraid none of them are convincing so far.

First day medalists 57: 1. Atri 2. Kang 3. Shavkatov & Takahashi 65: 1. Bajrang 2. Okassov 3. Kim & Biabani 70: 1. Kaipanov 2. Shiga 3. Yuan & Emami 79: 1. Teymouri 2. Rana 3. Nasirov & Usserbayev 97: 1. Yazdani 2. Batzul 3. Kadian & Yergali

First day finalists 57 Atri vs Kang 65 Bajrang vs Okassov 70 Kaipanov vs Shiga 79 Teymouri vs Rana 97 Yazdani vs Batzul UWW is just terrible. they had a livestream for the competition but that wasn't in their website. only people like me could find that less than 10 people were watching that thanks to UWW ! and that live stream stopped working right before the semifinals . Iran will have 3 in the final and 2 in bronze medal match. 3 finalists is a good result but they really didn't impress me. Yazdani and Teymouri were huge gold medal favorites before the start and Atri had a very easy draw, still he won his semifinal just 2-1 ! Biabani losing to Bajrang was expected. still he was terrible. and I don't know how the hell Emami managed to lose 12-2 to some Kazakh wrestler I never heard of him before. I have to watch this one again when they upload the whole competition on youtube. Iran is very weak in 65-70-74 and they are trying so many new wrestlers in different tournaments and they are all failing. I'm afraid we won't even qualify for the Olympics in these two Olympic weights.

that was lucky going to the final alongside with 6 already qualified shooters. I guess she probably will know that only after the final. this is the first 2020 Olympic quota for Iran. at least one good news these days

I was checking Pan American Championships results and wow, USA won all 10 gold medals in men's freestyle ! I know they are always the best team in that continent but still Cuba (and sometimes Canada or Venezuela) always win some of gold medals. this is for the first time in history. I wonder if it happened before in any other continent. probably not . this USA team is as good as Russia. I have to say right now Russia and USA are much much stronger than the rest in the world in freestyle. and it seems Oscar Pino is now totally committed to freestyle. he won a bronze here but Cuba sent someone else (and not Mijain Lopez) in Greco who also won a bronze. I was hoping to see Lopez here

Finally an interview with Mollaei about his future he says he was a bit injured and a bit out of shape but he didn't go to the Asian Champs because the federation president didn't call him directly ! he says he has some "conditions" and he doesn't care who is the president. he claims he has no problem with anybody ! he bashed the current coach though, it seems he wants to work with his own coach. and he has some other conditions like that. one of them is Miresmaeili himself calling him and not anybody else ! (how stupid is that ) but when they asked him about going to another country, he answered "I never thought about it, I always think positive, but if I can't work with the national team I will take other decisions for my life and my Judo career"

for the first time after 25 years Iran will leave the Asian Championship empty handed nobody made it to the medal round today, only yesterday Mohammadi-Barimanloo was in bronze medal match which he lost by a stupid mistake near the end (despite leading by a wazaari) . I'm not surprised. without Mollaei it was obvious that only Barimanloo is a realistic medal favorite. of course the current federation won't take responsibility because they are very "new" but it doesn't change the fact that our Judo is back to the stone age again. last year was very good with 2 medals at the World Championship but now that feels like million years ago.

first day was a bit disappointing with Hossein Keyhani's poor performance in 3000m steeplechase. he was the Asian Champion and the Asian Games Champion but finished 4th here but at least Iran finished 1-2 in Discus throw. with Ehsan Haddadi winning his 10th Asian title (6 Asian Champs + 4 Asian Games) he won all Asian titles since 2005 except 2013 and 2015 when he didn't participate. there is nobody in Asia at the moment even close to him. 2nd place Behnam Shiri barely even made it to 60metres. I winder if we can win any other medal in upcoming days. highly possible for Iran to finish just with these two medals

I wonder how many people will be in the audience for the World Championship later this year. right now the stadium looks quite empty ! Bahrain won the first gold medal of the competition. finishing 1-2 in women's 5000m. bronze to India, I think Bahrain (and Qatar) naturalizing athletes hurt India more than any other country. I was checking the Asian Games results and they somehow stole more than 4-5 gold medals from India.

live stream http://www.alkass.net/alkass/live.aspx?ch=two

if you want Asian "Athletics" championship you can check this http://www.alkass.net/alkass/live.aspx?ch=two

this is interesting that we have so many Asian Championships at the same time ! Weightlifting, Judo, Boxing and Athletics are already started, and we will have Wrestling and Badminton in next few days. anything else ?