MHSN

per IWF the Uzbek guy Djungabaev is tested positive for doping and now waiting for his suspension. when I read that the first thing came to my mind was your post but the problem is IWF anti-doping news section didn't mention when it happened . now in April 2019 it's hard to believe that's for his World Championship sample but you never know PS: his last competition was Qatar Cup in December 2018. that's probably where he got caught (or maybe an out of competition test) but knowing his surprising sudden improvement he wasn't clean at the Worlds for sure .

another world record for Talakhadze. how boring this guy is

Always nice to see Heiki "doing nothing" Lucky goes home empty handed. as usual he did nothing in bronze medal match, his opponent also did nothing . for weird magical reasons cautions usually go in his favors but this time it was against the host nation Romania so no, not this time.

3 one-sided final so far. 3 golds for Russia, that was really a wrestling lesson from Vlasov for that poor German guy

well that's stupid. extremely stupid. because of the current Olympic qualification rules which limited top countries to 4 or even 2 maximum the level will be low at the Olympics he could be a strong medal contender.

I didn't follow this. but I assume he bombed out , right ? he also bombed out in Fajr Cup in Tehran, which means he has no result in past 6 months, which means 0 points for him in first window. so no technically he can't qualify for the Olympics. for Olympic qualificatioin, best result in each window plus the next best one will be counted. for Ismailov his best result in first window is 0. and that's impossible to qualify with 3 results comparing to 4 of others.

unfortunately you are right. Kazakhstan was never a "fair" host in wrestling competitions. but it's more up to UWW to have "real draw" or let the organizers put a virus into their drawing software I have to say I wasn't "that impressed" with the level. we only had few interesting finals. and Russia didn't bring some of A team members. I think most countries have long term training plans for the World Championship which is the main Olympic qualifier. in Asia (at least for Iran) the Asian Championship is usually part of the preparation plans for the World Championship. that's never the target competition.(unlike the Asian Games) I had the feeling this European Champs was also something like that for some countries.

You mean having a team competition during the tournament ? I don't think so. wrestling was never like that. unlike Judo. we have a "World Cup" which is for team competition but we never saw all top teams send all of their best wrestlers. usually only the host nation takes it very serious. we have "team title" like that in other sports like Taekwondo and Weightlifting too. but people don't care much about them but in wrestling it was always traditionally important.

sorry but this is really your lack of knowledge about what's happening there. you can't take EVERYTHING from people, offer them nothing and then ask for peace ?! they are equally human like the rest of the world, not animals, Gaza is the biggest prison in the world, those people born, live and die their whole life in that "prison" in worst possible situation thanks to likes of Netanyahu, you can't expect them to be peace lovers. hatred creates hatred, and this circle never stops. when people in Gaza voted for Hamas for the first time few years ago that was probably the best chance for "peace" because from then Hamas should be a responsible government and not just a fanatic group but the western world instead put more pressure on them, cut the financial help and made them much more radical. and now they are even making PNA radical. right now there is absolutely no chance for peace.

don't know if he has an injury but if you notice the whole Georgian team was really bad here. even if they won few silver and bronze medals that was mostly because of lucky draw. for example Lomtadze only had to beat Switzerland and Macedonia for the silver medal !! maybe somewhere was wrong in their training program. Chamizo looked very confident in the final. I think only 1 or 2 wrestlers can beat him in the Worlds. but still a very bad draw can happen like last year where Burroughs, him and the Russian were all in the same side. even though I believe (and I have some facts to believe that ) 2018 World Championship wasn't really "random draw" if someone analyzes the brackets he can see some countries were exactly in the same place in the bracket for 3-4 weight classes. hard to believe that was just luck. I hope we have "real draw" in Astana, because this isn't just the World Champs but the Olympic Qualification. and even a 5th place finish matters. and since we have less quota this time (thanks to IOC) there are only 2 more chances left after this and only top 2 can qualify from other tournaments,

yeah that was my mis-calculation, Turkey was needed both 92kg bronze and Khizriev losing the bronze for the title. and we knew Khizriev wasn't losing to Chintoan. both Demirtas and Gor were in Dan Kolov tournament in Bulgaria. both in the same bracket, Gor won the bronze so probably that won him the spot. even though I watched them both against Hosseinkhani, the difference was very small . Demirtas lost narrowly to him by cautions and Gor beat him in last seconds. I would still pick Demirtas but he also isn't in good shape recently. (he lost to the same wrestler Kentchadze in the 2018 Worlds)

interesting tournament, 3 golds for Turkey and Azerbaijan each, 2 for Russia. 1 for Armenia and Italy. to me the star of the competition was that Armenian kid Harutyunyan. he is already one of my favorite wrestlers only if he improves his non-existent defense he can dominate the world for years. I was waiting for the last match of the competition but it was very one-sided for Akgul. Geno looked in a terrible shape, he barely even made it to the final and final was too easy for Akgul. Azerbaijan was also impressive, they sent almost all of their top wrestlers (maybe just minus Aliyev) to Takhti Cup a month ago and they were not that good, Hassanov and Sharifov lost to average Iranian wrestlers but they were impressive here, specially grandpa Sharifov. if it wasn't for Azarshakib they could even challenge Russia and Turkey for the team title. PS: team title usually doesn't matter much in individual sports but in this sport in wrestling top nations like Russia, Turkey, Iran, USA, Azerbaijan usually care A LOT about it. I even saw sometimes they lose intentionally to hurt their rivals. (I mean beating your opponent in first round but losing in semifinal to eliminate him and not putting him back in repechage) even though in current point system you better go for the gold because now they award much more points for gold and silver.

I can't remember the last time Russia lost the team title in freestyle and Turkey was very close to that tonight but Bolukbasi lost the bronze medal match in a very dramatic way in last seconds. now winning the gold by Akgul won't be enough for them. they also need Khizriev losing the bronze to Cintoan which is unlikely. I guess another title for Russia is coming.

Very Very impressed by this young Armenian kid, he is just fantastic. I'm sure we will hear more from him . he was almost losing 8-0 but ended up destroying Lomtadze and this is just his first senior competition !!!

medal for Switzerland in men's freestyle apparently after half century long live random draw but that throw and gut-wrench at the end was great. he deserved something just for that.

no I don't think so but I'm not sure. hard to believe he has a brother or cousin this small so two golds for Turkey and two for Azerbaijan and Sadullaev will win the last one, Hushtyn was injured after the semifinal not sure if he even shows up. The Russian 79kg didn't show up either.

Russia lost another gold. Suleyman Atli just manhandled M. Sadulaev

Yeah it was hard to not laugh after I saw the score. he is a former World Junior medalist but the last time I saw him he was terrible and that was 2-3 years ago. I still can't understand how he made the Azerbaijan NT. not a good day for Russia. they already lost 3 and will lose 125kg too. only Valiev remains to win the gold. have to mention they didn't send their very best wrestlers in some weights.

I could watch few matches in the morning and half of the semifinals lol. Sadullaev looks a bit out of shape and that's even funny to say for someone who easily made it to the final and will win the gold for sure he is just out of this world Russia lost two matches, very surprised to see Gazimagomedov losing to Mustafayev. this Azeri guy wrestled in Takhti Cup few weeks ago and he lost twice to not-so-good wrestlers. quite an improvement for him. but 65kg was more interesting, Khinch lost to Kullar of Russia and Kullar lost to Aliyev which eliminated the Olympic champion. disastrous day for Georgia . not having a single finalist. that's probably the price of sending your best wrestlers to U23 competitions ! I expect better competitions tomorrow. other 5 weights are more interesting to watch in Europe last not least, the stadium sounds empty the whole day. I rarely hear a sound expect from the coaches lol

so don't mess with her, she might has her shotgun at home loaded

only Hashemzadeh. but we had an Azerbaijani user here who could claim everybody in the world has Azeri background unless proven otherwise they didn't go to Azerbaijan because of ethnic ties, they went there for money. Hashemzadeh and Tahmasebi are now living/coaching in Iran after finishing their career. Shariati is from Qom, Tahmasebi was from Kurdistan and this guy Azarshakib is from Tehran. but Azarshakib's surname makes me think maybe he has a background there. (even though "Azar" has other meanings in Persian, this is also the 9th month in Iranian calendar, not necessarily related to that country) there are 4 Azari provinces in Iran, (in north west of Iran) of course after decades people move around the country and marry people from other ethnic groups. someone grand grandfather coming from one of those Azari provinces doesn't make him one of them. in this case probably 60% of population here might have Azari background because those 4 provinces combined are bigger than the country of Azerbaijan.

looking forward to this competition. unlike Asian Champs for example. European countries usually take this very seriously. but Iranian news websites posted a picture of Azerbaijan team and guess what. they naturalized another Iranian wrestler Mohammad Reza Azarshakib ! I wonder if they are very weak in super heavyweight or Azarshakib improved a lot recently cuz the last time I saw him he was still a terrible wrestler this will be interesting to see what he can do here. he will be the 4th Iranian wrestler (and the first freestyle wrestler) representing Azerbaijan after Sabah Shariati, Saman Tahmasebi and Masoud Hashemzadeh ! at least there is an "Azar" in his name PS: unlike other sports, these guys go to Azerbaijan only when nobody wants them here. Azarshakib could never make the team here. so I understand him. still I wish the worst of luck for him since I don't like mercenaries beside that he was a terrible person too.

Good point, even though rules in FIBA doesn't let them buy a "whole new team" they cheated in past forging documents, but once in 2011 (or 2013) FIBA investigated seriously and disqualified 6-7 of their players, they had to play the Asian Championship with only 4-5 players but seriously it will be a disaster if Qatar hosts the Olympics, mostly because they usually start buying athletes (or taking it to another level) when they host a competition. this wave of naturalizing athletes in different sports started for the 2006 Asian Games in Doha. they always had naturalized players in handball but when they hosted the World Champs they bought a complete team ! so let's just hope that never happens.

I think you had a hard day at work (I know Monday is the worst day of the week) your calculations are wrong again we are still in "holidays" here and since that's impossible/very dangerous to leave the house because of the weather , I had more time to calculate things a 5th place can give you something like 400pts. 30 for 5th place, 30 for let's say winning 3 matches at least + 5 participation points. 65X6=390. I agree with your point though, it will be hard for outsiders to win medals in back to back tournaments, that's why I never considered our female Karatekas to qualify through the ranking. they can't be consistently good. but when I look at the ranking that's not impossible to think about it. they just have to win medal in two tournaments to become a contender. Asian Championship will be much easier (not just because that's only Asia, also because of one athlete per country rule) if they have to qualify that's where they have to collect points. PS: I was just kidding, mistakes happen. I always like all of your posts

actually 6x10=60pts for each win. normally you have to win 4-5 matches at least for the gold medals. that's something like 900pts . considering this, even 1000pts difference is not that big to catch up with.