MHSN

for a second I just tried to imagine Qatar women's handball/basketball teams at the Olympics.

@phelps that was a very good analyze but we should remember all events from now on will have double points than previous events (except for World and Continental Champs) I wonder how many events are left ? I see 5 Premiere Leagues are scheduled only for the rest of 2019. plus continental Champs for Asia (and also Africa) yeah I know in Karate it's really hard for one athlete to win back to back competitions but still . as for Iran, I expect to qualify only 2 via ranking, Askari and Ganjzadeh. they are already good in the ranking and still have the chance to win the Asian Championships and collect lots of points and probably secure the spot early. there is still chance for the rest, but Derafshipour, Bahmanyar and Alipour only have to win the Asian Championships to stand a chance. only gold medal and something like 1000pts will give them a chance.

WKF updated the Olympic ranking. we have lots of changes because of the continental championships. someone corrects me if I'm wrong but it seems right now only except Oceania we have continental Championships points included in the ranking for other continents ?! while continental champs for Africa and Asia are scheduled for July which means 2018 results are irreverent for these continents ! so why WKF are counting them ?! we didn't send most of our A team members to the Asian Champs last year (saving them for the Asian Games) so I assume they can collect more points this year. but at least having all continental champs done, the ranking is more balanced, still long way to go but not bad to have a summary of top 4 in each weight right now Men Kata: 67kg: 75kg: +75kg: Women Kata: 55kg: 75kg: +75kg: only Italy and Turkey have more than 2. they both have 4 which is great. Spain, Azerbaijan and Iran, also have 2.

Yeah I smiled when I read Lalovic's name. they need someone to investigate into UWW lol I have to admit Lalovic is an upgrade comparing to Martinetti and Ercegan before him. but still UWW is far from being clean. as a wrestling fan I still just don't trust the referees, but it's not just about Lalovic, I think he is better than other people around him in UWW, we had lots of controversies in officiating in 2016 Olympics (I post a report about certain corrupt referees) but at least UWW under Lalovic took actions (even if that was just a show off) and banned some of those refs right in middle of the Games. and btw Lalovic has good relationships with Russia in wrestling, I wonder if it makes a difference in this case or not.

You know that was quite an upgrade at the time, before that they would bury infant girls alive in Arabian peninsula. the biggest problem is still using the exact same rules right now, in a different world.

those created Islam million years ago ? or those created the "Islamic Republic" in Iran 40 years ago ? (even though Iran was still Islamic even before that but court rules were a bit different) there is a famous video of Khomeini (the founder of Islamic Republic) when he was on plane on his way back to Iran after 15 years of exile while everybody was nervous because there were rumors that Shah's air force will shoot the plane down. a foreign journalist asking him "how you feel about being back in Iran after so many years" you would expect a bit of emotion but his answer was just one word "nothing" the guy was emotionless

After days and days and days of non-stop heavy rain, we finally got our "beloved" sun back even though still "state of emergency" as they are expecting heavy rain again. interestingly Iran was in drought for almost 3 decades (almost my whole life) and now we have rain everywhere in the country, and I mean everywhere (maybe except one province) and Iran is a very big country. we had flood even in middle of the desert ! it feels like the end of the world

Yes in Islam the witness of two women is equal to the testimony of one man. so that should be 3 men and 2 women ! they justify such "rule" by saying women are more emotional and sometimes can't be trusted in matters of death and life.

he means 4 adult men should witness such a thing (penetration) and testify against it for that rule to be applied. and since nobody actually does that in front of 4 other people. that actually never happens. here is the same in Iran, but as far as I know they never ever used that rule. for the simple reason I explained. you hear in western media about stoning someone to death and more and yeah that's within the rules but only because they are obsessed to have it but they never use it and they never want to use it. specially in the 21st century

at the end all Asian notable teams made it to the final round but we had lots of "suspecting" results in last matchday. this format is terrible and unfair. in 7 out of 11 groups the last match between the best two teams ended up in a draw !!! and in other 4 groups, in one of them the best two teams didn't play in last day, in another one Thailand (the host team pre-qualified) was involved and didn't care about the qualification and in another one Japan-Myanmar was too much one-sided to finish in a draw. Japan won 7-0. so in fact only one of those 8 matches in last day didn't finish in a tie. (between Bahrain and Palestine) I'm not saying all of those matches were fixed, of course not. some of them were VERY suspicious though. for example Jordan-Syria was 0-0 and then both teams scored one goal in last 10 minutes which qualified both of them. or in Uzbekistan-Tajikistan the last 20 minutes were a joke .both teams were just wasting time. the same happened in KSA/UAE match , this one was more than just "suspicious" that was the last match of the competition and they both knew just a 1-1 draw will be enough for both of them (even 0-0 wasn't enough) and 1-1 just happened the only match wasn't fixed for sure was Iran-Iraq, not because our football is clean, but because our officials are extremely stupid. Tajik-Uzbek match finished few minutes before the start of our match and because of that 0-0. I knew even a 0-0 draw will be enough for Iran but apparently nobody else knew that ! actually Iran tried really hard and missed so many chances. they also risked a lot in last 10-20 minutes and gave so many counter attacks to Iraq but Iraq was just interested in time wasting and gross rolling. and some of our players were even crying after the final whistle ! all news websites in Iran didn't know we are already qualified.

Past few days were disastrous for my country. while people were celebrating the "Persian new year" we had flood in two Northern provinces. while the casualty number wasn't high but so many people lost their homes and the financial damage was unbelievable. most of the food in the country came from those provinces and the country was already in the worst economical situation even before that ! but from today. the flood hit 10 more provinces in South and West some videos I saw in social media was heartbreaking and scary to watch. it's more like watching some Hollywood movies where the water is moving the cars and people like small toys. specially in a big city like Shiraz which is one of the biggest cities in Iran and probably the most touristic one. so many tourists were there because of the new year holidays and nobody was prepared for such flood in middle of the day, this time there will be casualties we still have non-stop raining (which is very rare here) and now 8 more provinces (including Tehran) are in danger for next 2-3 days.

not just interesting. I say stupid strategy and it seems they are losing the title because of that.

Great to see Abedini in podium after a while for the first time we had 4 fencers in top 32 and the other 3 lost to eventual medalists. so it was a very good World Cup overall.

The qualifiers already started in 11 groups. another crazy format by "AFC" ! group winners + 4 best 2nd placers + host Thailand qualify for the final tournament. which is totally unfair since groups are highly unbalanced. and since as usual one team withdraws (this time Pakistan) we have a group of 3 teams which means only results against 1st and 3rd teams in the groups will be counted for the best 2nd placed teams. another crazy thing about this competition is playing 3 matches in 5 days ! the whole system is unfair, for example in East Asian Groups, 2nd/3rd tier teams are much weaker comparing to the west. we had some big scores yesterday. 8-0 or 7-0 but on other hand because of the time difference West Asian teams will play "after" the East Asian groups. so some teams will know what they need to qualify at least as one of the best 2nd placers. top two teams in each group mostly play the last group match. imagine if they know with a draw both teams can qualify. Iran looked really disappointing in first match vs Turkmenistan, I really don't think this team can qualify for the Olympics. they are missing some players though I just hope they can somehow qualify with Iraq (I can't see this team beating Iraq to be honest) then they have time to improve for the final tournament. 4 years ago we had a much much better team (most of our current NT members) but a terrible coach ruined their chance. this time it seems the coaching looks fine but this group of players don't look talented to me.

You should ask me instead of searching the entire network not a PDF but here you can see all the results http://www.iritf.org.ir/de.asp?id=58286 they had a live score section with more details (for example full names etc) this is not working right now. I still post it. maybe it works later http://164.138.22.193/sportlottery

Today we had the last round of the trials to select our Taekwondo team for the World Championship in UK, which was very important because this is the main even to collect points for the World Ranking and the Olympic qualification. we had Fajr Cup and WTF President Cup (G2) both of them in Kish Island couple weeks ago and after that coaches selected 5 members of the team. we had trials today for 3 more weights. here is the team 54: Armin Hadipour 58: Mohammad Hassan Palangafkan 63: Soroush Ahmadi 68: Mirhashem Hosseini 74: Amir Mohammad Bakhshi 80: Mehran Barkhordari 87: Erfan Nazemi +87: Sajjad Mardani Hadipour, Mardani, Hosseini and Ahmadi were selected because of winning the WTF President Cup, they also sent Bakhshi (Asian Games silver medalist) to 74kg after he lost to Hosseini (beat him later in Fajr Cup two days later) to have both of them in the team. important note that Mardani beat Asian Games Champion Saeid Rajabi twice (in Fajr Cup final and President Cup final) to make the team. but we had trials in other 3 weights today. we were supposed to have Ashourzadeh, Kazemi and Palangafkan competing for the 58kg spot but Kazemi (World GP medalist) withdrew and surprisingly former World Champion Ashourzadeh lost twice to youngster Palangafkan and will miss the World Championship. I think it's fair to say he also missed his chance for the Olympics as well which is really sad, 4 years ago at this time he was destroying everybody while he was 18-19. at 80kg after Khodabakhshi's problems (not committing to the training etc) we had two youngsters competing for the spot. 17 years old Barkhordari beat Erfan Nazemi and won the NT place. we were supposed to have Saeid Rajabi (AG Champion in +87kg) competing for the spot but he withdrew claiming he has to cut too much for that weight. the other guy in this weight didn't satisfy the coach. so they told Erfan Nazemi (who lost 80kg trial before) to have another trial which he won and made the team one weight up. the original decision was to not send anybody at 87kg (cuz Iran is very weak here) but they finally decided to give the chance to Nazemi. by selecting this team Iran officially gave up trying for the Olympic quota at 80kg, without Ashourzadeh, now Hadipour is our only chance to qualify at 58kg, Mirhashem Hosseini is also probably our only chance for 68kg (since they sent Bakhshi to 74kg) and of course now without Rajabi there is only one man for +80kg which is Mardani. the rest of the team are very young and very low in the ranking and even if they win the World Championship they can't collect enough points for the Olympic qualification.

Russia won the title beating Iran 9-1 in the final USA won the bronze 6-4 over Japan. even our coach didn't try hard. as he used two reserve wrestlers in 97 and 125 where both matches were quite winnable. it could be 7-3 but he knew that's impossible to beat Russia so he gave chance to some youngsters. this is the 7th title for Russia. interestingly they hosted this 6 times and won all of them. and only once Russia won the World Cup outside of Russia ! that's not because they need home advantage to win the Cup. simply because they care about this only when they are the host.

oh yeah I totally forgot that. mostly because simply we don't care about OQT as we know our only chance is to qualify at the World Cup. I wish the best of luck for Japan to beat Turkey. they are the Olympic host and won't be counted in this case. the Asian Olympic spot will be between China, Iran, Korea. Philippines and Jordan.

I really don't think NZ can beat both Brazil and Montenegro. they have a chance but they won't be the favorite here. but if NZ makes it and Australia doesn't , that means NZ will qualify for the Olympics ! this is a funny because a B team from Australia can still beat NZ. I also don't think Australia is the one being eliminated in the first round. but then Lithuania and Canada are also very strong. those 3 teams are medal favorites.

I know but they are "happier" for Poland and Venezuela it's just about having more chance for going to the 2nd round but for China it's also about the Olympic qualification. by looking at other Asian teams groups. I can say there is no chance for Jordan and Korea. in Group D Philippines sometimes get hot and shoot the ball like crazy but I think Serbia and Italy are too much for them. I think Iran is the only Asian team with the realistic chance of advancing and even that is a very slim chance. so China only have to go to the 2nd round to qualify for the Olympics.

so it seems the Iran-Russia final is already confirmed. Iran beat Mongolia and USA and since both of them beat Georgia. I think Iran will be in the final no matter what. the same goes to Russia. as they beat Cuba and Japan and they both beat Turkey. Iran-USA was quite a battle. it was 5-5 and Iran won on criteria. while some of our more experienced wrestlers were TERRIBLE. specially Afzali, Sadeghi and Ebrahimi but youngster Marghzari sent Iran to the final. he won his match and also pinned his opponent by a great throw. which helped Iran eventually to win the criteria. Russia will win the final 99%. but I just hope with a respectable score. I would be glad with 3 individual wins. I think 55, 70, 92 and 125 are winnable for Iran. also 97 if Russia don't use Sadulaev (he didn't wrestle today but his name is in the list)

China couldn't ask for anything more ! based on the World Ranking. the got the worst team in Pot 4, worst possible team from Pot 5 (they couldn't get Iran) and worst team from Pot 8. I don't know which one is better Poland or Czech Rep. but I have no doubt China is VERY happy getting CIV and Venezuela. I think it's fair to say China will grab that Asian Olympic spot. as for Iran. while I'm glad we avoided Turkey and USA. but still we got a very tough group. I think both Puerto Rico and Tunisia will be favorite against us but both games are not completely impossible. but of course first we have to solve our own problems to bring our best players to the competition. and we got that group of death with Australia, Canada and Lithuania. even Senegal is not that weaker than Nigeria.

here is the draw A: B: C: D: E: F: G: H:

just finished watching the first round. Russia destroyed Cuba 9-1 ! Cuba's only win for the World Champion Bonne and even that was a very close match. I was expecting much more from Cuba A team. it seems there are some wrestlers from the host city in the Russian team but still they put some big names like Sidakov, Rashidov and Sadulaev to the team to make sure about winning the title. and that was quite a freestyle lesson for Pino ! he lost 10-0 to Russia and remember Russia is very weak in this weight. Pino was just pushing and pushing the whole match while the Russian wrestler easily threw him couple times using some leg techniques. as I said before there is absolutely no future for him in freestyle. Iran also beat Mongolia 9-1 which was very very surprising for me. some unknown young Iranian wrestlers managed to beat World medalists from Mongolia. I was expecting a close win (since Mongolia is no good in heavier weights) but yet Iran managed to win couple of very close matches early for a huge win. now I expect Iran-Russia final. even though Iran still has to beat USA in the 2nd round. American wrestlers are mostly unknown to me but they are apparently good as they beat Georgia relatively easily. Iran-USA will be the battle for the 2nd place. Russia looks unbeatable IMO.

This guy Pino was in Iran few weeks ago for Takhti Cup and journalists asked him about Lopez and he said Lopez is going to come back for the Olympics and I will challenge him for the Cuban Olympic spot. but it seems he either already lost to Lopez somewhere in Cuba or Cuban coaches forced him to switch style to have both of them. Lopez is much heavier than 130kg. he has to cut lots of kilos. that's why we don't see him much in international competitions. for that single reason I assume we will only see him at the Worlds in Kazakhstan which is the first Olympic qualification tournament.