MHSN

the UWW 2019 Freestyle World Cup will start in Russia in few hours. rosters are available here https://unitedworldwrestling.org/article/freestyle-world-cup-rosters first this is a sure thing Russia will win the title. this is not their very best team but still some of their top wrestlers. to me the only country could challenge Russia was USA and they are sending a very weak team. even Iran is sending a not-good team. there are 2-3 veterans in the list but the rest aren't even a B team member. the same goes to Georgia and Turkey. they also didn't bring all of their top wrestlers. I think only Japan, Cuba and Mongolia took this very seriously but they usually don't have a "full team" to compete for a title like this. I think Russia-Cuba match in the first round is probably the real final here. almost the whole last year World team of Cuba is here. but there is one interesting name for Cuba. Oscar Pino ! two time World bronze medalist in Greco-Roman !! looks like they made him switch to freestyle. guess why ? I only can guess the king Mijain Lopez is back ! in past 50 years only one wrestler could get results in both styles which was Bilyal Makhov in super heavyweight. but still he was a freestyle wrestler trying Greco. which makes more sense. we will see what Pino can do here but I don't expect good results for him. freestyle is not only about power (unlike Greco)

the worst thing in my life is being an Inter fan they never fail to disappoint . nowadays winning the treble with Mourinho feels like million years ago.

for the same reason I wish the worst for China. but looks like they made the whole this system to have a "good group" they key is you won't play those teams in 2nd round as well for sure. so between ARG/BRA/CAN they only can play each other from the quarterfinal. which means most probably the 2nd Americas Olympic spot won't be decided by direct games between these teams. I don't expect all 3 of them going to the QF. probably just one or max two.

I was talking about a scenario without any European team in your group. of course you can get one of them which will be easier than Australia for sure

that's technically impossible USA will get Turkey for sure China will get one European team from Pot 5 and Argentina can't get Brazil. so the only option is Australia and a group with Argentina and Australia will get Montengero for sure. (cuz other teams in that Pot are from Asia or America) and btw. we have 4 continents and beside Europe we can't have more than 1 team in the group. so obviously we have to have at least one Euro team in each group.

why they had to make it this complicated ?! there were other ways to make sure about the geographical separation. and there is nothing in the video or in the article about not having 3 European teams in the same group ! in the draw example in this video Iran got USA, Turkey and Tunisia which is the worst possible group ! but USA and Turkey will be grouped together 100% and there is a 33% chance for us to get that group. and of course Tunisia is a tougher team than CIV. Canada was unlucky here. they switched Canada with Iran because Canada being in Pot 5 it was impossible to not have 2 American teams in the same group. but now any Group with Canada will be the group of death. we can have a group with Lithuania, Australia, Canada and Nigeria !

I wonder if it has anything to do with more strict doping testing system in USA. I'm sure you guys remember Ilya Ilyin didn't go to the World Championship in USA and two weeks later he broke the World Record in a GP event in Russia ! even though this is just a youth competition but having more positive tests will be costly for the countries with this Olympic qualification system. just for info. Iran didn't participate because of the US visa process. which is long and very costly (they had to send the whole team twice to another country since there is no US embassy in Iran) and at the end of the day it wasn't a sure thing if they could obtain the visa.

no China, no Russia. no Thailand ! are they banned or something ? I didn't follow news for a while but I don't think they are banned. I know why Iran is not participating here but what about those countries ? the level looks poor without them

was checking the standards. our national records are better than these standards only in 3 events 100m, Discus throw and 800m ! and the 800m guy is retired long time ago. right now I see only 3 of our athletes are capable of reaching these standards. national record holders in DT and 100m plus our 3000m steeplechase Asian Games champion who was less than a second behind this entry. I have no idea about the ranking but if that requires participating in too many competitions I don't think we can qualify anybody through the ranking.

Surprised to see Iran on podium after a while. this season was disastrous for all of them, didn't expect anything today (they all lost in Round of 64 yesterday) but they beat Hungary and Italy before losing badly (as usual) to Korea. pity this is not inside the Olympic qualification but still very important to collect points and stay as high as possible in the ranking to have easier opponents for the next tournaments. but damn this Korean team is too strong. they are almost unbeatable . with Korea being in top 4 is a sure thing. Iran only have to stay higher than China and Japan to qualify for the Olympics but that's not easy anymore. both of them made it to top 8 here. (and we had 4 Asian teams in QF) and specially China is getting better and better.

oh that makes sense, I thought they changed that rule after expending the number of teams to 32. it seems they just modified it.

speaking of the Asian Games. there are rumors about the list of sports for the next Games in China. apparently they are even going to expand the Kurash program making it 16 events !! I knew Jujitsu is a sure thing since UAE pays OCA for that. they will add Cricket again. we also will have traditional AG non-Olympic sports like Sepaktakraw, Kabaddi, Karate, Wushu and Bowling . and it seems China want Chess to be added ! Sport Climbing is also likely to be in the program. still no word on Sambo and Baseball and it seems we won't have Pencak Silat, Paragliding and Jet Ski for sure . nothing is finalized even for 2018 they changed the program so many times and only finalized it a year before the Games. but I think this time with China things will be easier and we will have the final list sooner. I just hope they don't add anything crazy like Dancesport or some kinds of Chinese Chess or even Dragon Boat into the program. I still can't understand how come we can have Judo. Jujitsu and Kurash altogether ! they are pretty much similar. specially Judo and Kurash . I think the only different between Judo and Kurash is the scoring system and the cautions. and Jujitsu is the stupidest sport ever.

if they are going to compete they should be allowed to participate in all of the sports. limiting them to only few sports will make the medal table a bit "fake" but of course it will be up to Australia (and New Zealand ) if they want to send a full team. Australia sent only few athletes to the AIMAG but I think Asian Games will be a different story. if a powerhouse like Australia participate at the Games. that will change the medal table big time. they will steal lots of medals in Cycling, Rowing or Swimming and some other sports. but I was thinking how many medal Iran could lose if Australia was there in Jakarta 2018. at least about gold medals the answer was none ! Iran won 20 gold medals in Jakarta and Australia could not treat any of those gold medals. they are just not good in our favorite sports. so welcome Australia

wow. I know Asian teams didn't "shine" at the World Champs but they just gave only "one more quota" to Asia !! actually none. because AHF had 4 quotas in last few tournaments because of Qatar results (and being the host once) and I can't believe 7 for Africa ?! (6 + host) I know Tunisia and Egypt are very good but what about the rest ?! we will have 5 more African teams ! I wonder if that wasn't just a mistake in that article. 6 for Asia and 4 (+ host) for Africa at least makes more sense. even though personally I think 5 is more fair for both continents. and of course Australia will never finish in top 5. there will be one wild card. even for Pan America it was stupid to limit the number of North American teams to just one (even if they can't qualify more) they could say top 5 teams with at least one team from each part.

This Savolainen kid is something special, I won't be surprised if he wins world senior medals very soon. even in Tokyo. even though in heavier weights experience matters more and world medalists are usually older than 25.

of course I mean the current VAR rules. I know we had to use video is football and I'm OK using it for "obvious" things like off sides etc. but I don't likes two things about VAR, first the delay and stopping the match for too long and second using it for 50-50 calls. as I said if you use a microscope you always can find a foul somewhere to call a penalty or something like that.

to me that last action in corner of Porto's box was more penalty than that cheap Penalty for Porto by VAR. that was shirt pulling obviously but Porto player was already on the ground for diving. in general I still think VAR is a terrible idea. if you use a microscope if you want you always can find a foul somewhere. the big thing is "if you want". it that was up to me I would only use VAR for 100% clear decisions not 50/50 calls.

come on Ajax. don't choke please. don't choke please

so Ramos suspended himself intentionally for this ?

President's Cup in Asia 2019 (Kish Island, Iran) men's Gold Medallists -54kg: Armin Hadipour -58kg: Farzan Ashourzadeh -63kg: Soroush Ahmadi -68kg: Mirhashem Hosseini -74kg: Kim Seok-Bae -80kg: Saleh El Sharbaty -87kg: Anas Sadek +87kg: Sajjad Mardani women's Gold Medallists -46kg: Tan Xueqin -49kg: Sim Jae-Young -53kg: Wu Jingyu -57kg: Zhou Lijun -62kg: Zhang Mengyu -67kg: Gao Pan -73kg: Oh Hyi-Ri +73kg: Svetlana Osipova

we have the first day finalists (which will be held tomorrow) only non-Olympic weights today. the level wasn't that great. 61: Tomar vs Sanayev 70: Zakuev vs Bekbulatov 79: Nazhmudinov vs Dieringer 92: Mtsituri vs Kurbanov tomorrow draws are out and we will have Chamizo-Burroughs match in the 2nd round . (pity I most probably can't watch it live) but the level is very high in this weight. we also have Abdurakhmonov, Gadzhiev and Demirtas in the draw. we will have 57, 65 and 74 draw.

oh that's a pity his matches vs Burroughs are always very interesting to watch yeah Azerbaijan also sent the full national team to Takhti Cup in Iran couple weeks ago. that makes sense for them to not participate here.

yeah but last time we had only 4 groups and 6 teams from FIBA Americas. this time they have more groups that's the difference

We will have Dan Kolov tournament in Bulgaria this weekend. I was checking the entries and wow. this is like a mini World Championship. so many big names. including 4 current Olympic Champions. it will be one of the best international tournaments in recent years if all of these guys show up. only Russia is not sending big names. (and Azerbaijan is missing) for Iran this will be a small team but still we have couple of our best wrestlers here. https://unitedworldwrestling.org/article/freestyle-and-womens-wrestling-entries-dan-kolov-nikola-petrov some interesting matchups are Akgul vs Geno or Burroughs vs Chamizo. and the match I'm looking forward to is a possible match between Kyle Snyder and Reza Yazdani ! it will be Yazdani's first tournament after the Olympics.

This article says "The complete draw procedures, based on the ranking and geographical principles, will be published during the week" http://www.fiba.basketball/en/news/top-seeds-for-fiba-basketball-world-cup-2019-draw-confirmed-in-latest-nike-world-ranking-men I remember 2010 and 2014 draw when they didn't let more than one Africa or Asian team in the same group. this time they have 8 groups. so they can completely separate teams from the same continent . that's what I assumed. but of course we have to wait for the official announcement.