MHSN

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.

apparently the seeding for the draw will be based on the World Ranking. with China being seed 1. and I guess teams from the same continent won't be in the same group (of course except Europe) http://www.fiba.basketball/rankingmen/ Pot 1: Pot 2: Pot 3: Pot 4: if they go with this, I think teams in pot 2 and pot 3 are not in the same level. but remember for example we won't have more than 1 Asian team in each group. all African teams are in pot 4 so that won't be a problem but seriously full squad Nigeria is probably even stronger than couple of teams in Pot 2 ! I hope China get something like Turkey, Canada and Nigeria all 5 Asian teams (I didn't count Olympic host Japan) most probably won't pass the first round. so even 1pt matters here for the Olympic Qualification. there will be repechage for eliminated teams but still not a "complete repechage table" teams will be ranked after playing at least 5 games. 3 in 1st round and 2 in classification round. if we end up in the same group with likes of USA, Lithuania and Spain they usually massacre weaker teams but Argentina for example is usually nice and wins those kind of games by one digit. but whoever gets Argentina from the Asian teams will get Russia, Italy or Turkey from the 2nd pot. thats a sure thing we will have one African team in our group. (hopefully not Nigeria) but after all China is clear favorite for the Asian quota, they are the host and as top seed will get an easier group but to be honest they also have the best team amongst the Asians right now.

oh. only if they had this competition before the 25m pistol event Veronika Major qualified through that event and the Iranian girl finished 3rd and missed the quota. no quota but we had 3 finalists (all of them their first ever final) not bad but I was expecting more from our "experienced" shooters, Ahmadi tied with the World Record in the elimination round but today she finished 52nd. 30pts below her own marks from yesterday

heartbreaking for Uruguay they almost had a great comeback in last 3-4 minutes. they were down 12 or 13 but at the end they were just a 3 pointer away from the overtime but they missed it. Puerto Rico is the last qualified teams. people talk everywhere about how bad is this system and blah blah but at the end of the day we have only 3 "surprises" , Cameroon in Africa, and Croatia and Slovenia. the other 29 teams were predictable to qualify. and I only feel sorry for Cameroon here. they were victim of that stupid format in Africa. if they had both groups at the same dates we would have a different team in the World Cup. even though in general this comparing teams from different groups idea and having the best .3rd/4th placed teams to qualify without playing an extra game was stupid.

maybe Needham missing a FT few seconds earlier temped him to try this way. even though in a do-or-die situation like that poor guy had less than a second to decide to score the easy 2 or go behind the arc and try the 3. but yeah with 8 seconds to go they should try the "other option" but that was a very interesting game, Latvia was the better team but congrats to Montenegro. always nice to watch this kind of game in packed stadium. that's why I like this home and away format. so now Puerto Rico vs Uruguay is the last important game in these qualifiers. let's see if Magnano can pull of a miracle or something like that. Uruguay was really poor against depleted Mexico but who knows maybe they saved something for this do or die game.

I was confident about Serbia. but you did the right thing not caring about the Georgia game. they actually lost to Estonia what a weekend for Estonian basketball.

Yeah and they lost to two already qualified teams. South Korea wasn't even in full force here. they even struggled against Syria earlier this week. I'm happy for the Philippines, they love basketball more than any other sports. I think at some point today they had no hope when Lebanon was leading by +10 over Korea. Jordan really deserved the qualification, they played better than expectations in the last window.

Yep Lebanon is the one who didn't qualify at the end , 5 days ago that looked somehow impossible. meanwhile I'm watching Jordan NZ games and they almost stopped playing when they heard of that news their 10pts lead is just 1 now. early celebration I guess

wow, I just got home checking the results and I can't believe Iran was just an inch away from quota in women's 25m pistol (probably the last event I was expecting) and from what I see, Rostamian had 2pts lead with 3 shots left and she lost it in shoot-off. bronze medal is still a GREAT result for her, this is Iran's first ever podium in this event (and if I'm not wrong in women's pistol events) but still, this is shooting there is no guarantee if she can get this close to the quota in future events.