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Yeah I know. it's hard to believe for me someone can wrestle in both weights at the same day. but since i heard about that crazy rule few days ago (and didn't pay attention much to read the details) I was just wondering if that's possible specially because the Indian 60kg guy looked a bit small for that weight. (didn't see the 55kg Vijay today to compare them, watched him yesterday but can't remember the face) still wait for our Indian friends to confirm that. even though I know that's very unlikely

Nope. even if France wins in 3 sets, they won't surpass Netherlands in the table. remember the number of win is the first tiebreak and not the points. you will be 3rd only if Canada wins the next 3 sets which is unlikely after being 2 sets down.

perfect evening for Iran, 3 out of 3 in the finals. Saravi and Mirzazadeh didn't have much problems in the final as expected, Nasserpour's gold medal was a pleasent surprise. we have one more shot for the gold tomorrow with Kavianinejad. and I still think Forouzandeh and Nejati should and could be in the final as well but I'm still glad with the performance. and we will have 4 other wrestlers trying for the bronze tomorrow. hope for couple of bronze at least. it seems Iran is in a good position for the team title. which Iran won last year as well with 3 gold medals. unlike freestyle it seems our Greco program is in good situation in youth levels. first day medalists: 55kg: Gold Pouya NASERPOUR Silver Tigran MINASYAN Bronze Emin SEFERSHAEV and Vijay VIJAY 63kg: Gold Erbol BAKIROV Silver Hassan Hassan Ahmed MOHAMED Bronze Azamat KAIROV and Krisztian VANCZA 77kg: Gold Islam OPIEV Silver Sajan SAJAN Bronze Akzhol MAKHMUDOV and Per Anders KURE 87kg: Gold Mohammadhadi SARAVI Silver Ramon BETSCHART Bronze Ilia ERMOLENKO and Nazarshah FATULLAYEV 130kg: Gold Amin MIRZAZADEH Silver David OVASAPYAN Bronze Franz RICHTER and Cohlton SCHULTZ

well he had a VERY tough draw. he beat least world gold and silver medalists (Kamal Bey and Akzhol Makhmudov) before the final. this one was too easy for him comparing to those two guys BUT I have unpopular opinion about him. he is actually very boring. doing absolutely nothing on standing position. just blocking blocking and waiting for cautions to score from gut wrench. btw we started the final with a nice surprise. Nasserpour managed to tire the Armenian guy and finally beat him 9-4. at first it looked like an easy gold for Armenia but Nasserpour fought his way into the gold medal. hope for two more tonight.

mixed feeling about today. we could send 3 wrestlers to the final but we got only 1 ! our other 4 wrestlers will be alive in repechage tomorrow. even though knowing the mentality of Iranian wrestlers they usually don't survive in repechage when they have to start from the 1st round. after Forouzandeh blowing away his gold medal chance by that stupid last second mistake. Nejati also made another one against this Vijay guy and got pinned despite having the match under his control. but on other hand Kavianinejad despite being disappointing managed to beat Russia 1-1 . to be honest winning 1-1 by cautions is not something to be proud of. Finals for tomorrow: interesting that 10 wrestlers from 10 different countries 60: vs 67: vs 72: vs 82: vs 97: vs

there is an Indian guy winning bronze at 55 "Vijay" and another Indian who pinned our wrestler by surprise and went to the final at 60kg. again Vijay ! the same person ?! this sounds crazy but I remember I head somewhere that from this month UWW let wrestlers participate in one weight up as well. but I hope our Indian friends confirm this. the same guy or not ? if he is the same guy. he just made history by winning 2 medals in one Greco-Roman competition !

Iran just survived Finland. still thanks to Kolakovic they wasted 1 point here. Kolakovic didn't even put Mousavi and Marandi in the list underestimating Finland and our reserve libero was terrible in everything making it very hard for the setter . also our 17 years old MB (who has a bright future ahead) wasn't just ready for this level in such atmosphere and made so many mistakes. it was like playing in Helsinki ! at some point we had 4 Under-20 players in the court at the same time it's great to use young players but not all of them together and not in middle of a world championship ! I just hope wasting this one point doesn't hurt us at the end . one thing is for sure that we need at least 2 wins in next round to stand a chance. which will be very hard since we will get a very tough group.

Second day semifinals: 60kg: vs vs 67kg: vs vs 72kg: vs vs 82kg: vs vs 97kg: vs vs Iran started the day the same as yesterday, losing two wrestlers right in the first round but everything was good since then until the 82kg quarterfinal. that still hurts me ! Forouzandeh was leading the Russian 2-0 comfortably but slipped on the mat in last 2 seconds and lost it by a caution (since he touched opponent's leg in a defensive way) how come our wrestlers doing this kind of mistakes again and again. Our remaining two wrestlers look good so far. Kavininejad is a last year World Junior Champion who is knocking the door in senior level and narrowly missed the senior team this year. anything less than gold will be a very bad result for him. and Nejati also dominated his matches so far.

Anybody read this without knowing Kubiak might think he is such an innocent angel. while everybody knows he is a jerk , same as Marouf (that's why I never liked him and consider him cancer of Iranian volleyball) and when they face each other such ugly things happen. and when you appoint someone like Haynen as coach you can't complain about fairplay or anything like that. that made you sad ? when this happened Iran was up 22-19 and Poland won the set 22-25. six points in a row and series of stupid mistakes. Don't you think that hurt Iran a little bit Iran more ? no complain, when you start such thing you can expect anything to happen, Marouf is a great setter but he sometimes ruins his own team as he did yesterday.

yeah I watched some of his matches, he is pretty good. very technical. still our wrestler is not without hope, he is tough and strong (less technical though) , we usually do well against Armenians btw I saw some wrestlers were already balding ! at 20 ?! seriously some countries should stop sending overaged wrestlers

well that was very disappointing. I think that just killed any hope we could have for the 3rd round. we will probably get USA, Bulgaria and 4th placed team in Group B (France or Canada) in next round and we have to win all 3 matches (plus Finland tomorrow) to qualify for the 3rd round which is mission impossible. beating Poland was a much easier mission which they failed.

Finals are set for tomorrow 55kg: vs 63kg: vs 77kg: vs 87kg: vs 130kg: vs Switzerland in the final !? what about that ?! great day for Iran. the day started with 2 defeats but no more defeat since then ! I think those two guys were unlucky facing the best wrestlers in their weights right in the first round ! (I know Akzhol lost later but he is much better than that boring Russian wrestler) I think Saravi and Mirzazadeh will be favorite for the gold tomorrow but Nasserpour will have a tough match against that Armenian guy. he was very good. btw the idea of having semifinals in afternoon was to promote them ! what the hell was that ? having semifinals at the same time on two mats ?! I tried to keep eyes on both mats though.

Semifinals are set 55kg: vs vs 63kg: vs vs 77kg: vs vs 87kg: vs vs 130kg: vs vs 3 for Iran and Russia each and also for India ! pretty impressive. Kyrgyzstan also has two despite their star Akzhol losing !!

this Kyrgyz kid Akzhol is something special. he is Asian "senior" champion. he won silver in Asian Games in Jakarta beating Olympic Champion Kim Hyeon-woo. and he is winning his matches quite easily here. he just ate our wrestler Afifi alive let's see what he can do against Russia in 3rd round. so far Nasserpour, Saravi and Mirzazadeh look good in the draw. let's see how far they can go. Afifi most probably will get another chance in repechage. and Maroufkhani also lost to Egypt and Egyptian guy is in semifinal already and has a good chance to go further. Edit: looks like I cursed the poor guy he lost 1-1 by caution to Russia and therefore eliminated our wrestler too !

prediction about World Junior Championship ? you are really overestimating my knowledge about wrestling here. I even don't know half of Iranian wrestlers here. specially in Greco

wow. I thought yesterday result was just an accident (since i didn't watch the match) but this Netherlands team plays amazing. that was a well deserved win and actually they deserved more than 2 points from this match !! now France is in big trouble with 2 defeats and still have to play Canada. at this point I don't know which team from Group B I prefer to play against ! they are all very good

yeah sure that's why I was watching the game. turned out to be a super crazy interesting game. we also had another crazy game in Georgia which Greece won by a last second layup and secured its qualification

Yeah. one of the craziest thing I ever seen in basketball. he just had to hit the rim !! but he totally missed it. that was a violation. out of band ball for Germany and you know the rest

Yes, lead and boulder competitions will be the same as a normal lead and boulder competitions. only in speed they make it a bit shorter.

no. sets ratio comes first and not points ratio. Netherlands just needs one set to qualify.

Yes

for each event, 1 one point for 1st place , 2 for 2nd place and the same for the rest. but for example in case of tie for 1st place they give 1.5 points to each one. and they multiply those points at the end and less points means better place

at least the final day was good winning all 3 matches in medal round but Poursheib is actually in the same weight as Ganjzadeh (-84 and +84 will be merged for Tokyo) and Mehdizadeh at 60kg doesn't have a good chance to shine one weight up. I know Asian Games was very important and I agree with that but I just hope not sending most of our top athletes into the Asian Championship doesn't hurt us at the end of the qualifiers. for example Ganjzadeh missed lots of "easy" points by not competing in Asian Champs and in +84 he doesn't cut weight . not sending him to Jordan one month before Jakarta was a mistake IMO. the reserve guy Abazari won the gold but what's the point!? he didn't even participate here in Berlin. considering the current economical crisis Iran we won't see much of Iranians in future Karate1 events, only those who can pay for their own trips.

Brazil's defeat was mother of all surprises ! but Russia losing to USA was also a big surprise. specially because USA wasn't impressive so far. There is a big chance Brazil finishing 3rd in Group B and Russia 2nd in Group C. which means whoever wins Group D will make life just harder for itself ! add Argentina (specially with the way they played tonight not the disastrous first match vs Belgium) to this group and then this will be the toughest possible group in 2nd round ! OK Poland you can take the group

Did they just give up trying after one defeat ? you know you may regret losing one set to Tunisia at the end. about the competition's format. this is somehow good to consider all results because we won't see a disgrace like Brazil-Bulgaria in 2010 but still all those 4th placed teams (with probably 3 defeats) have absolutely no chance in 2nd round even before the start !! I know there is no perfect format but this one is far from good.