MHSN

Iran sent a 65-member delegation to Paris, because  of their nonsense policies they rejected lots of quotas in different sports  which shows they don't even know what's the real purpose of Paralympics  and it's not about winning medals

they only sent medal favorites, that was the criteria even for the team sports , there are only few exceptions like the Goalball team, which is not a medal favorite but somehow managed to convince the NPC to let them participate. 

not a huge fan of Para sports, but will follow this as much as I can and wish everybody the best of luck

This time here in Iran the sport ministry and the NOC decided to have separate prizes !  but if we add them together considering the current exchange rate (this changes minute by minute )

Gold medalists received ~300,000$

silver medalists received ~135,000$

bronze medalists received ~67,000$

beside that wrestling federation paid extra 100,000$ to gold, 23,000$ to silver and 12,000$ to bronze medalists

Taekwondo federation will also pay something which is only 20% of what wrestling fed pays. (they will get bankrupted for that  they weren't expecting 4 medals out of 4 athletes)

those were official numbers, (probably they already received it) but they will receive something from their state/province and probably even their own town. I'm afraid athletes from Tehran don't have that kind of privilege but in other provinces they usually supports their champions much better. and there are some other companies, sponsors and some rich guys paying some prize, etc.

I assume at the end of the day our gold medalists made at least 500,000$, that's still nothing compared to what local footballers earn for doing almost nothing but still not that bad.

finally

https://oca.asia/news/5416-oca-press-release-oca-cancels-bangkok-chonburi-aimag.html

42 minutes ago, mpjmcevoy said:

Worth noting that MMA was once more or less known as 'no holds barred', the most brutal form of combat sport....but almost immediately, certain holds and techniques were barred! Eye gouging, fishhooking and, more important for this discussion "small joint manipulation" - i.e torture submissions based on breaking fingers and toes. Holds that work in te real world...but are unacceptable in the sport. Any martial art that becomes a sport compromises - what do you think boxing gloves are?

 

My problem with karate is following the scoring and understanding what scores and what doesn't. The action itself looks interesting, but its hard to read a context.

 

Under no circumstances whatsoever should we see fierce growling and staring at invisible people - Kata - ever return to the games - the only event more shambolic that B-girl Raygun. What next, Haka?

Karate obviously has lots of problems with officiating. and WKF itself is not a great organization either (most of their rule changes are dumb) but the scoring basic is very simple with only 1 or 2 rare situations. 

I know in past IOC (under previous IOC presidents not the current dictator) asked WKF to find a solution, using helmets or something like that to avoid situation like the last Olympic final. and I remember WKF used it for few tournaments around 2000 (1998 Asian Games for example) but nobody (specially the athletes) didn't like it, they dropped the idea.

I totally understand Kata looks very very boring, (as boring as Surfing in my opinion) but that's the heart of karate. even if WKF is allowed to pick 1 event for the Olympics, they will pick Kata  (team kata is much better though)

55 minutes ago, NearPup said:

 Ya,  Hamedi being disqualified remains one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen in any sporting event. I don’t know how justified it was within the WKF rules, but either way it felt really wrong.

 

I would be really disappointed if kumite ever came back to the Olympics. I would be okay with a return of kata, because it at least provides something completely different to the Olympics rather than being the world’s lamest combat sport. Plus at least if you KO your opponent in a kata competition there won’t be any controversy about the disqualification.

That was never a controversy for anybody who has watched this sport for an hour.

in Judo you can win by strangulation or something but you can't break the neck I assume. 

that's the same with kicking (or punching) to the head in Karate, you can kick but you can't kick with maximum force. that's the first thing they teach you in Karate. the very first thing.

looks like Thailand wants to drop 14 out of 36 sports due to funding issues

Badminton, Baseball 5s, Billiard sports, Cheerleading, Fencing, Indoor hockey, Netball, Aquatics (Short course Swimming and Water polo 4s), Indoor athletics, Indoor rowing, Shooting, Volleyball, Weightlifting and Wrestling

why the hell they added this huge number of Olympic sports in first place? must of them don't need to be here.

still no confirmation from OCA but I won't be surprised if they cancel it finally. the whole thing about this event was terrible.

1. Rate the performance on a scale of 1-10

7 maybe, 7.5

the number of medals were good, much better than my expectations plus 2 medals for women for the first time was great

but we lost 4-5 more gold medals wrestling because of some small/stupid mistakes. 

also winning medals in only 2 sports is a very bad sign

2. What were the suprises and heartbreaks ?

Taekwondo 4 out of 4 with 100% medal success was a huge surprise. we knew they are all good enough but our taekwondo always underperformed massively in Olympics so the expectations were quite low this time.

losing 3 finals in freestyle wrestling was really sad. Amouzad lost to a good wrestler but other two gold medals were 99% guaranteed before the final

Yazdani's injury in the final was the most heartbreaking moment, not in this Olympics but all time.  looks like the universe doesn't want him to win the 2nd gold medal. he tried to win the final with just 1 hand and almost managed to pull a miracle for 5 minutes. he dislocated his shoulder 4 times in the final 

and again while we were recovering from that, we had another heartbreaking moment the next day with Zare losing to someone he could beat 10-0 any day.

3.Was your country's goal achieved? 

They never set a goal, this way they can consider any result as success 

4. Which are the sports that will be invested more in future? Current / Upcoming sports

This is really sad that we are winning medals (even though lots of medals) in only 2 sports. right now I don't think there is any money to invest in something else. but personally I like to see more investment in Shooting, Archery, Athletics, Gymnastics, Canoeing and few more sports

while we have talents in Judo and Boxing, not sure if they worth wasting money on. 

5. Who could be some the potential star for your country in LA?

I don't want to name any athlete, I know we have lots of talents in our main 3 sports. (actually 2, weightlifting is half dead) who knows what will happen in 4 years time. 2 of our gold medalists are 19 or 20. nobody knew them 2 years ago. 

even our top wrestlers may lose their spot to a youngster. 

On 6/14/2024 at 10:19 PM, MHSN said:

not much, last 3 years had been tough for the country in general and I'm less optimistic than 3 previous Olympics. 

 

I don't think it will be a disaster like 2008 only because the wrestling team is pretty strong but all other sports are fading because of mismanagement and lack of money. 

 

it will be something between 3 to 9 medals in wrestling + probably 1 or max 2 (and maybe none) in other sports. 

 

so I say 6 medals  

looking at my pre-game prediction, I don't know why I'm upset/not-happy about winning 12 medals which was twice my prediction in June 

my latest prediction before the games was 9 medals though. still 12>9 

Italy winning gold in women's volleyball was the best non-domestic moment of this Olympic for me 

I remember 1996 Olympic final, where Velasco with Italy men's team (with that golden generation) lost dramatically to the Netherlands in the final.

28 years later, Velasco finished his unfinished business from Atlanta, this time with the women's team. the first person Julio jumped to was Lorenzo Bernardi, his player 28 years ago.

I still think Italians should put Mazzanti in jail for all his crimes last year  any random person from the streets could get better results with this team 

1 hour ago, ChandlerMne said:

UWW should do something to prevent this "mercenary" syndrome going pandemic.

In theory, in 4 years we could have only Iran, USA and Japan (in FS) having domestic wrestlers only. 

Lets face it, having 14 Russians (Dagestan, Chechnya, Ossetia) in one category isnt something wrestling needs.

 

some media here reported a comment from Nenad Lalovic saying they are trying to make changing nationality harder . I couldn't find the English source for that interview so I'm not 100% sure if that's correct but this is certainly what they should do.

with the exception of  Akgul and  Aman, nobody else won a medal in men's freestyle except Ex-Soviet countries or Russian mercenary wrestlers. 

women's freestyle and Greco are better in this matter. they are not totally ruined yet.

2 minutes ago, Ted said:

Who got robbed in men's FS74?

Cherman Valiev (ALB) beat the eventual gold medalist Jamalov (UZB) but a late challenge after the final whistle changed the final score

I believe 9 out of 10 (or maybe 10 out of 10) wrestling fans will tell you that was nonsense. 

leaving the freestyle (which is the dominant style here) without gold medal is very very disappointing, 

for years and years Iran and USA were the best freestyle teams in the world behind Russia and now without Russia (well half of the FS medalists are still Russian!), both of them failed to win a single gold! and both had strong teams on paper 

8 medals out of 11 wrestlers in 12 events is nothing to be sorry about. that's great result but losing 4 very very winnable finals suck big time. not sure why all of our finalists (except one) underperformed massively in the 2nd day. celebrating too much maybe ?  we seriously had a shot for 4 freestyle golds but lost them all for different reasons, Yazdani's injury, Amouzad's terrible gameplan, Zare's stupid mistake etc.

anyway it was a great week of wrestling, while it hurt sometimes but still I enjoyed every single minute of it. 

even though you can't have a complete wrestling competition without Russia. on the positive note, this time we had less officiating problems. I only witnessed one big big robbery in MFS 74kg (that couldn't be just a mistake, that was intentional)

not in a celebration mood because of what happened in other sports, but this is Iran's first gold medal in this sport in 16 years and we have to thank some very special organization for this. the UK government !

few months ago for the last ranking tournament (GP final), the UK denied visa for the entire Iranian team. our 58kg guy Haji-Mousaei was VERY close to the quota but lost it because of that. the WT did nothing about it, just giving some promises about this won't happen again. 

with max 2 quotas per country rule , if Iran had won that quota, we wouldn't be able to send anybody to the Asian qualifiers. our TKD federation had a tough decision to make about who to send to the AQT. they picked up +80kg (and not 58kg)

and, Arian Salimi, the +80kg guy won the gold tonight, ironically beating a British fighter in the final. (while the rest of the British team went home empty handed)

pure justice, isn't it ?

this Olympic is cursed . 2nd 100% sure freestyle gold medal throwing away

Zare could win this match 99 out of 100. but he just went that 1% path of losing this

Amouzad's unbelievable performance (which was the best I ever seen from an Iranian wrestler) today made me smile a bit after what happened last night

let's hope Zare doesn't ruin it. this is his gold medal to lose. 

I wonder if Zhamalov can find Uzbekistan on the map 

and Valiev the same with Albania

these guys never even heard of those countries until this year. they couldn't make the Russian team (had nothing to with the war, they couldn't beat Sidakov) and just moved somewhere else. and IOC once again ignored that 3 years rule and let them compete.

and btw, let's not forget in reality Zhamalov lost to Valiev in the QF. he shouldn't be in the final

it will remain as the worst Olympic moment in our history . Yazdani is not just an ordinary athlete. It will take a lot of time to forget this match, it's impossible to describe the feeling, that's more than just heartbreaking. 

he was recovering from a shoulder surgery, apparently something happened to him last night. that was stupid to wrestle. he should withdrew before the start. he wrestled with just one hand and probably re-injured himself very badly, it might be the last match of his career. 

pfff, even 5 more gold medals (the number of our remaining athletes) won't make up for this. I really don't know if I want to continue watching the next two days, as I'm sure this will affect the rest of the team badly. this is 2012 all over again, that time another Yazdani got injured seriously after beating his only rival and a good Olympic ended up very sad. 

that was nice of Ramazanov to not celebrate though

watching these wrestling matches is not good for heart 

Zare once bottled it against Akgul in 2022 World Champs semifinal on his own attack. this time he just kept the leg and killed the time. 

Zare was supposed to be our safest gold in this Olympics. I hope the final will be easier than this. this one was really dangerous 

74kg quarterfinal between Uzbekistan and Albania (both Russian mercenaries) was the first real robbery of wrestling competition (from what I saw so far)

that last caution was unbelievable  Valiev clearly got robbed 

2 minutes ago, Gianlu33 said:

I watched the whole round again, with my sheet of paper to mark points and techniques as the graphics of the Olympics are embarrassing. Objectively, the Korean had one more point in the rotation, the protest was right. Too bad for Chile...

yes of course it was , his last second 4pts kick was registered wrongly as 2 + 2. the Chilean guy really bottled it badly. he just had to "not run" ! losing a 5pts lead in 1 second  that will hunt him forever

and you don't need your paper  the official website shows the scores in details

https://olympics.com/en/paris-2024/results/taekwondo/men--80kg/8fnl000100--

by winning the world title and now the Olympic silver Kiani is the most decorated female athlete here

but she won her most important medal of her career in a below average day. she just had few moments of magic in her first and second matches and the SF against the Lebanese girl was easy and she didn't exist in the final. her real medal match was in the first round against Alizadeh, I was worried it will be copy/paste of 2021 nightmare but she somehow managed to win by a last second headkick in the 3rd round.

I don't like Alizadeh but this little investment worked out for Bulgaria with a bronze , that's OK as long as she stood one step below the Iranian athlete on the podium. 

53 minutes ago, konig said:

Iran must be proud of their wrestling team.

sure. for most people in my country the Olympic started only from Monday 

Our winning streak in wrestling hall since yesterday finally came to an end, that was disappointing because Mohmadi could do MUCH better. he just count on the refs to give the other guy the 2nd caution and he can turn Novikov in parterre (as he usually does) I can't say the call was wrong, but they usually don't caution one wrestler twice in a situation like this. but we got some 50/50 calls in past couple of days and I knew we used our "luck quota" already 

have to say Esmaeili was also very bad today, he somehow found a way to win the gold but he was just a shadow of yesterday guy. I think our Greco team celebrated too much last night  

still 2 gold, 1 silver and 1 bronze is a very good result for a 6-man Greco team. the 2nd best result in history after London 2012 dream team. it could be better for sure but let's not get greedy  

it's time for the freestyle team to live up to the expectations. I just hope they won't ruin the last days of the Olympics 

45 minutes ago, sounak said:

@MHSN what do you think about Yazdani Brooks final? If both make it

this is not going to happen but I don't think Brooks could trouble Yazdani.

only one person in the world had Yazdani's numbers, and he is not here anymore

Yazdani is not 100% here, recovering from a shoulder surgery, but still good enough to win matches, I believe Kurugliev was his real hurdle but this is Olympics and nothing is easy.

19 minutes ago, sounak said:

I think that makes Aman favourite for Bronze even if he loses the semis 

the PUR guy is good (he is NCAA wrestler) but Aman is huge huge favorite against him and to be honest Sarlak was also no problem for Aman. 

to me Aman will win the bronze 90% (and Higuchi wins the gold) but let's see what will happen on the mat