MHSN

This is the 2nd time Albania winning its first ever world championship medal and then losing it for doping violation !! Didzbalis failing doping means a bronze medal for Qatar and our Mousavi will be upgraded to silver from bronze. Begaj won silver over USA and Colombia, they will get silver and bronze. and I hope for no more doping violation.

I'm sure you know more about Handball in general but I don't think he is a good friend of Asian Handball president. he is from Kuwait and IHF always looking for a reason to ban Kuwait (rightfully though) . you guys probably still remember what happened in 2008 Olympics qualifier. and I have to say Asian Handball was a joke until few years ago 2009/2010 when IHF finally forced them to use European referees for crucial matches. of course half of Asian countries are happy with this and support the current IHF.

not a big surprise Actually South Korea not beating Bangladesh with the same margin surprised me more ! they lost only 46-20 and how the hell Bangladesh managed to score 20 goals on them ?! the 1st round is quite useless and shameful, look at the tomorrow matches. all 6 matches will be heavily one-sided. with at least 10-20 goals difference, probably much more. I think 6 teams are competing for 4 World Cup slots, Qatar, Bahrain, Iran, Korea, Japan and Saudi Arabia.

nah, that's not true. even though he deserves to be in jail for life more than any other person in Iran but he has nothing to do with the protests. he just shot his big mouth up when things got serious .

Iran is ready for what ? this is funny how people/foreign media think something big is happening in Iran, this is not even 5% of what happened in 2009, 3 millions were at the streets of Tehran at the time and yet the regime survived that. yeah people are not happy about so many things here but most of the protests are about the financial situations . nothing big is going to happen. personally I wish to see regime change in Iran in my life time (only peacefully though) but this is not going to happen, I lost hope on that long time ago.

well not really, there was a vote in a popular football show in Iran (show about European football) about the best player in 2017-2018 half season in European football and Salah came second behind Messi.

Congrats, I would vote him the best player in the world. and I'm not kidding, (Ronaldo/Messi are boring lol) he is winning matches for Liverpool which is an average team without him.

Yeah but you have to beat South Korea for the gold, they are master of cheating in sports and they won't give up gold medals easily. btw I remember Indonesia included Poomsae for the 2013 Islamic Games program and Iran won 4 out of 5 gold medals Are u telling me that Indonesia can't win 20-30 gold medals in Pencak Silat, Jet Ski, Paragliding, Bridge, Dragon Boat and Sport Climbing ? and of course Badminton, beside that you have Weightlifting and Wushu. any other sport with realistic "gold" medal chances for you ? Rowing or Karate maybe ? I just saw the Rowing program, so many lightweight events . no surprise for a top 6 finish , even 15 gold medals will be enough most probably. even though we have so many big changes in the program, so the medal table might be very different this time. hard to say which countries will gain from this. Sambo and Kurash will be good for our rivals Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. even though we also can expect gold in Kurash. no idea about Ju-jitsu, they didn't mention if it's Brazilian JJ (ne-waza) or simple fighting system. fighting system would be perfect for Iran but I assume they will go with the Ne-waza system which will give few gold medals to UAE ! I'm quite sure Indonesia is innocent in adding these new martial arts sports. OCA wanted to satisfy few west/central Asian countries .

yeah Indonesia won the gold medal in men's team Poomsae event at the AIMAG 2017 but they beat Iran by a very small margin and South Korea didn't participate. they most probably will win all 4 Poomsae gold medals. but winning silver/bronze is better than winning nothing I guess. well OCA website is publishing more details about the events and I'm getting more and more upset and disappointed . I thught we will have 17 Canoe sprint events but nope . 5 of them will be traditional boat race (Dragon boat right ?) in boxing they dropped 3 heaviest weights !!!!!!! which means 75kg will be heaviest weight there, in wegihtlifting they dropped the most prestigious class ! the supper heavyweight !! another sure gold for Iran is gone ! even though I think IWF will change the weight classes completely because of 7+7 rules for Tokyo Olympics. so I assume this is not final in shooting they changed the whole program. we will have 15 Olympic events plus few more . guess what ? 10m running target and running target mixed !!! plus 300m rifle ! I was wrong about table tennis, we will have team events actually but they dropped both men and women double ! (mixed doubles will be there ) ------------ with this program, Indonesia won't finish worst than 4th , I think there is even a chance for catching Japan for the 3rd place. as for Iran, we are losing so many gold medal chances, I'm not saying we are without chance in these new events . we will win silver and bronze medals but I care more about gold medals at the Asian Games. the only good news is this time we will have the Asian Games two months before the World Champs in Wrestling (which is always our best sport to win multiple gold medals), which means we can send our top team to Jakarta. in past editions that was mostly a mixture of A and B teams. and they were mostly very tired after the World Champs. if we want to win something around 20 gold medals. we need wrestling to win at least 6-7 gold medals.

Looks like the Asian Games organizers finally confirmed 462 events for Jakarta 2018. even though it's really hard to find the details . but this pic shows the initial list and we had few changes this week . they dropped 3 events from Boxing, 2 from Sambo and Cycling, 1 from Kurash, Wushu, Karate and Ju-jitsu instead they added 2 events in Taekwondo and Shooting, 4 in Sport Climbing and 3 in Archery. the Taekwondo program is really funny, they dropped non-Olympic events to have boring stupid Poomsae competition !! later they added two more non-Olympic events. (63kg men, 53kg women), probably because Indonesia is good in these two weights ?! in all other sports they dropped the heaviest weight. again because people in East Asia are not that heavy ! in Cycling they dropped the both BMX freestyle events. they added 3 in Archery, we were supposed to have full Recurve program (individual, team, mixed team) now we have 3 compound events ! Iranian sources claim they will be team compound (me and women and mixed) but that doesn't make sense, probably both individual events and mixed team. they didn't change their initial proposal to drop team events in Table tennis, tennis and soft tennis but not in badminton ! guess why ? the only "positive" is to see 17 events for Sprint Canoeing, their original plan was 12 Olympic events

Talakhadze is just great, he broke two world records and won the gold easily, when was the last time he missed an attempt ?! but today was another sad day in this sport, the IWF obviously has problem with Salimi ! the jury reverted his "good lift" twice here !!!! the same happened in Rio Olympics. this is funny because I had seen worse, much worse in this competition and looks like they are only strict on Salimi. it didn't change anything for Iran, they just replaced Salimi and Alihosseini on the podium and obviously I like Alihosseini much more. but still that was unfair and dirty. specially his last attempt. they probably wanted to punish him for his "reaction" . Salimi at the podium took both his medals off his chest to show his protest . that was a "better protest" they almost banned him because of his protests in Rio. but what about Alihosseini, he started terrible but got better slowly and 251kg was quite easy for him, no surprise that was his 1st competition after 8 years. he didn't participate even at a local competition in Iran. I know people will talk about his doping cases but people in Iranian weightlifting community know he was innocent in both cases. in 1st case he was just a teenager and a member of the team (the whole team tested positive) and he took whatever the Bulgarian coach told him to. and in the 2nd case, he was framed. he is the only one with a slim chance to challenge Talakhadze . he won silver with only 3-4 months of training and after 8 years of suspension. obviously he can lift more, much more. and Iran won the men's team title for the 1st time, not that I care much about this, (I care more about medals) but people here consider that a great achievement !

Happy for the 2nd gold but Hashemi was indeed lucky, his total record was 13kg lower than Moradi's record one weight down ! but still that's a world title. Hashemi was below his own PB though. now waiting for the super heavyweight clash between Talakhadze and Salimi/Alihosseini , while Talakhadze is clear favorite here I still hope for an upset. Alihosseini is a monster but being banned for 8 years I don't expect much from him for now.

Yes he is and I think I wrote about him before. and while I don't say such a thing for any other athlete, he was probably not guilty in both cases.

Did he ever compete for Egypt ? I was wondering since IWF database has no history of that, but he is such a great weightlifter and also a nice guy. he made a big mistake in his CJ attempt, that last attempt didn't change anything for him.. 3 more kilos would put him in bronze medal position but luckily for Mousavi he went for 220. even though 220 looked like his max for today but he had to try 223 for the bronze.

Moradi wasn't stupid to start with 230 or something while he only needed 220 to secure the gold in first place and then he broke the WR twice . great result for him, he wanted to break this CJ record for a long time. and also that was a bit surprising bronze medal for Mousavi, he could beat Didzbalis for the silver but still bronze is very good for him. and Rostami can go to hell now

Coach ? that idiot works ALONE, he doesn't want a coach, he thinks he doesn't need a coach and even in past when he has a coach he showed he doesn't listen to the coach, the whole week he was talking about his knee injury, he claims he can't even walk and blah blah and yet he started the competition wtih 212 !!! while he just needed 205 to challenge the Cuban guy for the gold. Rostami is a jerk and despite being angry I'm somehow happy he lost here, I hate him more than any other Iranian athlete for the reasons I talked about here before. but yeah he already has excuses about this. injury, visa, earthquake in his hometown. blah blah

competing against USA was never an issue . actually an American team on his way to Iran for the World Club Champs this week . Israel is a different story, they want to "show" they don't recognize it as a country. that's a long and stupid story and I already explained it few times in this forum. that was a nonnegotiable policy until recently but now even the wrestling federation and some parliament members asked for a change in this. since it only hurts the Iranian athletes. that's not even a "protest" because they always fake injuries or other reasons to avoid them.

During the World U23 Champs. Iran's best chance for the gold (Alireza Karimi. world senior bronze medalist) lost a match intentionally to avoid Israel in the next round. he was leading 3-2 againt a Russia wrestler (eventual gold medalist) but 90 seconds before the end he was told by his coaches to lose because the Israeli guy surprisingly beat the American wrestler on the other mat that was hot topic in Iran in past few days, that was shameful and disgusting if you watch the match coaches clearly and loudly tells him to lose "Ali you must lose" while he was confused, they threw the challenge cube to stop the match and explain him the situation. now it made into the international media and UWW has no other option to take action here, I doubt they ban the Iranian wrestling since they need Iran but a long term suspension for this guy and his coach is quite possible now, even though they are both innocent in this. https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1058634/investigation-launched-after-claim-iranian-wrestler-deliberately-lost-match-to-avoid-israeli-in-next-round

Saudi and Iranian clubs play each other regularly, no big deal. but seriously you think is that possible any of those teams can win the group ?! btw even before the political tension there were hatred between Iran and Saudi in football . much more than simple rivalry. this is funny the last time we played them was in 2009 when they beat Iran in Azadi stadium (the first Asian team to beat Iran in packed home stadium). since then the draw kept both teams separated.

there is no such a thing, WCh is WCh no matter what. congrats

Charron: .122kg Martinez Santiago: ..105kg Fattouh: ..113kg

I was thinking which AFC teams has a chance to advance, the last world cup was disastrous (unlike 2010) and I hope this time at least one of them makes it to the next round. being in pot 3 we were supposed to get the easier group but nah we got the a tough one , I'm sure we will play good and Spain and Portugal won't have it easy against Iran but after all they will find a way to score I really don't think there is a chance for Iran to advance. Saudis got the easiest group but they suck and I hate them, so no chance kidding aside, they are not just good enough, they don't have a fighting mentality to challenge better teams, Australia's group is no easy but they usually play better against non-AFC teams. they are not the favorite here but they have a chance no realistic chance for South Korea Japan has the best chance to advance among the Asian teams. Group H is very balanced , even though Japan is still the weakest team in that group . bottom line, realistically all 5 AFC teams probably will get eliminated in the 1st round but I think Japan and Australia have some chances if they play at their best.

well, looks like we have to wait another 4 years for passing the group stage Group B (and maybe D) was the only group I wanted to avoid . no luck here. Morocco match is winnable, 50-50 , win, loss , draw, all possible, but it will be hard almost impossible to beat one of those two teams. unless Queiroz knows few secrets about his own NT. parking the bus strategy almost worked against Argentina 4 years ago but I don't think we can do that vs Spain here. they won't underestimate Iranian defense he same way Argentina did.

I'm a bit confused about the format, while they talk about 4 groups of 4, the FIVB official website writes something else The 24 teams will be spread across four pools of six teams playing in around-robin system with the top four teams advancing to a second round of preliminary matches featuring two pools of eight teams playing in four cities. http://italy-bulgaria2018.fivb.com/en/competition/formula but when they said 3 matches per team in 2nd round ,it means you won't play all 4 teams of the other group. probably only 2 of them and maybe 1 team from your own group once again, or maybe I'm completely wrong here ! ------------------------ I'm OK with our group even though Group D is probably the toughest one, (all groups look more or less in the same level to be honest) we should able to handle Cuba and Puerto Rico, we never played Finland before but I think we can beat them, out of the best teams in the world we usually play better vs Poland. and Bulgaria (despite being a very good team) is not unbeatable. but being in the same group with France and Brazil in 2nd round is NO good, these two teams usually beat Iran quite easily btw we had a very good chance to win a world medal back in 2014, we lost it against Germany, I don't think we can repeat those results this time, but who knows. ..

The Start list http://www.iwf.net/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2017/11/StartBook_Anaheim.pdf interesting to have someone from Chile at 85kg tied with Rostami as the highest entry weight !! a bit of research shows that guy is from Cuba and didn't compete since 2013 ! Chile just its first ever wrestling medal at the worlds by a Cuba this year . looks like they are investing on Cuban athletes based on entries all 8 Iranians have a chance for medal. I think 4 medals are guaranteed (if they don't bomb out) Rostami, Moradi, Salimi and Alihosseini . I hope for more.