MHSN

LOL they awarded official medal for "Akhal Teke Cup" !! means another gold for Turkmenistan. that was an special competition for Turkmeni horses ! that wasn't in original handbook, I'm sure about that.

now let's talk about the 3rd day results. Iran is 2nd in medal table and I think they will keep that place till the end. even though Taekwondo competition is about to finish but there are still Kurash, wrestling, Pahlavani etc to give Iran more gold medals. we have live coverage for this competition in Iran but so far ONLY for Taekwondo competitions ! not a bad choice since Iran won 6 gold medals so far, 5 out 6 men's gold medals. we picked up our first defeat here in one of the finals to Korea. this is a great result because of the level the competition is quite good in this sport and this is not even our first team, mostly 2nd or 3rd tier athletes. today we had a surprise gold medal in women's taekwondo ! which was also first gold medal for Iranian girls here. Parisa Javadi won few close matches to win the gold, which is rare for Iranian girls, they are good but always choke in crucial matches mostly because of lack of confidence. (the only exception is Kimia Alizadeh) Ghanbarzadeh broke the indoor national record in high jump, still lost the gold medal to Ghazal of Syria (World Champs bronze medalist) just because Ghazal jumped 2.26 on his first jump. but the most surprising result of the day belonged to our basketball team ! this is the 1st ever competition for Iranian girls after the 1979 revolution ! because FIBA only recently agreed to allow head scarf. Iran women team beat Chinese Taipei today ! I know this is not probably a top team from TPE but they are miles ahead of Iran in women's basketball, that's still quite an achievement. 3x3 basketball will be on the 2018 Asian Games program as well as the Olympics, time to take it more serious.

yeah so true. and we already can see a bit of improvement. I think this time in Jakarta 2018 they will win few medals, if I have to name two countries in Asia improving faster than the rest, I would name Vietnam and then Turkmenistan. even as neighbors, we almost never hear about Turkmenistan here, (except when they stop gas exports to Iran and make trouble for northern provinces ) but from my own experiences they are good people in general , maybe better than other -istan countries. and yes I hope they don't change their policy of not buying other athletes. I remember UAE also tried to not do that for a while but they finally surrender to that and started buying athletes and judokas. I think it's probably just a matter of time for Turkmenistan too if they don't get the quick results they wanted. of course I hope I'm wrong

That's a shame actually. they already cheated by adding toooooo many similar sports to the program. I have to admit the organization is great, some of Iranian officials in the competition claim that's even better than the Olympics in Rio ! even though most of the top organizers are foreigners and not from Turkmenistan. but the problem is Turkmenistan (which is usually a poor country in everything including sports) wants to use this for propaganda as you said, I watch the competition for most of the day and if you watch their TV channels, they show a counter for their medal count which changes minutes by minute and they sound very proud of their "dominance" ! if you watched the competition, Turkmen Goresh (Traditional wrestling), Belt wrestling and Alysh are exactly the same ! the only difference is in scoring system. Another problem is they have two competitions in almost all events. I know it's not cheating, they had that in their handbooks long time ago but almost no other country used that opportunity to send two athletes in each event. mostly in martial arts it's NOT common to see two athletes from the same country in the same weight. and one thing about that girl and belt wrestling, as everybody know the "real" wrestling is not active in Iran for women and wrestling is somehow the national sport. there are so many girls here love to wrestle and this belt wrestling thing is probably the best and only chance for Iranian girls who love wrestling to try something at least a bit similar. I don't really care about belt wrestling medals (they are only good for the medal count) but I know that gold medal would mean everything for that Iranian girl. that's why she was crying on the podium. and btw I just found out that she is a cousin of our Olympic Champion Hassan Yazdani !

3 gold medals and a bunch of silver and bronze happy for the last gold, Taftian broke the national record to win the 60m. the other two golds were from Taekwondo, so far our men's team is undefeated, 4 golds out of 4 athletes. and Iran got robbed a gold medal in belt wrestling against Turkmenistan, I'm glad they didn't disqualify the poor Iranian girl, she was protesting too much .

Despite winning the gold, I'm a bit surprised with the poor performance of Iran team sprint , without China, Korea, Japan and even Malaysia, they should dominate the competition , still they beat Kazakhstan narrowly. poor day in athletics, our Asian Champion in shot put finished 9th with more than 2.5 metres below his own record of few weeks ago ! two more golds in Taekwondo, no surprise, we always can count on this sport except when it counts, the Olympics

They have their own horses here . not just because TKM is a neighbor, mostly because they don't have strict quarantine rules. they traveled to Ashgabat few weeks ago. I'm no expert in this but apparently there is a conflict between International quarantine rules and rules about that in Iran, that's why Iranians could not bring their own horses to the competition, in past only Iranians living outside of Iran could participate as Iranian representatives

That's one of the events I'm looking forward to, curious about the level of the Iranians , because of the quarantine issues they almost never participate with their own horses, I have no clue about their level In Iranian delegation they were the only sport didn't get support from the NOC and paid the trip themselves

This is a shame they let Turkmenistan add whatever it wants to the competition ! there are so manyyyyy wrestling competition here, the real wrestling, Belt-wrestling (two different kind and both of them Freestyle and classical) , Turkmen Goresh (listed as Traditional wrestling), Kazakh Kureshi, Pahlawani wrestling (Iranian traditional wrestling), beside that we have Ju-jitsu, Sambo and Kurash which are a bit similar Iran sent a big delegation, we have some of our top athletes here, including our A futsal team (World Cup bronze medalist) , our pro snooker players, top athletes in Cycling and Chess and also one of our Olympic champions in weightlifting. even though is some of our top sports (Wrestling, Weightlifting, Taekwondo) this is not an A team in general. PS: As someone who follows wrestling A LOT ! I don't know that's the difference between belt-wrestling and Alysh !! they are exactly the same.

I want to say something about the Qualifiers in Asia and why "we" believe everything are always in favor of the Saudis . of course they had a good team this time with Van Marwijk and did great in a tough group with Japan and Australia.but still ! and I'm not even talking about the questionable penalties they received in their early matches. Australians have only themselves to blame for not scoring enough goals against Thailand but don't you guys think those two matches should be held at the same time ? they will answer that was impossible because of the time difference but history tells us that nothing is impossible in AFC ! 2010 Qualifiers we had two important matches in the last day vs and vs if Iran had beat Korea, a tie between PRK and KSA would send Iran directly to the World Cup but in case of a draw . Iran would need a winner in KSA/PRK match to go to the playoffs and in that specific year . playoff against New Zealand was supposed to be not that hard. Iran was leading most of the match but Park Ji-sung scored the equalizer at 82nd minute and later the night, KSA and PRK played when they knew a tie would keep both teams alive. the match wasn't fixed at all but Saudi didn't take huge risk to score, and finally a 0-0 draw sent PRK to the WC and KSA to the playoffs. if those matches were at the same time, and they knew Iran is leading the final score would be different. 2018 Qualifiers the same story. they held AUS vs THA match few hours before Saudi / Japan match . Saudis knew what they want exactly without anymore stress thinking about the other match. of course Australia made it easy for them by barely even beating Thailand. 2014 Qualifiers But you are wrong if you think time difference is important for AFC/FIFA when they really want to have matches at the same time, 1st round in Asia. last match day. vs and vs , they forced Oman to play Thailand at 13:30 in that hot weather because the Saudis didn't want to play "before" them. of course Australia beat the hell of them and Oman beating Thailand eliminated them ,but still those organizers did their best to support the Saudis.

we have Cadet worlds in Greece this week. the most interesting thing about this event is that UWW is trying the new competition format here. we still have the draw a day before the competition but unlike the current format, each day we have the weigh-in at the morning one hour before the competition and not at the same time with the draw ! each day we have the qualification rounds till the quarterfinal in morning session, semifinals wll be held on evening session (actually that's a good thing to give importance to the semifinals) in the next day we have the repechage round in the morning (alongside qualification rounds of the next events) and the finals in the evening (alongside the semis of the next evens) there are some positive things here but I can't understand why they are not changing the format ?! with two-day competition we don't have to go a direct elimination format. or at least they can extend the repechage (not only for those who lost to the finalists) still the biggest problem is having weight-in in the morning and the next day morning, this will be unhealthy if someone cuts a lot of weight. the main reason for this change is to prevent wrestlers from cutting a lot of weight.

just checking the social media and so many people believe we conceded the last goal on purpose to "help" Syria ! knowing Queiroz , he doesn't show mercy to his own brother ! and I believe that was just lack of focus. Iran missed a golden opportunity just two minutes before the Syrian goal. but indeed we helped Syria but not intentionally by having a very poor GK ! in other 9 matches, The opponents didn't have even one single dangerous shot on our goal. today Syria had two semi decent chances and they scored both of them. we need to try someone else. not sure if we have someone better ! after all that was reality check for Iran. we have a good team this time (comparing to 2014) but not as good as some people think.

Syrian players are celebrating/crying like they are qualified for the World Cup. , I highly doubt they can win the playoffs but that's still a huge success for them. Syria used to even barely qualify for the Asian Cup ! let alone thinking about going to the World Cup during the war. A Syria-USA would be interesting in the playoffs and Syria should win 3-0 since Trump travel ban won't let Syrian players entering the US !

and after losing so many chances when we started to play careless. Syria scored from its only chance. GK is our weakest link that's for sure.

From the moment Syria scored the goal , Syrian players were falling on the ground like butterflies ! Middle eastern time wasting at its best I understand this is the most important match in Syrian football history and it means A LOT for them. to unite their country but still that was over the edge and it was just the first half ! despite playing bad and unorganized Iran finally managed to tie the match btw Syria deserved some credits. Korea and Uzbekistan together had 0 shots on target against in Iran home and away. Syria had 2 or 3 only in 45 minutes ! that was the first goal Iran conceded after 20 months in official matches !

Congrats to Mollaei. "The bronze man" he proved that nickname once again this is the first medal for Iran after 10 years ! both De Witt and the Hungarian did the same mistake against Mollaei, you never go chest to chest with an Iranian ! that's not judo anymore, that's wrestling.

I hope so but we always lose when it comes to medal matches in Judo. that's a fact. and against the host nation ...Mollaei's chance is close to zero. I hope I'm wrong though but at least I'm happy we are back into the medal matches after 8 or 9 years ! our judo had burnt to the ground since then and this is somehow a re-birth.

Again the same syndrome, 5th place finish again and again. Mollaei had a golden opportunity, but our judo and failure are close friends !

South Korea couldn't score even against a 10-man Iran, actually they had ZERO shots on target today ! (even though Iran had only one) after 9 matches Iran yet to concede a goal ! if Syria beats Iran in Iran, they will probably qualify directly to the World Cup but that will be really hard for them, I expect Bashar Asaad to call the Iranians today asking for a little help btw I really hope Syria qualifies , that would be great for that country but no way I can cheer for them against my own country.

Iran finished the Universiade with 8G 4S 11B. which is the best ever result in term of number of medals, but last time Iran finished 9th in the medal table, this time 10th.. they won 23 medals in 6 different sports (out of 8 participating sports for Iran) that was nice winning medals in Fencing, Archery and Volleyball ! last day was great winning 4 out of 5 finals. Iran won 3 golds in men's Sanda and two of them beat China in the final which is a very rare thing in this sport ! this is a good news a year before the Asian Games in Jakarta (wushu is an official sport there) but the highlight of the day was the volleyball final, what an interesting match and Iran beat Russia 3-2 for the gold medal. I see some of our favorite sports won't be there in Italy next time but as long as Taekwondo is there we will be fine in the medal table

UWW website https://unitedworldwrestling.org/article/new-weight-categories-2018-host-cities-among-wrestlings-bureau-announcements that was in their summary, they are supposed to publish more details later.

Yeah good point, but if they ban Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova and maybe even Turkey who is left to compete ? but yes they have to do something, most of these countries weightlifting federations are corrupt and they really deserve such ban. speaking of banned countries, my country should also be careful about that, we had a bad record in this even though things got much better in past few years but still ... !

Actually if they stand on their words, they have to ban Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus and few more countries too. they all have more than 3 positive cases in 2008/2012 retesting. imaging if they really ban all those powerhouse nations ! I still think IWF will find a way to let them compete. they weren't aware thatn even China is included when they made that rule.

That was long time ago, almost 2 years ago , out of competition test when he was injured and wasn't even training. as usual he claims he is innocent and just takes medicine from the doctors ! Mohammadi was injured for 1.5 years. we have to see his shape , I believe he had a good chance for gold in Rio ... Karimi was great in 2015. nobody knows what happened to him after that, he lost in Rio and wasn't that good this year, still he was the only one in the trials who didn't get teched by Yazdani . if Yazdani stays at 86, he has to move up to 92 or cut down to 79. Actually there is no sure gold medal candidate in Greco. specially in lighter weights. but most of our guys were competitive. actually all of them except Ghorehjili and Ghaderian.

Karimi lost to Yazdani and Ebrahimi at 86kg trials, finished 4th ! Mohammadian is still banned for a doping case, Ahmad Mohammadi had a surgery months ago, he is rcovered now but he decided to not wrestle this year in the trials, as he claims he wasn't ready yet at the time. we will see him on the mat very soon. Hassan Rahimi got injured before the trials and missed that, they gave him another chance to wrestle in extra trials with Atri . but he didn't recover in time for the extra trials instead asked them to directly send him to Paris (which was the wise decision since everybody knew Atri sucks) but they rejected him. he did his surgery few days ago and will recover soon. in Greco I believe 4-5 of our wrestlers weren't that far from the gold medal.