MHSN

here is my review about the second day 74 FS surpriseingly I can't see Ali Shabanov here ! maybe resting him for Mongolia ?! Belarus 2nd guy is unknown to me, so I think Hasanov is the clear favorite in top half , Brzozowski can challenge him though. An Armenian guy is also there. bottom half Demirtas is the favorite alongside Makarashvili. we also have Zakharevych and Kirov there. 86 FS I don't think anybody can challenge Aldatov in top half, I'm surprised Moldova didn't enter Ianulov here. bottom half is even weaker, Vereb is probably the favorite with Murtazaliev. I can't see any other notable wrestler here, overall probably the weakest competition here. 75 GR We have some surprises in start list, no Julfalakyan, no Bacsi, no Cebi ! I think Datunashvili is the favorite in top half, Kus and Chalyan can challenge him. in bottom half we have so many good wrestlers, none of them is clear favorite, I think the winner of Nemes-Starcevic will have a very good chance to win the quota. the German guy, Sweden and Ukraine are also good, we also have Hungary there. 85 GR This weight is usually tough in Europe but top half is much easier, I think Janikowski has a good chance in top half but you never can underestimate Armenia in Greco-Roman, we also have Georgia there. but in bottom half we have Noumonvi, grandpa Mishin, Zugaj and few more like Adomaitis, Basar and Kikinov, even Hrustanovic. really hard for me to pick someone from this half here are my picks for the quotas, I'm more confident about my freestyle picks, 74: Hasanov (AZE) and Demirtas (TUR) 86: Aldatov (UKR) and Vereb (HUN) 75: Datunashvili (GEO) and Nemes (SRB) 85: Janikowski (POL) and Mishin (RUS)

Thanks , It was quite helpful Good luck to your wrestlers, except for those in 59 and 130 for obvious reasons

I see, thanks for the quick answer, but why 4 ? Bulgaria needs 5 Greco quotas That was an interesting strategy, so these guys here were your #1 wrestlers ? and those in Mongolia are #2 ? to me Angelov is slightly better than Kostadinov.

Do you know where is Angelov ? injured or something ? I know he and Kostadinov are almost in the same level. do you know which one they will send next week to Mongolia ? (I know maybe it's too early to ask)

That's interesting, are they injured ? or they are just saving them for the next weekend ? which is logical, next week tournament is a bit weaker than this. most notable non-European wrestlers are already qualified and those Europeans who wrestle here will be tired next week. from this start list, I see Cebi from Turkey ! he alongside Datunashvili of Georgia plus your wrestler will be favorites. but who knows btw if I wanted to write my picks for today I would pick 4 out of 8 qualified male wrestlers. Dubov, Gadzhiev, Bolkvadze and Lorincz, and I didn't pick anybody for top half of 59kg.

Draw for the 1st day of Asian Qualifiers http://www.ma-regonline.com/downloads/823/ASIAN%20QUALIFICATION%20TOURNAMENT%20FOR%20RIO%202016%20DRAW%20-%20DAY%201.pdf There is a big big surprise here ! Olympic bronze medalist and 3 time world champion Bahri Tanrikulu (from Turkey) is representing Palestine here ! wow

If both Hong Kong players withdraw the quota later as expected (which will happen 99%) the following countries qualified for Rio in men's singles Gerassimenko (KAZ) Kenjaev (UZB) No. Alamian (IRN) Achanta (IND) Tanviriyavechaku (THA) Chen Chien-an (TPE)

Well I don't "admit" that, he could lose to Gadzhiev in very first round. that wasn't easy for him against the North Korean guy. personally I ALWAYS consider winning by fall in wrestling as accident which happens sometimes but you can't count on that, he beat Mohammadi by fall when Mohammadi was aggressive for the whole period just a moment of mistake and he got pinned while the score was just 2-2. Did he dominate his opponent in a not-high-level Euro ? no, he almost lost the final , Kaya just did a dumb mistake, he was leading and he was on top, he could just wait and let the clock works ! and you can see what happened to Kaya here, he lost the guy who lost in next round. he is indeed one of the favorites in Rio but sometimes he makes things complicated against average wrestlers like Kaya and Novruzov (yes i think Novruzov is just average who beat Ramonov in Vegas by accident) I think there are 4-5 gold medal favorites here, Chamizo is one of them. PS: I secretly would consider our Mohammadi as the gold medal favorite but he just lost the trials today ! and most probably won't go to Rio.

Let me see the draw first, but Armenia will be a big big favorite here with Julfalakyan. then Bacsi of Hungary. but still it depends on the draw

And the twin brother of Minigiyan Semenov came out of nowhere (didn't participate much recently) destroyed everbody to win the quota. right when there are rumors about doping of his brother ! Russia was supposed to send Labazanov but there were rumors about him and doping as well ! lol I feel it was Mingiyan himself who knows

OK then, I don't take local medal serious in this case, she won the quota for her NOC (which was refugee team at the time) per WTF rules, NOC qualifies not the athlete himself. it will be a big shame if they let him compete under Belgium flag.

Nope, it was acting from Etlinger, good call at the end by saying that I would prefer Etlinger to win this one but that was the correct call

I don't consider winning so many close matches as "storming" , he didn't dominate his opponents, mostly winning on last second points, he is just one of the favorites, not the top favorite, he had few losses recently.

him, Jordan Burroughs, maybe Mijain Lopez (unless he sells his soul once again to Turkey as he did twice before) and maybe Taha Akgul, beside that there is no clear favorite for gold in other weights and I'm only talking about men's wrestling.

Is this official ? and confirmed by WTF ?

Thanks, that was very interesting, I was thinking about the same thing. this makes more sense to qualify top athletes from ranking before continental tournaments but there is a bit difference here, back in 2012 even the 3rd athlete (for team event) had to qualify as individual (despite not being eligible to participate in singles event), which means top Asian nations still took 1 spot each for their 3rd player in Asian qualification tournament,

Brackets are out for the 1st day of European qualification , 59kg Greco This weight is very important for me because our legendary Sourian yet to qualify, surprisingly Russia entered Sanal Semenov (Mingiyan's brother) which makes me believe all those doping rumors ! if not why they have to send such a new name ?! I doubt he qualifies but who knows ! the top half is much easier, I see Berge (NOR) and Lashkhi (GEO) as favorites but none of them are anything special so I also give a good chance to Fris of Serbia, after all host nation always will have refs help ! (and Lalovic is from Serbia ) in bottom half we have Amoyan, the Russian guy, Kostadinov and that dangerous Moldovan wrestler Islamov, but this is interesting for me, it seems some countries didn't enter their best guy here, and save them for the next weekend in Monglia (bad news for us). Bulgaria apparently saved Angelov (even though Kostadinov is also good), even Croatia didn't send Lizatovic !? 66kg Greco Again a much much easier top half, that happens with this blind draw ! BUL or GEO will win the quota probably, bottom half is a different story, I consider Lorincz as the top favorite but we also have Mammadov (AZE), Vardanyan (UKR) and few more wrestlers from LTU, CRO and TUR. 57kg freestyle The level is much lower in Europe in freestyle, this time in this weight the top half is tougher, Shuptar (UKR) is my favorite Ukraianin wrestler and I consider him the favorite in top half but we also have Lachinov (BLR) and the Azeri guy. Armenia and Moldova are also there. in bottom half Dukov (BUL) is the only notable wrestler but he is not that consistent. Dukov (ROU) also has a good chance there. 65kg freestyle almost a balanced draw here, we have Kaya (TUR), Nurykov (BLR) plus GEO and UKR and even MDA in top half while we have Safaryan, Gadzhiev and Novachkov in bottom half. Bucur of ROU is also good. I think in top half it will be between Nurykov and Kaya , in bottom half Safaryan and Gadzhiev, while Novachkov can beat both of them. he got robbed a quota in World Championship, people still remember his match against Ramonov.

Interesting point, didn't notice that, yes probably. They probably just wanted to have someone in competition for their crowd in last 3 days, otherwise it could be boring for Hong Kong TT fans.

Draw for 2nd stage of Asian qualifiers http://ittf.com/Ol_Qual/2016AS/MenStage2.pdf Bad news for all those non-Asian athletes who were counting on top 22 places in the ranking ! most of Asian top players (from China, Korea, Japan, TPE) withdrew from the competition as they are guaranteed a spot through ranking !! they had to participate here to be eligible for the ranking qualification and they did !! with this we have a very good chance to have a second male player, I hope Noshad makes it too, in this case he won't be mad at his little brother

Nima won 4-2, the younger brother

I say almost no chance. Noshad had beaten top East Asian players before but still very unlikely to beat them again here. he is table tennis icon here but recently his younger brother was in better shape. btw Neda Shahsavari had a miraculous come back to win the middle Asia women's quota for Iran. what a match it was ! she was down 3-1 and 10-6 in 5th game and still managed to win the match 4-3 against the player she never beat before.

so Alamian brothers have to play for the Middle Asia spot ! I wonder which brother I prefer to win. they are almost in the same level.

So we got Korea, Uzbekistan, Qatar, China and Syria . Lol we were in the same group with 3 of them last time ! And AGAIN Korea

Reza Yazdani, one of Iran's gold medal hopes in Rio got injured and will miss the trials ! They postpone the Olympic trials in his weight hoping for him to recover fast. Yazdani missing the Olympics will be a big blow for Iran. beside him, Olympic defending champion Ghasem Rezaei also got injured and since he won't recover in time for Friday trials they postponed the trial in this weight and they will wrestle in another time. Rezaei's injury is not that serious. so we will have trials only in 4 weights !!! 65, 74 and 86 freestyle and 85 Greco ! with the following wrestlers 65: Ahmad Mohammadi vs Meisam Nassiri 74: Hassan Yazdani vs Mostafa Hosseinkhani 86: Alireza Karimi, Ehsan Lashgari, Reza Bayat and Meisam Mostafa-Jokar 85 Greco: Habibollah Akhlaghi, Mojtaba Karimfar, Yousef Ghaderian, Davoud Abedinzadeh, Davoud Akhbari, Hossein Nouri

Weightlifting is a bit different ! We should know which countries are already qualified (through World Championship) to calculate the ranking for the European.