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Egypt most probably will qualify a full Greco team, they already qualified 5 and the other one will qualify too. Australia also qualified 2 as expected. in 3 weights we had direct elimination system, and it's clear who qualified 66: EGY and AUS 85: EGY and ALG 130: EGY and AUS but other 3 weights were in round robin 59: EGY qualified for sure, ALG will qualify only he beats EGY in last round robin match, which is not going to happen unless they fix the match ! in a normal situation EGY and MAR will qualify 75: MAR qualified for sure, the last spot is between ALG and EGY, again EGY will qualfy in normal situation but if MAR loses by TF, Fall or Walkover to ALG, in this case EGY is out 100% and can't do anything himself ! but I don't think it happens, 98: EGY qualfied for sure, the winner of ALG/MAR match will join him

Honestly I can't remember btw, apparently and per Mamiashvili's claim (RUS wrestling president) only two wrestlers got caught for doping, Sergey Semenov and Evgeny Saleev. Mami claims it was just misunderstanding in Reuters article !

From what i see, Australia has a good chance to qualify two wrestlers here, they were really lucky with the draw. back in 2012, only two Oceania wrestlers managed to qualify and since I still remember that tournament, both qualified by poor luck and accidentally. maybe this time we will have more from Oceania.

Brackets are out for Greco in Africa/Oceania qualifires 59: only 3 wrestlers in round robin ! EGY for sure, MAR/ALG for the other spot 66: 6 wrestlers, AUS or NZL will qualify !!! bottom half is a bit harder 75: 4 wrestlers in round robin, EGY/ALG/MAR are favorites 85: 7 wrestlers, ALG is the favorite for the top half, EGY in the bottom half 98: again only 3 wrestlers for 2 quotas !! 130: 6 wrestlers, 2 in top, 4 in bottom half I hope for more wrestlers in freestyle because with this low number, some wrestlers will get undeserved quotas. EGY and ALG will most probably complete (or almost complete) Greco teams PS: Morocco has Iranian coaching staff, so I hope they qualify some wrestlers here ----------------- btw I see a former world bronze medalist Sahit Prizreni (from Albania) is listed for Australia in freestyle. he can't win a medal but he can be a bit competitive at least. I remember before 2008 Olympics he asked for American citizenship but failed, apparently this time he managed to get citizenship this time in Australia ! it will be his 3rd Olympic if he qualifies.

Hi, let me answer first about Shooting , no this list is not officially final. if these athletes show very poor results in future competitions they can be replaced but honestly I don't think it happens, these athletes will go to Rio 99% For wrestling, each weight has its own story, for most weights we will have trials inside the country in April, while in some weights for different reasons the Olympic team member will be decided in an international competition. We had series of pre-trials and now two wrestlers are remaining in each weight (more than two in some) Freestyle 57: Hassan Rahimi and Reza Atri will go to an international tournament later to decide. Since Rahimi needs more international competition and also they don't want him to cut weight twice. 65: Ahmad Mohammadi and Meisam Nassiri, wrestle-off, best of 3 in April 74: Hassan Yazdani and Mostafa Hosseinkhani , wrestle-off, best of 3 in April 86: In this weight we have 4 wrestlers, Alireza Karimi, Ehsan Lashgari, Meisam Jokar and Reza Bayat, they will compete in Iran in round robin format. 97: Reza Yazdani and Amir Mohammadi, wrestle-off, best of 3 in April 125: Komeil Ghasemi and Parviz Hadi will go to an international tournament later. that wasn't fair to make them wrestle in April since Ghasemi just won the quota for Iran and won't be ready to wrestle soon. PS: those who won the quota for Iran at 74kg and 97kg (Abbas Tahan and Alireza Ghasemi) didn't even make it to the final Olympic trials ! Greco 59: NOT QUALIFIED YET. After Sourian failed, they will send Saman Abdevali to Mongolia, if Saman manages to win the quota there wll be a match between him and Sourian, otherwise Sourian will probably go to Turkey to try his very last chance. 66: Nothing clear yet, Norouzi just qualified few days ago, they will probably send him and 1-2 challengers to an international tournament, maybe Zeidvand and Binangard. 75: Saeid Abdevali is already selected. he beat his closest rival Payam Boyeri twice recently and both comfortably, and since Boyeri is injured and can not make it to April trials. 85: We have 6 wrestlers here. they will wrestle in round robin format in April, Habibollah Akhlaghi, Mojtaba Karimfar, Yousef Ghaderian, Hossein Nouri, Davoud Akhbari and Davoud Abedinzadeh. 98: Ghasem Rezaei and Mehdi Aliyari, wrestle-off, best of 3 in April 130: NOT QUALIFIED YET, they will send either Babajanzadeh or Gasemi-Monjazi to Mongolia and I have no idea what will happen if they qualify in this weight which is clearly Iran's weakest men's weight.

I think the only big difference is between China and UAE. for other pots I can say both teams are almost in the same level, we prefer Iraq and Uzbekistan for some other reasons (not because they are weaker than QAT or KSA) Japan is even stronger than Korea but we still want them Iran never qualified to the World Cup twice in a row, I just hope they break the curse this time. the current team looks much better than 2014 WCQ.

OK, only 1 in semifinal , we officially suck in boxing, they are getting weaker and weaker every year, I wonder why I still follow this sport ! btw, I was following Mehrabi-MGL on live score and two judges scored all 3 round exact opposite of each other !! how is that even possible ?! are they watching the same bout ?

Yes he did, there are videos of him on the net lifting 200 + 240 . (probably few kg heavier than 94kg and that was in training but still this record is 35kg higher than 94kg gold medalist. I have to say, with the exception of Salimi, Rostami and Nasirshalal (London silver medalist) the rest are OK, they were 5 but one of them Anoushiravani (who is now the head coach) rarely participated in their coup and Mohammadpour was just a kid (poor guy had a serious elbow injury which can even end his career) I can name Molaei (2013 world silver) or Taghian, even Moradi or Babari if you count dopers lol they didn't get into all these stories and stay out of them. btw it will be hard for Iran to find 5 competitive weightlifters this time (back in Rio we had 6 medal favorites and won 4 medals) Rostami will take one of the spots, Moradi too if he gets cleared by IWF, I hope for Molaei but he also had a surgery back in 2014 and I'm not aware of his current shape.as for Salimi we have to wait couple of months to know his new situation. I think they will also send someone in 105kg, maybe Barari. or Nasirshalal or Kourosh Bagheri's nephew Emad Bagheri.

here are possible pots for the next round per FIFA future World Ranking Pot 1: Iran, Australia Pot 2: South Korea, Japan Pot 3: Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan Pot 4: UAE, China Pot 5: Qatar, Iraq Pot 6: Syria, Thailand I think we won't have a group of death. and once again we can't play Australia !!! the last time we played them was 18 years ago ! Personally I prefer Japan, Uzbekistan, China, Iraq and Thailand. in our group. Japan is stronger than Korea for sure but all football fans here are sick of playing Korea everytime ! even though we have a very good record against them recently. KSA and Uzbekistan are almost in the same level but I prefer Uzbekistan since KSA plays dirty. beside that they will make a story about playing in Iran once again. UAE is definitely stronger than China, so I have no doubt I prefer China as for Qatar and Iraq, I think we prefer Iraq to take revenge for that unfair 2015 Asian Cup defeat on penalties. I wonder if Iraq continue to play its home games in Iran if they group with us !? Syria and Thailand are almost the same, Thailand is more predictable while Syria (despite all troubles they are facing) is a hard fighting team.

what about Kuwait's situation ? will they disqualify Kuwait to annul their results ? because in this case Lebanon can finish 2nd with 12pts (if they beat MYA today) ! otherwise there is no chance for 2nd placed team in this group

Yep indeed he was, he got seriously injured weeks before 2015 Worlds, (video of his injury is available on the net) under training program of his favorite coach Tavakoli, he is back after a knee surgery and started his training only yesterday, it's not clear if he can recover to his old shape in time for Rio or not. at the moment I don't count on him. at the moment Iran has only 1+1 medal chances, Kianoush Rostami and Sohrab Moradi (and i know you won't like him as a former doper !). Moradi is back after a 2 years (and plus) suspension. since the previous federation announced his retirement to IWF , he could not particpiate even after the suspension, he is supposed to be clear to compete in couple of months but the problem is he has to compete in two IWF sanctioned event before Rio to become eligible. he will miss the Asian Champs, but can participate in IWF Grand Prix in Tehran . still needs one more tournament which apparently IWF will invite him for Pan-American Championship in Colombia ! that's what Tamas Ajan (IWF president) promised to the Iran federation. ps, Moradi's training record was something +20kg more than Gold medalists record in World Championship.

That's a LONG story. we had 4 different coaches in past 4 years. Kourosh Bagheri led the team to win 4 medals in London, before that Coup d'état in 2013. he had to send a very young team which still finished 3rd with a silver medal and four 4th-place finishes. he resigned later, he had a heart attack and could not handle all those pressure on him anymore. they appointed another coach "Bahman Zare" who was NOT successful in 2014 Asian Games and 2014 Worlds then they replaced him with the mastermind of that Coup d'état 2000 Olympic Champion "Hossein Tavakkoli" !! Tavakkoli was junior team coach when some of these athletes were junior and provoked them against his former teammate Bagheri. Those weightlifters love Tavakkoli because he gave them so much freedom ! they could stay for the night, playing play station etc. later we had some changes inside the federation and the new president probably didn't want to work with Tavakkoli but had no other option since they had only limitted time before the 2015 worlds which turned out to be disastrous for Iran ! thanks to his training, we got so many injured weightlifters. most importantly Mohammadpour and Salimi, Ironically they didn't fire Tavakoli after his poor results in USA, but they fired him few months later, only few months before Rio ! even though they appointed Anoushiravani as the head coach but they also hired a Bulgarian coach probably to supervise him.

^^ Iran has to lose 8-0 to Oman to get eliminated. I think they are pretty safe. the real competition is the next round

It seems we have to consider one quota for China in each weight they are unbeatable so far and even their unknown boxers are beating former world medalists. no stream but we know how things work in boxing so I think Navi and Gholami are already out as they have to face China in next round.

After losing few times in quarterfinals (mostly 15-14) Abedini finally made it to the semifinal (and later to the final) in a Grand Prix (or World Cup) event and with this he made history to win Iran's first ever medal in this level of competition. he also qualified himself and his teammate Pakdaman for Rio

nope, per this ranking (which is stupid IMO) he is the 3rd seed http://d152tffy3gbaeg.cloudfront.net/2015/09/1-mens-7.pdf btw, we already lost one boxer ! and another one barely beat Papua New Guinea !! I think even one quota will be a good result for such a weak team. I hope Mehrabi makes it at least.

The only new sport for Iran can be Volleyball, if they qualify in Japan ! we could debut in Handball if it wasn't a world selection team called Qatar they are trying their chance in Slalom Canoeing and Beach Volleyball but no realistic chance.

here https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1145253698826763&id=608788485806623

no I mean the same ! after months, finally they are releasing their final verdict, this guy was the first one check here for the sanctions http://www.iwf.net/anti-doping/sanctions/ and this for the updated results http://www.iwf.net/results/results-by-events/?event=341

And finally we have the first confirmed positive test from 2015 WC. BAZARBAYEV Umurbek of Turkmenistan.

Draws are out for Asian Boxing Qualification tourney. you can find them on ASBC facebook account. none of our boxers will face Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan before the semifinal which means they can't complain ! but since the whole team is in terrible situation I will be happy with two quotas. best chances are in 75, +91.and maybe 91.

if I understand the rules correctly, if RUS and ITA finish tied with less than 8 goals, NED will top the group btw, in general tie breaking is a bit complicated in this sport if they finish 9-9, their match against the winner of FRA/GER match determine the group winner lol Page 60, here http://www.fina.org/sites/default/files/fina_wp_referees_manual.pdf

Serbia might get a gold medal after all, rumor says Islambek Albiev is also in the list, actually almost the whole Greco-Roman team. but again these are still rumors, even though very serious rumors.

Usually, Amoyan will take the gold, Islamov the silver and Fris the bronze medal bust still remember these news are still unofficial

based on my researches so far, here is the list of Russian wrestlers who failed the drug test to far, all of them accomplished wrestlers in Greco-Roman 1) Artem Surkov 2) Mingiyan Semenov 3) Davit Chakvetadze 4) Evgeny Saleev 5) Stepan Maryanyan 6) Sergey Semenov except the last name, the rest are famous, Surkov, M, Semenov and Saleev are World or Olympic medalists while Maryanyan and Chakvetadze are European champions