MHSN

Kimia qualifies , still it was disappointing to have only 4 athletes in TKD. I was expecting 5 or 6. but that's it. at least all of these 4 athletes are strong medal favorites.

Had a busy day today at work (holidays in Iran are different than yours ) and could not watch most of the matches, I could catch some quarterfinals and then the stream stopped working for the semies ! lol but I got 5 out 8. not that bad ! here is for tomorrow 97 FS Not so high level competition, I think in top half it will be between Yankouski and Bulukbasi , while GER and ARM can challenge them, in bottom half is quite easier, maybe Ceban or Baran of Poland, btw we have a former Russian (now Macedonian) guy here in Nurov, he can be dangerous. unknown to me though. 125 FS A very easy top half, the Greek guy there is a two time world medalist but he was VERY luck both times, he is not that good, I think the quota will be between him and Jalilov.. I think Zaseev will win the bottom half easily. Ligeti is good but I don't see him challenging Ligeti. 98 GR I think the first round match between Ildem and Ohler will determine the qualified wrestler from top half. even though there are few more "good" wrestlers there like the Hungarian guy and Timoncini. in bottom half I see Azerbaijan once again is using Gadabadze who is the favorite IMO, Dzeinichenka and the Georgian guy can challenge him. surprisingly Norway didn't enter the top guy Nielsen here, maybe saving him for Mongolia ! 130 GR Another "balanced draw" I see Popp of Germany as slight favorite in top half with Georgian guy and Mizgaitis after him. in bottom half interestingly Sweden didn't enter Euren here (maybe resting him) even though Sjoberg is also a former world medalist, I think it will be between him and Chogushvili. we also have BUL, ARM and Lam of Hungary here and of course the luckiest person in the world, Nabi of Estonia I think/hope he runs out of luck here are my pics 97: Yankouski (BLR) vs Ceban (MDA) 125: Jalilov (BLR) and Zaseev (UKR) 98: Ildem (TUR) and Gadabadze (AZE) 130: Popp (GER) and Chugoshvili (BLR) it can be a very good day for Belarus, maybe they even win all 4 possible male quotas.

thanks, I tried the same source couple hours ago and didn't find that. how lucky he is, exactly 65m !

Today was a sad day for me because of Taekwondo but apparently we won another quota in athletics , according to Iranian news agencies , Mahmoud Samimi reached the qualification standard in a tournament in Hungary, I couldn't find a Hungarian source to confirm that

Here is the final decision of Iran Wrestling Federation technical committee about Olympic Trials, in some weights they already selected the Olympic team member, in other weights they narrowed it down to two wrestlers . in both Greco and Freestyle they will consider the World Cup as their main trial event, both candidates will go to the World Cup and whoever performs better will go to Rio, but remember World Cup is a team event and each country can enter two wrestlers per weight, our wrestlers will not face each other there ! if none of convinced the coaches , they will send them to another international tournament. we have a special case for 97kg freestyle. the big big favorite Reza Yazdani is seriously injured and his situation is still unclear. Freestyle 57: Hassan Rahimi vs Reza Atri 65: Meisam Nassiri vs Ahmad Mohammadi 74: Hassan Yazdani 86: Alireza Karimi 97: Amir Mohammadi vs Abbas Tahan and maybe Reza Yazdani 125: Komeil Ghasemi vs Parviz Hadi Greco-Roman 59: Yet to qualify 66: Omid Norouzi vs Mehdi Zeidvand 75: Saeid Abdevali 85: Habibollah Akhlaghi vs Hossein Nouri 98: Ghasem Rezaei vs Mehdi Aliyari 130: Yet to qualify * 3 wrestlers are already selected. Yazdani, Karimi and Abdevali. * in 97kg, Tahan and Mohammadi will go to the World Cup, if Yazdani recovers in time after 2.5 months, one of those guys and Yazdani will go to Armenia tournament to determine the Olympic team member. * in 98kg Greco, Rezaei and Aliyari both will wrestle in World Cup, if none of them convinces they will wrestle each other right after the World Cup or the next day. * in other weights if they take their final decision after the World Cup, they will send both candidates to an international tournament. I think they already took their decision about 57 freestyle and 66 Greco , Rahimi and Norouzi just have to be "not bad" in World Cup to be selected.

in some weights we had more than just 2 athletes , I just wrote the final series results. beside that these wrestlers are selected for this round after series of pre-trials. what's the point of having trials ? determine the best representative , right ? what if someone only can wrestle good at home, against Iranian wrestlers, in fact those guys who lost here (Akhlaghi and Mohammadi) won the quota for Iran, in World Championship after beating so many tough wrestlers, they both lost their semifinal/quarterfinal while they were leading , just did a mistake and got pinned. who knows they both could win the gold last year ! yes it's unfair to send the loser without giving the "winner" another chance to prove himself, that's what our wrestling federation did. I will write about their decision in details in my next post

No they never said they will send the trial winner for sure, but winning the trials you have a better chance. Nouri is the younger version of Akhlaghi but much weaker in defense, I watched his match in Baku GP against Chakvetadze and OMG, the Russian manhandled him easily, with more training and more experience he can become a world class wrestler in near future but not NOW ! this is Olympic year. yeah that fall was unbelievable for Akhlaghi , he was leading 7-0 but it happens, he won the bronze medal quite easily and could even wrestle in the final if it wasn't for that dumb mistake. btw their technical committee announced their final decision about all weights

Khodabandeh is probably the biggest choker i ever seen. She only and only had to beat a much lighter Filipino girl and she failed . I hope kimia qualifies tomorrow . Today was a big blow.

We had the Wrestling trials today in few weights with some surprising results, all finals were best of 3 Freestyle 65kg: Meisam Nassiri beat Ahmad Mohammadi 2-0 (4-3 fall and 5-3) 74kg: Hassan Yazdani beat Mostafa Hosseinkhani 2-0 (5-1 and 2-0) 86kg: Alireza Karimi beat Meisam Jokar 2-0 (5-2 and 4-4) Greco-Roman 85kg: Hossein Nouri beat Habibollah Akhlaghi 2-0 (4-1 and 4-3) Yazdani and Karimi are already selected for Rio. no doubt about it. but in 65 freestyle and 85 Greco the underdog won the final. Ahmad Mohammadi is a gold medal hope for me and not sending him to Rio will be a big mistake, Nassiri is indeed good but still Mohammadi is better and already proved himself in international competitions. as in Greco, Akhlaghi was also a gold medal hope for Rio but to be honest Nouri beat him and dominated him. it will be hard to not send Nouri but his record in international competition is terrible !, he is just a bad matchup for Akhlaghi. I really hope they send Akhlaghi to Rio.

This Sanal Semenov guy manhandled Fris like a baby, he did the same to his other opponents ! he came from nowhere and teched everybody here ! how is that possible ?! this is his non-impressive CV. I really need to see a picture of these twin brothers together to make sure, I still think maybe it was Mingiyan Semenov wrestling under another name ! Rumors say he is under investigation for doping so it makes sense to not send him (officially) here. Sanal or Mingiyan this guy will be a big favorite for gold in Rio.

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 ?