MHSN

I'm pretty sure he goes to Paris nobody will ever think about replacing him with someone else. it's not like we have so many world class trap shooters in line to take his place

this one was quite unexpected. Gold medal and quota for Beiranvand who is just 15 years old I assume (or I can say pretty sure) he is the youngest ever Iranian qualifies for the Olympics , we had younger competitors but that was long time ago when qualifications didn't exist

of course it always has to be Iran to finish just 1 place below the qualification zone and this time I don't really blame Khedmati. she was doing OK but some problems with the scoreboard happened. after few minutes of arguments, they made her shoot once again but since then she lost focus and finished disastrously.

Iran won 3 (out of 4) gold medals today in Zagreb but it was mostly important for 97kg and 125kg to determine the Olympic team members at 125kg we had an all-Iranian final, World Champion Amir Hossein Zare beat 19-years old talented Masoumi to win the gold and most importantly book his place in Paris. the great Geno Petriashvili was there too but he chickened out in the SF, didn't want to lose once again to Zare. Masoumi is really talented, he is probably #2 or #3 in the world right now, it sucks when you are good but the best in the world is in your country. that's why Azerbaijan tried to "buy" him couple months ago. he said no for now but I'm afraid sooner or later he will switch to another NOC just to participate in major events. at 97kg, we had a huge surprise and youngster Amir Ali Azarpira came from nowhere to beat Snyder in the final while our experienced wrestler Ghasempour lost 4-0 to Snyder in the semifinal and settled for bronze. now it's up to the coaches to decide who is going to the Asian OQT to qualify the weight. it's hard/impossible to ignore Azarpira now. but they are not going to cross Ghasempour's name easily. he is too popular and I believe will get another chance. so in short, in Zagreb we found out the name of our Olympic team members at 65 and 125, the rest will be decided later

this Aman guy is a gold medal threat in Paris, you heard it first from me and this Ramazanov was good shopping for Bulgaria after getting lots of low level Russian wrestlers, this guy looks good and will be a medal chance in Paris but not sure if they finished his paperwork in time to wrestle at the qualifiers. ------------------------------------------------------- for Iran this tournaments acts as our trials in freestyle. last year team members (only successful ones) vs the challengers (national winners) we had 5 wrestlers today, at 86kg our main guy Yazdani is injured so it was supposed to be just a test for the challenger guy but he got the "bad draw" and had to withdraw 65 and 74 were important, 2022 World Champion Rahman Amzouad beat his Iranian opponent and booked his place at the Olympics but withdrew from the final vs Tevanyan (booo ) but 74 kg "trial" ended up in a disaster our better guy Emami narrowly lost to the other guy Abouzari 4-4 and Abouzari got manhandled in the final 10-1 against USA #2 (or maybe #3) guy I really hope they consider this. sending Abouzari to the Asian QT will be a huge huge gift for the Asian wrestlers.

Obviously we don't have the depth of China and India to have a long and complicated selection policy I don't even know what was their policy for this tournament, because for example Najmeh Khedmati won the nationals few days ago in this event but yet they registered her as RPO and she couldn't shoot in the final despite her very good qualification result. actually I can't remember they ever publish a policy. I remember before Tokyo they said they will send the most in-form shooter but at the end they sent exactly the same team (whoever wins the quota) I assume that's just easier for them. if athlete A won the quota and they send someone else, there will be lots of protests from "A" and his/her province officials. obviously our shooting is not doing well, 2023 was a complete disaster with no quota at the Asian Champs and just 1 bronze at the Asian Games. lack of money is the main issue, in this sport you need more international competition and Iran doesn't participate in non olympic qualification events. also I don't think the current coaches are good enough. yet Iran was close to win the quota few times, the guy you mentioned Pourhosseini narrowly missed the quota here finishing 4th Foroughi himself missed the final by the narrowest possible margin. I mean it was badluck too.

well I was hoping for someone else to win a quota but OK it's better than nothing, Amini broke the curse at least Iran has a history of sending the exact same shooter to the Olympics but I really hope they change the tradition this time

maybe he celebrated too much after winning the gold in Tokyo he had a great run in 2020/2021. winning couple of World Cups and eventually the Olympics, he got some good results in 2022 too but since then he didn't get any good result. he is currently 3rd or 4th in Iran and even left out of the team for few competitions (like the previous Asian Champ in Korea) today wasn't even a bad day considering his poor recent results, he missed the final by just 1 point. he is 44 now and after Tokyo he wanted to train with a different coach (which is always a bad sign), his downfall wasn't really a surprise. I was mostly hoping for other 2 guys to do something.

this is the 5th time (by 5 different shooters in 5 different events) in these qualification tournaments that Iranian shooters finish just one place below the qualification zone

entries for Zagreb Open, first ranking series in 2024 https://uww.org/article/zagreb-open-2024-entry-list looks like a very strong competition based on the preliminary list. this is probably the last test for most of these guys before their Olympic qualifiers. this tournament results will be counted toward the ranking which will be important for seeding of Olympic qualifiers and also the Olympics itself. for Iran, we have a VERY VERY weird and complicated trial process. but it's possible to know some of our Olympic team members here in Zagreb.

yes sure, he had lots of games against Iranian teams

nope , very far, I live near Tehran

WT published the new ranking for January 2024 (which is being used for the Olympic qualification purpose) and that confirms what we already knew about the qualified athletes. no change at all

WT doesn't bother to publish a list of qualified athlete. they probably don't think that's an important matter but at least here they show who is qualified from the Grand Slam ranking (3 of those quotas will be relocated though) i

so far that's the decision but of course in Iran nothing is set in stone and there is always a chance to bend the rules that blind football team totally got destroyed after that weird decision (they won the silver in Rio 2016) and this time they made their criteria even harder. only World Championship medalists will be sent to Paris ! (with only few exceptions in individual sports mostly for women) our NPC has an unhealthy obsession with having a high number of medals/athletes ratio, they always claim they are proud of picking "quality" over "quantity" !

Japan Olympic team at the end of their trials Freestyle 57: Rei Higuchi 65: Kotaro Kiyooka 74: Daichi Takatani 86: Hayato Ishiguro 97: Arash Yoshida 125: Taiki Yamamoto Greco 60: Kenichiro Fumita 67: Kyotaro Sogabe 77: Nao Kusaka 87: So Sakabe 97: Yuri Nakazato 130: Sota Okamura Women 50: Yui Susaki 53: Akari Fujinami 57: Tsugumi Sakurai 62: Sakura Motoki 68: Ami Ishii or Nonoka Ozaki 76: Yuka Kagami Those in bold didn't wrestle in the trials because they were pre-selected for winning a medal at the 2023 World Championship others still have to qualify the weight for Japan (and themselves) 68kg women is a special case. Ami Ishii finished 5th in Belgrade, qualified the weight but didn't win a medal. she lost here in this tournament but still has a second chance against the winner Ozaki. there will be a wrestle-off in another date.

Takuto Otoguro won't be able to defend his Olympic title , he lost in Japanese trials today in a very controversial match 6-6 to someone called Kiyooka

Iran NPC is considering rejecting this quota of course team members are trying to talk them into (actually talk to media) reverting this decision

nothing, it's not about him. wish him best of luck in European Qualifiers but he just didn't deserve to qualify by virtue of his 6th place in the WR, the 6th place didn't belong to him in a fair world. or any kind of world. ps: in case you don't know what I'm talking about, check the Taekwondo Olympic Qualification thread.

It was a terrible week. we sent a big team and ended up with just 1 quota and even that is in the weight we probably wouldn't prefer. I think 58kg and +80kg looked more possible two weeks ago. I lost count how many matches/rounds we lost in the last 10 seconds. mostly in last 2-3 seconds. I know it happens in this sport but it happened A LOT. there is something wrong with the team. most of them were in terrible shape, I assume changing the coaching system few weeks ago had a very result. Barkhordari got robbed of his chance in the Final GP by those cheaters but he got lucky here. very lucky. he simply walked into the final without even throwing a leg! both his QF and SF opponents were Iranians they simply withdrew (coach's order) and he just had to win one match to qualify.still not a sure thing if he goes to Paris. I believe there will be some trials between him and those other guys who withdrew today I'm somehow glad someone else took the 58kg quota. (and not Woolley) at least this is easier to accept. now the question is who is going to the Asian QT. we had never been there since 2008. I assume 68kg is out of the picture since our #1 and #2 failed the drug test earlier this year (which is still a mystery what happened to them)

68kg: Magomedov was the surprise winner, he also takes the quota. (a bit consolation that this quota didn't go back to the 6th guy in the ranking who didn't deserve it at all) 80kg: Barkhordari wins the gold and the quota . he did that with only and only one win ! 57kg: Minina (AIN) won the gold but Luo finished first in GS series despite losing the final. she already has the quota, therefore Lo will get the quota. +67kg: Khan (AIN) won the gold but same as 57kg, that wasn't enough, Xiao finishes first in GS ranking and takes the quota. but keep in mind, nothing is official until WT confirms it

OK it's done here are the quotas 68kg: Liang +80kg: AIN Larin 49kg: Akgul (Turkey already has the quota) therefore Quo 67kg: Song (China already has the quota) therefore Gbagbi I highly doubt I'm wrong but nothing is 100% final until WT officially confirms it.

nope but it's not hard to find out the finalists so far AIN (RUS) won the +80kg quota. with two Chinese fighters in 67kg final that quota will be transferred to Ruth Gbagbi (6th place in WR) 49kg quota will be between TUR and KOR and (TUR already has the quota) 68kg final is between CHN and CRO and the winner goes to Paris

feel sorry for Denmark. that was a tough defeat to swallow, I think they were leading something like 59 minutes in the regular time. but Norway is the best team in the world for a reason.

so 10 out of our 20 athletes made it to the Grand Slam main round. not great but still all of our top guys qualified and that's what matters. now they just have to win 3 or 4 more matches to qualify for Paris in 58 and 68 things are very simple, whoever wins the gold will qualify no matter what. no more calculation needed. but things can get complicated in 80 and +80. hard to predict things though, we still don't have the full list of participants (I'm talking about those 3 prequalified athletes), specially with Olympic Champions Khramtcov and Larin here competing after a while. Mehdi H.Mousaei is absent here, no explanation from our federation but apparently he is still injured. he got robbed of his chance in the Final Grand Prix and most probably won't get a 2nd chance. (even if we fail here I don't think they send him to the Asian Q)