MHSN

oh my mistake. I thought Nasar's problem had something to do with another car accident, that's why I said that. still a dumb accident though I can say the same about our Judo which is 100% cursed , we have tons of 5th place finishes at the Olympics but our weightlifting is also always full of drama, I believe I wrote some of them in this forum, I think I can even write a book about them with Rostami as the poster boy

what's up with your weightlifters and car accidents !? if I'm not wrong back in 2008 one of your wrestlers Ismail Redzhep was involved in a car accident on his way to the airport for the Beijing Olympics. and people say we have the worst drivers in the world (that's surely correct though)

there is but not really available for those who are not familiar with UWW's secret system here we go https://arena.uww.org/sport-event/show/1ee3cbae-f1ff-6c1c-96f1-d54d04edeeec/live

OK 57kg 65kg 74kg 86kg 97kg 125kg too much Turkish flag even at 65kg I wasn't sure between GEO and TUR

I believe people here are more interested in the Olympic weights so I drop the non-Olympic weights even though based on the number of wrestlers you can see they are still matter and we see something like 25-30 wrestlers in each one of them. keep in mind Russian wrestlers are out of competition for a while. they had their own tournaments but I know some of them didn't train 100% since they weren't sure if they are coming or not. so they might underperform badly. 57kg to me Higuchi is the #1 favorite and he is in the top half alongside Harutyunyan, both of them have some problems with cutting weight. if they do that properly I believe Higuchi is going to win the whole thing. Atli is there too the bottom half is much much tougher, with Uguev Micic, Aman, Abakarov and couple more guys like Abdullaev, Richards, Rzazade and the Mongolian. our wrestler is here too but he is just a kid and most probably will lose in the 1st or 2nd round. if Uguev is in a good shape (which I doubt) he is my pick for the silver medal. I also can't wait to see IND/ALB match in the 2nd round. Abakarov is technically great but Aman can beat everybody by making them dead tired. if Abakarov really makes it to the SF he will be really tired against Uguev. my picks for the quota: 65kg the top half is just brutal with our World Champion Amouzad, Olympic Champ Otoguro and Russian new sensation Mamedov (they consider him VERY good) I don't give a chance to everybody else but still we have some other big names like Lee (USA) and Musukaev (the best wrestler in the world if it was just 2 minutes ) Otoguro and Mamedov will meet first and the winner will get Amouzad. so if Amouzad wins that will eliminate one of those guys which is a great news for the rest. because I believe they are top 3 of this weight. in bottom half we will have an interesting match between Haji Aliyev and Tulga (MGL) in the 3rd round. and the winner will get Tevanyan. I'm going to drop the great Aliyev because he is aging but he is a great wrestler and he can always beat anybody. the 4th quarter looks too easy and we will have one lucky semifinalist. my picks for the quota: 74kg top and bottom halves look equal but you can see some big names next to each other in the 2nd quarter. Olympic Champ Sidakov has to win 3 back to back matches against former world medalists to make it to the SF. I have a feeling he is not that physically prepared for that. so I hope our guy Emami can beat him in the 1/8 final. and the winner will get former World Champ Tsabolov Sidakov couldn't ask for a more difficult draw. still you can't underestimate an Olympic Champion, I believe he will go to the final but it's highly possible if he loses to one of these guys (hopefully to ours ) bottom half is no easy too. we have less big names but there are 4 very big names there! I believe we will see two very interesting quarterfinals between Salkazanov/Kadimagomedov and Chamizo/Dake. great matches, but Dake is my favorite to win the whole thing. he lost badly to this Kadi guy at the Olympics and I'm sure he is waiting for a re-match. Salkazanov is a tough guy, I don't know how his match up will work with Kadi. Salkazanov is stronger, Kadi is more technically gifted. I go with Salkazanov simply because Kadi didn't wrestle much recently. maybe out of shape a bit ? my picks for the quota: 86kg this weight is always easier, Yazdani and Taylor will meet in the final and only a miracle (or an injury) can change that. it's hard to pick the bronze medal winner from the top half. I can't see a favorite , even for the 5th quota. I think that will be between Makoev and someone from the top half (Gocen maybe ?) which will be a close match. Makoev is lucky that he can lose to Taylor early, if he was in the 3rd quarter (which is more balanced) he could lose to KAZ or AZE and I won't be surprised if any of these 2 guys upset the new Russian guy. he wasn't impressive from what I saw my picks for the quota: 97kg top 3 medal favorites are in the same half! our guy Goleij has to beat Sadulaev in the 3rd round to stand a chance. personally I consider Sadulaev the best wrestler of all time but he looked completely out of shape in his recent matches. but I think underestimating him is a crime. he is always #1 favorite unless proven otherwise. Sadulaev has to beat Baitsaev first and then Goleij to meet his old rival Snyder in the semis. I hope he wins and brings back our guy to the repechage but I have a feeling Snyder has the upper hand this time, yet I can't predict Sadulaev losing, just can't bottom half is indeed easier, we have both European finalists from AZE and GEO and I believe Magomedov will win this time. hard to see anybody beating these two guys, but BLR maybe ? or Yergali (moving back from 125kg) or maybe slim chance for Nurov. my picks for the quota: 125kg we have 3 favorites and I think all 3 of them will easily make it to the SF. I'm a bit biased so I pick our guy Zare to win the whole thing. Zare and Akgul are in the top half and the loser will take the bronze medal but their match is also important to determine who is going to finish 5th from the top half. at the bottom half Geno lost to this big Mongolian guy last year but I believe it won't happen again. he is going to win the semifinal against no matter who. 3rd quarter is more balanced, I think it will be between the Mongolian and Parris. I go with the experience 5th place match will be interesting too. if Geno goes to the final the winner of POL/RUS match most probably will finish 5th and has to face probably either UKR or BLR (depends on the semifinal result) my picks for the quota:

UWW website's section for the World Championship is finally working. you can see all the brackets here https://uww.org/event/world-championships-49/brackets I will write my predictions later today

Brackets are out. you can't see them on UWW website but I have some of them most of our guys are getting Russia early in the draw. 97kg and 65kg draws are brutal. 74kg too. we have one potential ISR draw at 61kg but that's unlikely too. at 65 and 97 all favorites are in the same part of the draw. we will see some lucky finalists/medalists

somewhere in this article says "A list of entries released by Hangzhou 2022 has shown that North Korea is planning to send ..." https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1140812/north-korea-to-compete-at-hangzhou-2022 list of entries ? where exactly ? anyway when it comes to multisport events, their websites are usually useless until they add the "Results" section (including detailed schedule, athletes name etc) which happens usually only few days before the competition. we will have some matches on 19 September. isn't it a bit late already ?

yes, ranking is the only way to qualify and if you ask me the answer is no. but nothing is impossible. you don't need to collect points. you just need one big result to qualify but so far none of your athletes are close to top 10. but maybe (just maybe) Kudlaszyk and Kasabiev get something at the end. if you are in top 15 you can always hope for a reallocation. top countries have to pick 3 athletes (from 5 weights) and that will remove some guys from the list. injuries and doping DSQ are always possible too. I think 73kg is your best chance Kudlaszyk is not that far

I think you probably missed someone, by my count the 10th place record is 388kg by Wesley Kitts (USA) if we remove Adiletuly, this is top 10 by my count Liu 404, Jang 399, Paredes 397, Tsikhantsov 394, Gasparyan 394, El-Bakh 391, Chkheidze 391, Dehdar 390, Rasulbekov 388, Kitts 388

our federation apparently doesn't know that. they still think if Japan qualify directly (which is possible since they are playing great) we can qualify no matter what. in a suicidal decision, we are going to send our A team to the Asian Games and the same team will fly half the world to Brazil to play in the OQT only couple of days later.

I think Liu Huanhua changed everything by winning the gold at 102kg. now Chinese coaches probably seriously consider sending him to Paris. he is only the 2nd Chinese weightlifter to win a world title at a plus 100kg weight division. and our coaches did the same mistake again and again, starting low and then a massive jump for the 2nd/3rd attempts. it worked well for Javadi but that was an exception. most of them fail. if Motamedi doesn't recover in time for Paris we have no medal chance in this weight. Dehdar is such a nice guy and I like him a lot personally but he is just not good enough.

of course it does count, only two ranking tournaments are left, this and VNL next year both Canada and Cuba are not in top 11 at the moment. that's the minimum you need to qualify. even 11th might not be enough but we will know for sure after the qualifiers. (if any low rank teams qualify directly or not) and it's always possible to re-add Russia somewhere before the Olympics. yeah I know unlikely but not impossible

our NOC finally published the full list of delegation. more or less the same numbers with some changes (additions). but in total it will be 211 male and 78 female athletes 289 is not our smallest delegation ever but we had something like 380 last time in Indonesia. this is disappointing but not surprising considering the financial crisis and all other problems the country had faced in the past 5 years. improvement was out of the question, at best we could keep our past level which apparently didn't happen. even though the final list is much better than the original list, they added some deserving athletes at the end

Winning a World Championship title is a big deal. even in non-Olympic weights but she looked injured and that CJ lift didn't help her injury at all. maybe not that wise considering she is a medal favorite in Paris next year. but maybe 3 WCh gold medals worth the pain

unfortunately the rules aren't clear the "rule" says countries with 3 or more maximum doping sanctions (4years suspension) will be banned for sure but most guys don't get the max 4 years suspension. for example Rejepov of TKM didn't (he accepted his fault and received 3 years) in this case IWF can exclude them from the Olympics or reduce their quotas. which is terrible, the penalty should be clear but it's not in this case btw we might have another world champion from group B , 399kg total from Jang Yeon Hak sounds good enough for a podium finish.

he was weighted 95.81 today. almost the max he could to compete at 96kg. but yeah he is almost guaranteed a quota at 89kg. so he only needs to cut just once, for the Olympics itself.

I also think looking at his body it won't be easy for him to cut weight. @thepharoah should know better but at least for now I think he is going 89kg but I might be wrong but I don't think 395kg will be enough for medal in Paris. lots of favorites didn't show their best yet. some of them are easily capable of lifting +400kg total. and some guys like Nurudinov might cut weight from 109kg.

Adiletuly is also banned and should be removed and Abokahla is going to 89kg (he has a good position in the ranking already) , his 102kg ranking doesn't matter great gold medal for Egypt but I was more impressed with the other Egyptian guy, the 18 years old who finished 4th.

Iran and Malaysia are tied on everything, it comes down to the number of yellow cards. How do you know who is qualified ? because the AFC yet to publish the official report . I watched the match and I count 4+1 (one for the coach) yellow cards. that's one more than Malaysia but Iran is filing a protest, one of Uzbek players received 2 yellow cards but the ref didn't show him the red. most probably it won't lead to anything but maybe that's the reason AFC is not publishing the report.

Sidakov wasn't on the entry list when I checked it few hours ago but now he is there of course personally I'm against banning athletes for non-sporting related reasons so I'm glad everybody is allowed to wrestle. but they set a criteria and didn't stand on it. even they rejected Sidakov, Mamiashvili forced them to include his name too. this is another evidence that Mamiashvili has the whole UWW in his pocket edit: UWW officially confirmed that https://uww.org/article/olympic-champs-sadulaev-sidakov-uguev-headline-ain-freestyle-world-team

so our pathetic team is 99% out because of receiving too many yellow cards. not really surprised, I knew this team sucks but still not being in top 16 of AFC is a total disaster

There is s rumor circling around that the great Sadulaev is not in yet. UWW head of social media had a tweet saying nothing is confirmed about the Russians (specially Sadulaev who once participated in one of Putin's things) and we will know for sure only on Friday! On other hands Russian sources keep repeating that all of them including Sidakov are going! Olympic champ Sidakov and 92kg guy V. Valiev are NOT in the entry list published by UWW What a mess UWW should did all this vetting process months ago.

actually Zanni is 9th, the Kazakh guy Churkin is 100% out, he didn't participate here and also facing a doping ban. participating in this tournament is mandatory, I think there is no point to keep the other absentee guys in the ranking. specially guys like Churkin and Rejepov who are also banned for doping. (it's also very possible that their countries TKM and KAZ receive a ban but that's not a sure thing yet)