MHSN

yep he beat our guy (who was supposed to be a gold medal chance) quite handily today's afternoon wasn't great , we had some bad defeats but still it was good overall winning 3 golds and 1 silver with one more wrestler in the final for tomorrow. I assume the team title is already guaranteed.

Iran won the team title in freestyle with 4 gold, 2 silver and 1 bronze and the first day of Greco was also too good to be true 4 out 5 in the final and 1 in the bronze medal match. but I know we had most of our best guys in the first group. the 2nd group (next 5 weights) won't be this good. what a terrible day for Russia. not a single wrestler in the semifinal Russian wrestlers weren't good at all in this tournament, winning only 1 gold in men's freestyle. some people say that's because they were out of competition for a while. but that's not really correct. they had LOTS of international or national wrestling competitions to keep their guys in shape and motivated. I wonder if this is a sign that they also won't perform good at the Worlds in Belgrade ? and we still don't know if they can win the Olympic quota or not. and i assume we won't know that in time of the World Championship.

what the hell was that !! they removed Sebghatollahi before the start. simply awarding free quotas to the other shooters !

lots of interesting matches in the first medal day. Iran finished the day with 2 golds and 1 silver. but USA is leading the team race with 15 more pts because they won 5 medals . (despite winning just 1 gold medal) but tomorrow will have 3 in the final and has just one. which makes things more close for the last day. our 92kg and 125kg are expected to win the gold quite easily. that's most probably enough to win the team title. JPN and RUS won the remaining gold medals. really impressed with the Japanese kid , he won the gold last year at 61kg and now one weight down at 57kg. how is that even possible ? people usually gain weight each year at this young age but looks like it works the other way for him and I have to say Russian wrestlers are back with their old dirty tricks. 61kg semifinal was very ugly with the Russian pretending to be injured the whole time, that way he got something like 10 extra minutes to rest during the match, the refs realized he is a fraud only in the last minute and Ukrainians keep not shaking hands with whoever they don't want and luckily for them nobody cares

Water Polo draw (which is also the Olympic qualifier) Men Group A) Group B) Women

we had a RUS/UKR match in 3rd round of 79kg and the Ukrainian guy (after being beaten very badly) didn't shake hands and went the other way along with his coach. apparently nobody cared and the guy is not disqualified. (yet) looks like UWW simply ignored the rule they never really enforced before (just except when they had some other motivations )

World Junior Championships will start tomorrow in Jordan and I see both UKR and RUS/BLR (AIN) wrestlers in the brackets. I see a UKR/BLR match in the first round of 125kg. ( that will be on Thursday) and even tomorrow it's possible to see couple matches if they progress from the 1st and 2nd rounds in other weights the last time I checked shaking hands is mandatory in wrestling, not just with the wrestler, but with his coach too. UWW once took the World U17 team title away from Iran because one of our kids was crying after losing the bronze medal match and forgot to shake hands with the opponent's coach. but yeah I saw so many times the losing wrestler was so upset and went to the other way and didn't shake hand with the coach and nobody cared. They are not always very strict about it.

just switched from Cycling into this and Colombian GK proved once again how much women's football is developed

and Iran was leading 23-17 with 12 minutes to go but then they just collapsed and gave up a 10-1 run that was a complete meltdown they had a great tournament until that moment ... can't see them recover from this at this young age. That was fun until it lasted

they tied with Georgia few days ago in a friendly match therefore I was expecting some heavy defeats here. apparently I was wrong eliminating an European team is a big deal for Asian teams. in both matches they were down by 5-7 goals in middle of the 2nd half but had a couple of comebacks. and looks like these kids love drama, you should watch the last minute of their matches vs Bahrain at the Asian Champs, that was insane

yeah looks like there are some normal things nobody talks about since they are too obvious! for gymnastics apparently it's 2 years. and we have just 1 guy left with a valid licence ! (don't know for how long) personally I'm more angry on FIG, because I thought this is their only job to protect and defend the athletes. but it's like they say "goodbye, call us whenever our friend is back"

Iran sent 3 gymnastics to Chengdu but only 1 of them is on the startlist because the other 2 guys need their licences to be renewed. (what the hell is that?) which doesn't happen. because FIG still recognizes the old president of Iran Gym. federation and that lady is facing some charges and the sport ministry doesn't work with her (for stealing money or something) FIG only accepts documents from her and she doesn't send a thing. as simple as that. for that reason Iran didn't participate at the Asian Champs and also won't participate (most probably) at the Worlds. Universiade has a different registration system, therefore Iran could participate but then this licence thing happened which means also no Asian Games for them (unless a solution emerges) and this is happening when we have couple of gymnastics who can be competitive in world competitions for the first time personally I don't know who is right or who is wrong. and I don't even care. I only care about the athletes. it's just a battle between some corrupt individuals but FIG is taking side and that's disgusting. weren't they supposed to be on the side of the athletes? Iran gymnastics is in this turmoil for 2 years for this reason and FIG simply doesn't care, they just want their curropt friend back. (only temporarily Iranians were allowed to compete for few months early 2023)

Sanda is still a part of Wushu, right ? and even in Taolu Iran isn't the weakest team in the world. you weren't talking about Maldives or Nepal.

not yet, but I'm 99% sure the answer is no, Iran also didn't use overaged players in 2014 and 2018 it will be the U22 team preparing for the next year AFC U23 Champs (Olympic qualifier) and even that team will have a hard time with the clubs to release players in middle of the season

Who's idea was to remove the extra time from this sport ? just want to know who to curse for such a dumb decision I like the penalties but only after giving both teams another chance to win the match at the extra time

yeah as @Fly_like_a_don said we don't have specialists as you do. somehow in rifle maybe but not at all in pistol events. they will try to send the best 3 in each event but I assume it's mostly the same shooters. I won't be surprised even if they make room for one male shooter in trap. also I have to say there was a * next to shooting. it's possible to adjust the numbers after the World Championships in Azerbaijan. 8+8 is their original estimate

you know that's not optional in fencing, right? if not, you can read the rules yourself. page 39 https://static.fie.org/uploads/29/149099-technical rules ang.pdf

I assume we won't participate in shotgun and running target events. that number will cover all rifle/pistol events, right ? (except 25m rapid fire which doesn't exist here) in rowing we mostly rely on the women's team. but still 2+6 looks too low it's not like our NOC has a clear plan and analyzed all athletes one by one to give a calculated number. they just threw these numbers at each federation and told them to fit their teams into it. as someone who knows our strength in all sports I could make a much better delegation with something like 300 athletes. I really don't think those so called "experts" in the NOC have any idea about most of these sports. what the hell we can do with two male rowers ? send a double sculls team ? lightweight 2X ? I'm sure they have no idea how it works in rowing. the current NOC president used to be in charge of our Paralympics program for years. I know how he thinks. he cares about " medal per athlete" rate. and wants to keep it high. I believe we are sending all of our gold medal chances, but keeping some of our small medal chances (mostly silver and bronze) at home. and yes with this mentality we will always remain weak in our weak sports.

finally after something like 2 years of absence, the great Abdulrashid Sadulaev came back to the mat for an international competition called "Commonwealth" ? (or something like that) and he was just a shadow of himself , almost lost to Sergey Kozyrev in the semifinal. he missed the Russian nationals which was their trials for the Worlds 2023 (if they participate eventually) but will get a chance to wrestle national winner Zhabrailov later. but from what I saw today he can lose to any above average wrestler now. of course he has two months to improve but looks like he didn't train at all in past 2 years. he looked completely out of shape.

not a bad group for Iran, we sometimes struggle in the first round (almost got eliminated last time) I think all of AFC big teams have no problem in the first round and I hope the current coach (who is a mafia boss) is sacked before this, it's just hard for me to cheer for any team he coaches.

that's simply the easier group, Nepal, Hong Kong and India are like a walk in the park for them, of course they could qualify from the other group too but they decided to be in the same group with Japan to have two shots to make it the final. if they beat Japan, SF will be too easy for them, if they lose they still can try their chances against KOR. while in other group they could win it for sure but then it was just one chance in SF against either KOR or JPN. it happens when only 3 teams are favorite for winning medals. and I think the final will be between Korea and Japan no matter how hard Chinese officials try but they did a good job somehow cheating in the men's draw. putting KSA, Iran and Japan in the same group. eliminating one of the medal favorites early, which I'm afraid still won't be enough for the host team to win a medal. ps: in AG they usually (I can say always) use the previous AG results for the seeding but this time and only in handball they used the previous Asian Champs which JPN didn't participate because of Covid. hard to believe that was just a coincident

not really a big surprise, JPN beat Iran 2-3 times recently. only lost at the Asian Champs have to say our coach did a stupid gamble putting our 3rd guy (Fotouhi) for the last match. yeah it worked once in past but seriously you must be extremely dumb not using your best guy (Pakdaman) for the last match who actually had a good day.

Iran NOC announced their final list of sports (well almost final. some changes are always possible) that's something around 270-280 athletes Aquatics / Swimming 4, Diving 1, Water polo 13 (all male) Archery / 6 M, 3 W Athletics / 6 M, 2 W Badminton / 1 M Basketball / Men's team + Men's 3x3 team Boxing / 5 M Canoeing / 8 M, 7 W in sprint, 1 W in slalom Chess / 5 M, 1 W Cycling / 2 M (Track&Road) and 1 W (MTB) Equestrian / will be decided later but I assume nobody Fencing / 4 only in men's sabre Football / men's team Gymnastics / full or incomplete team in men's artistic Handball / men's team Judo / 2 M, 1 W Jujitsu / 2 M Kabaddi / both men and women team Karate / 4 M, 4 W (it's possible to send the kata team if they give up a kumitee quota per OCA rules) Kurash / 3M, 4 W (maximum possible number) Roller sports / 2+2 confirmed in inline freestyle, possible to send 4+4 in speed skating Rowing / 2 M, 6 W Shooting / probably 8+8 but the final number will be confirmed later (after the WCh) Sport climbing / for now 1+1 but possible to add 2 more men to have a speed relay team Table Tennis / 3 M, 1 W Taekwondo / probably a full team but they forgot to write the numbers for this one Tennis / 1 W Volleyball / men's team + 1 team in beach volley Weightlifting / 5 M, 2 W for now but it's possible to add 3 more Wrestling / 12 M (full men's team) Wushu / 8 M, 7 W really disappointed with this, they "claim" for men they end only those who can compete for a medal (with few exceptions like swimming) and for women even top 6 finish will be enough. but yet they dropped women's handball (which finished 4th in Asian Champs twice) and it's not just that they are dropping even some of our small medal chances in other sports yet they are going to send 1 athlete in diving, 1 in Badminton, 1 in Tennis, to do what exactly ? just to increase the number of sports meanwhile decreasing the number of athletes? if I had to decide I would choose a complete different list. if we are going to send a not-so-big delegation, then swimming, diving, badminton, tennis and most importantly men's football shouldn't go. this U23 team sucks and everybody knows it.

I can say the same about 80% of Filipino athletes in other sports too. wherever I see a Filipino quality athlete I just automatically assume he/she is not home grown. nothing wrong with that though. just my observation

They can't control the numbers as long as there is no qualification (since 1994 they are talking about having qualifiers) but this is not the final number I believe some NOCs will cut their lists short when we get closer.