MHSN

wow. I watched her play just yesterday in the Champions League semifinal

Japan dominated the women's wrestling as expected winning the team title + 5 individual gold medals but today was the start of the men's freestyle competition, and I have to say it was one of the worst wrestling days I ever seen from the Iranian point of view. before the day when I looked at the brackets, I thought we will 4 in the final at least with 3 golds in the bag for sure but at the end we ended up with just 1 gold and 2 bronze. technically this is almost our 2nd/3rd tier squad but not really. World Champion Amouzad (who wasn't supposed to wrestle here but got in because the 2nd guy got injured) won the gold and even he was far from convincing. Goleij at 97 lost to a guy he can beat 99 out of 100 matches. the Russian mercenary of Bahrain was dead after 2 minutes yet he managed to throw Goleij few times Sarlak at 57kg is #1 and yet he got schooled by Japan #2 by 11 points margin there is something wrong with this team, I have some guesses but I think in general they weren't mentally ready. looked very confused and lost on the mat. it's highly possible to even lose the team title, Kazakhstan is already too far ahead and they got some easy draws tomorrow. I think Aman of India was the star of the day, I think I said that before but have to repeat myself that to me he is better than Ravi Kumar. I don't know how things work in India and if they will wrestle in a trial match but I would pick Aman without hesitation. he is a medal favorite this year, even the gold medal is not out of his reach.

Thanks, I don't follow WWE , didn't know there are some problems there, (never understand why people might be interested in such a thing, they can watch movies if they want fake fights) US wrestling is actually paying pretty good to its successful wrestlers. it's good news to watch him in action once again. he never met our top guy (only trash talking between them lol) 125kg will be very interesting in Belgrade with him, Akgul, Geno, that Mongolian tough guy and our wrestler (Zare or the new guy Masoumi) I still can't forget how Geno lost to him in the very last second in Tokyo

Olympic superheavy weight champion Gable Steveson announced the will wrestle at the US open later this month which means he is coming back he left the real wrestling after winning the gold in Tokyo for the fake wrestling WWE, but for whatever reason he is leaving that shit for the real deal.

Iran won the team title in Greco for the 15th time in history but the 2nd day was a total disaster. Iran ended up with 3 more medals (1 G, 1 S and 1 B) but that gold medal was somehow a gift from the ref who fell for our guy's acting. winning half of the gold medals (5 out of 10) sounds good on paper but considering the fact that it was almost our A team (without 3 or 4 of our top guys) I'm not convinced at all. specially because this year we have to prepare two teams for the Worlds and the Asian Games. and in some weights we don't even have one solid wrestler I wonder how other Asian countries will do about this. sending the same team to the Worlds and to the AG (10 days later) ?

well actually Rupin was about to win the match 1-1 but gave up a cheap 2points caution for not listening to the ref. that was a rookie mistake, I can't say he will be a medal favorite at the Worlds, toooo early to say that but he can do some damage. the Kazakh guy he beat is no joke, he elimnated Dadmarz in last year Worlds. Iran finished the day with 4 golds and 1 silver without losing a single match on the mat, our 77kg was a bit injured and didn't bother facing Akzhol (he had no chance to win anyway) unlike freestyle we are sending most of our #1 guys in Greco so it was expected to win lots of gold medals. I don't expect the same result tomorrow, not confident about 67 and 72. and also I have to say in 60kg we have World Champion Sharshenbekov in the bracket too.

The first session was perfect for Iran with 5 out of 5 made it to the final but I have to admit all of them were on the easier side of the draw. still I think it wouldn't make a difference for 3 of our guys. I expect 3 or 4 gold medals today, 77kg gold is impossible Akzhol Makhmudov is simply the best in the world. really impressed by India's new guy at 55kg, never saw him before. he was down 7-0 in the first round and again 4-0 (if I'm not wrong) in the 1/4 final against the Kazakh wrestler, had two incredible combacks to qualify for the final. but I hope his run ends here

Is this a replacement for that mixed team race walk event or a new addition ? oops, got it, at first I thought it's a mixed Marathon event

RUS/BLR wrestlers are back in competition as "neutrals" https://uww.org/article/uww-decision-neutral-athlete-inclusion

China dominated the women's competition by winning all 4 gold medals. they are in good position to win all 4 female quotas. on the men's side Korea and Uzbekistan won the gold at 58kg and 80kg. unfortunate day for Iran losing some close matches in the 3rd round and our only finalist Barkhordari lost to the same guy he beat 3 days earlier in the qualifiers.

Yes I think so. they made it very clear in the IOC published qualification document. https://stillmed.olympics.com/media/Documents/Olympic-Games/Paris-2024/Paris2024-QS-Taekwondo.pdf but then again this PDF on WT website says something different http://www.worldtaekwondo.org/viewer_pdf/external/pdfjs-2.1.266-dist/web/viewer.html?file=http://www.worldtaekwondo.org/att_file/documents/WT-Standing-Procedures-For-Grand-Slam-Champions-Series(01162023).pdf I assume the priority goes to the IOC pdf file but who knows

first day gold medals go to Zuo , Song, Rashitov and Salimi these guys will be in the front sit for the Olympic quota in December but still nothing is final yet. Rashitov doesn't even need it. Salimi's gold medal was a total surprise. I barely even knew him before this event. but 68kg final was really disappointing, Bozorgi was leading Rashitov 6-1 with 5 seconds to go but then bang, 5pts kick to the head I think our coach almost had a heart attack, almost the same happened in the +80kg final but Salimi somehow survived it. 2nd day draw with lots of new/big names http://www.worldtaekwondo.org/viewer_pdf/external/pdfjs-2.1.266-dist/web/viewer.html?file=http://www.worldtaekwondo.org/att_file/news/Darw sheet(3 APR 2023 day2).pdf

just checked again to make sure they didn't change the rule "The new national federation of a wrestler who wishes to change his/her sports nationality shall send a request in writing with complete file and payment(s) to United World Wrestling in the period between 1 and 31 December." https://cdn.uww.org/s3fs-public/2022-07/change_nationality_june_2022_final_eng.pdf?VersionId=J.DIBoIwL1TqZV1PmTcNu0NhOz0kQQqM but maybe Greek federation sent the request earlier but if they didn't he has to wait until 2024 to be eligible.

in wrestling there is a small window at the end of each year for transfers like this. as far as I know if he didn't transfer already, he has to wait until December. (but maybe they did the paperwork months ago) not competing in the Olympics doesn't make him a bad wrestler, he is a multiple Yarygin Champion. in 2016 he didn't go to Rio because the best wrestler in the history was representing Russia. and in 2020 he lost only 2-1 to Artur Naifonov (eventual Tokyo bronze medalist) in the Russian trials. he can be easily #3 in the world (if we consider just 1 for each country) 86kg is relatively weak. he finished 5th in Worlds 2018 only because #1 and #2 both were on his side of the draw. his uncle Magomed wrestled for Kazakhstan and won an Olympic medal, I wonder why he didn't go that path

1st day Grand Slam draw http://www.worldtaekwondo.org/viewer_pdf/external/pdfjs-2.1.266-dist/web/viewer.html?file=http://www.worldtaekwondo.org/att_file/news/Darw sheet(2 APR 2023 day1).pdf They gave wild card to some athletes didn't participate in the qualifiers. it's a bit different tournament now with these higher ranks guys. 49kg: Aydin, Semberg, Zuo 67kg: Castro, Perisic, Song 68kg: Recber, Rashitov, Liang, Cui +80kg: Soares, Song our 49kg girl Nassiri is already out because of the draw

Yes some coaches/national federations asked for this during the World Champs in Mexico but WT rejected the idea. I think China will host GS as long as it exists. and when China didn't host it (because of COVID) nobody else did. the whole event exists because of Chinese sponsors. the prize money this year is not as big as the previous Olympic cycle. much lower actually. maybe that's a sign that the whole GS idea is not going that well.

Qualified athletes for the 2022 Grand Slam http://www.worldtaekwondo.org/viewer_pdf/external/pdfjs-2.1.266-dist/web/viewer.html?file=http://www.worldtaekwondo.org/att_file/news/Top 8.pdf 22 quotas for China, 15 for Korea, 13 for Iran and 7 for Uzbekistan, 57 in total (almost 90% of the quotas) and only 6 for the rest of the world ! we will see how they will distribute those 3 "Wild cards" per weight, still no news this is more like a shortcut for the Olympic quota. we sent all of our best guys. no chance in the Olympic ranking. it's either this Grand Slam or we have to prepare for the worst (Asian Qualifiers)

That's not entirely impossible, this event in April will lose 25% of its value comparing to the event in December. so if you win the gold in December and the guy who won gold (and silver) in April fails very early you still can qualify. it's not a completely impossible scenario. the main event will be held 2-3 days later, I think those invitations will go to the athletes in location (meaning those participated at the qualifiers) mostly to guys from China/Korea but maybe I'm wrong.

Taekwondo Grand Slam qualification draw day 1 http://www.worldtaekwondo.org/competition/view.html?nid=139834&mcd=K12 it looks like more than 50% of participants are from China you rarely can see a non-Asian athlete in the draw. this competition combined with December 2023 tournament will give 1 quota in each weight, there is a good chance Asian athletes win all those 8 quotas. it's more like Chinese national Champs plus some Koreans and some Iranians (mostly on the men's side)

Start list for the Europeans https://uww.org/article/european-championships-entry-list as usual almost all big names are going to wrestle (which is never the case for the Asian Championship)

well, not really but Albania is hosting MEK I mean those 80 years old guys are not really dangerous right now (they used to be but that was long time ago) but Iran and Albania are not the best friends at the moment and a youth weightlifting team is "expandable" for those old corrupt politicians (they don't even know what it takes to be an athlete), I'm sure they would send a team if it was a senior World Championship ps: I think people here are not familiar with MEK, it's hard to explain this super weird group/cult, let's say they are the Iranian version of IS

first day of the competition didn't make much changes in top 10 of the Olympic ranking at women's 49kg Jourdan Delacruz beat her teammate Reichardt by 1kg and also replaced her in the ranking (still in 3rd place, now by 198kg) no more change at men's 61kg Hampton Morris lifted 281kg which will put him in 8th place for now

Iran withdrew from this competition for "security concerns" that happened something like 10 days ago, feel really sorry for those kids they trained probably weeks and months for this event, it sucks how easily some old stupid corrupt politicians can ruin careers of young athletes.

Entry list for the Asian Championships https://uww.org/article/asian-championships-entry-list this is not exactly a WCh qualifier but countries have to participate in the continental champs to be eligible to send the same number of wrestlers per style to the Worlds which is the main Olympic qualifier this year. four paid Russian mercenaries are in the list for Bahrain but as far as I know none of them are anything great but we can judge them better in action. the level looks OK, lots of big names are missing but still there are some great guys like Makhmudov and Sharshenbekov in the list. the Greco competition looks better in general, more big names are missing in freestyle. as usual we have a mixture of young and experienced wrestlers in our Asian Champs squad. specially in freestyle half of the team are making their debut in serious senior competitions. and I'm surprised to see World Champion Amouzad in the startlist, as far as I know he is not planned to wrestle here. looking forward to see 18 years old Masoumi at 125kg, he is supposed to be our next big thing.

insidethegames genius journalists do not know the difference between Iran and Iraq