MHSN

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.

Jordan to host the World U20 Champions next month it was supposed to be held in Poland but UWW had to change it for obvious reasons. https://uww.org/article/jordan-host-2023-u20-world-championships

in Taekwondo it acts like a normal G2 event. whoever wins the gold can earn 20pts for example but it will be included in the maximum 40pts per year from G1-G2 events. so those who already earned 40pts from minor events can't add anything to their points.

this 130kg guy won the gold medal without scoring a single point himself that's amazing, isn't it ? all of his points were his opponents caution there is a big hole in the rules since 2021 and there is no sign of change to fix the issue. under current rules in Greco-Roman lots of matches end 1-1 (if both guys fail to score which happens in close matches) and in this case the guy who was passive in the 1st period will win the match for that reason lots of heavyweight wrestlers prefer to receive the first caution. we saw lots of matches when both guys almost do nothing in the first period to be more "passive" that's how Ghasemi won the gold yesterday.

@phelps Italy won the senior World Champs, you can afford losing junior titles winning the 2019 event didn't turn out good for our volleyball. that coach took credit for that team (which he didn't deserve, that team had 4-5 players already in the senior team) he is now the current senior NT head coach and you can see the current mess he created. few of these guys have the potential to be in the senior NT soon but they seriously need to change their behavior. acting like a jerk won't get you anywhere. we had some funny story in this competition. Iran almost lost to Tunisia in the 2nd day had to come back from 2 sets down to win the tiebreak but at the end of the competition Iran finished 1st and Tunisia finished 16th (last)

This tournament in Budapest was the last round of our trials (in 3 weights) and now we know the name of the freestyle team. in 57 and 70 both of our guys failed to medal so they had a re-match later after the finals. hard to imagine Iran winning a medal in those 2 weights, specially at 57kg which is clearly impossible but I like our chances in other 8 weights. our 92kg two time World Champion is injured so they had to test someone else in this weight in case Ghasempour doesn't make it (the other guy did good but ran into ISR in the SF and had to withdraw) lots of things depend on Russia's participation. they will be top favorite in most weights if they participate. but the freestyle team title will be between Iran and USA. (AIN can't win team trophies) HUN Ranking series was the last tournament before the Worlds. the seeding is finalized now

still waiting for OCA to confirm it and give us more details but the original decision was to allow them only participate in non-direct elimination sports (like boxing) they are not supposed to win "medal" so they only participate in sports where you can simply remove them from the ranking without changing things for the others. not possible in head-to-head matches. this is a terrible idea. I'm totally OK if they join OCA and participate like all other countries but being a "guest" like this just for one time is terrible. that will be confusing for the spectators too. I hope they decline the invitation

that's her own decision. all results from one weight up and one weight down will be counted for the Olympic weight. 62kg athletes can pick 57kg or 67kg (can't be in both, have to pick one at the start of the year)

Kazakhstan on fire https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1138605/kazakhstan-weightlifting-doping-scandal I'm a bit confused here. the article says these guys got caught by the Kazakh national anti-doping agency but then they are on the ITA list too. as far as I know if a doper gets caught by his own country that has nothing to do with ITA and that won't be counted for possible suspension of the national federation. so how is that ? they got caught by both ITA and Kazakh NADO ? btw I also can see a 3rd positive test for Turkmenistan on ITA list which means they are very close to get banned from the Olympics too. I usually don't feel good about banning a country completely over few of positive doping tests. that will hurt clean athletes too but they have to do something about Kazakhstan , they simply never learn and never change, they keep sending generation after generation of dopers to the competitions. I don't know what they expect? WADA/ITA getting tired of them and give up ?

I still don't consider it "rise in football", at least not yet. random results happen in youth level football. and this U23 team was hanging by a thread the entire time during the qualifiers and the final tournament. they advance round by round by the narrowest possible margin. no problem Iran is not going to qualify for the Olympics this time too when I was a kid (I mean 10-12 or something) I thought maybe if Iran falls in the same group as Israel in the big football world cup maybe that forces them to change the policy because football is different. they can't afford doing that in football but I'm older and wiser now and I know that won't happen as long as this oldman lives btw I thought nowadays you are allowed to play against whoever you want. "do not mix sport with politic thing" has changed since February 2021. right ?

both of our "famous" weightlifters are officially out of Paris. Kianoush Rostami acted like a jerk as usual and didn't participate in our preliminary trials. therefore the federation claims he is 100% out of the World Championships in Riyadh and therefore out of Paris 2024. he does these things all the time but looks like the new federation is not going to let him get a pass this time. and most importantly Sohrab Moradi announced retirement today after failing his first two attempts in the trials. probably that was when he finally realized his body simply can't handle it anymore. he could and should have another Olympic gold in Tokyo if it wasn't for that weird Qualification system. despite breaking the WR inside the qualification period he failed to quality. he had to participate in some events despite not being ready and re-injured himself few times in the process. (back and shoulder) he won all 3 big titles (Asian Games, World Champs and Olympics) but he could win much more. nobody will touch his 96kg World Record anytime soon. I doubt even 102kg guys can reach it in Paris. he was also a very nice guy (the exact opposite of Rostami)

The mighty great USA rejected visa for almost half of the Iran volleyball NT players and almost the whole coaching staff. only 12 players (from the wide list, some of them wasn't really supposed to play) received visa +1 coach. half of the starters from the 2nd week are already heading back home, two more players + couple of coaches are still waiting in Frankfurt for a possible last second visa. that's great, isn't it ? this is happening over and over and nothing happens, law of the jungle PS: apparently FIVB won't count 3rd week results for Iran in the World Ranking. not sure if the same applies for the opposite teams (FRA/BUL/ARG/CUB) that's how they convinced Iran VF to send this incomplete team instead of the original decision of not going at all. (that's kind of damage control, Iran wasn't prepared for this VNL and could probably lose more ranking points)

FIVB making revolutionary changes in its calendar, WCh qualifications and Olympic qualifications https://www.fivb.com/en/about/news/volleyball-calendar-2025-2028-approved-by-the-fivb?id=100917 for 2028 Olympic 2026 Continental Champs will act as the Continental qualifiers. to me that's too early , 2 years before the Games?

couple months ago I had no hope about having a "team" in Paris but after a couple of dramatic 45-44 wins in Madrid WC now all of a sudden Iran created a big lead over Japan in Sabre's team ranking after just two events. losing the final by a big margin to Korea is a bit disappointing but the main mission was beating Japan in the Semifinal and that happened. 30pts lead over JPN and CHN sounds good so far. (assuming Korea finishing in top 4 is a sure thing) still a long way to go though.

Well from just a spectator point of view these are mostly terrible changes. like almost all of IOC's changes. bunch of morons make decisions without any kind of transparency. especially that team Alpine combined idea . that individual AC was much better at least. what's the point of having this ? will they ever learn that a sport like Alpine Skiing doesn't need a team event? I like the idea of having the same distance for men and women in CC skiing though but are women ready for a 50km race ?

Iran NOC announced the flagbearer(s) for the Asian Games, it seems they like to follow Tommy Bach's "advise" of having 2 athletes doing that Javad Foroughi (Shooting) and Nahid Kiani (Taekwondo)