MHSN

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

Thanks for taking Iran serious but nah we could have a realistic chance in two other groups, specially Group C but no way in this group. and actually I'm not worried about Brazil and Italy. we play good against them here and there and it's OK to lose to these teams. I'm more worried about losing to other 4 teams which will be costly in the ranking. I don't even think about direct qualification here, I just think about damage control and not losing too much points.

is it possible to withdraw now ? I mean we got the toughest group possible. it's impossible to qualify and more importantly we will lose lots of ranking points here. not playing is better than losing I wish we could withdraw and focus on the Asian Games instead (more or less at the same time)

so he will lose the 2022 World bronze and that's the only harm ? I think the outcome isn't that terrible after all. even though I was starting to believe that Turkish report was fake. obviously not UWW already adjusted 2022 results but interestingly didn't publish anything about it. they probably think hiding a 3 months ban on one of their superstarts doesn't hurt.

@intoronto you notified me here, apparently I can't answer you back in that thread apparently Zangeneh received the 3rd caution in the last seconds and lost the match by 3 cautions disqualification despite leading the scoreboard. (which is confusing for those who are not 100% familiar with this sport) he is OK. not bad but not good either. once repesented Iran at the World U23 Champs and won a bronze medal with a dream draw. he will never win a world medal but probably good enough to qualify for the Olympics from Pan-Ams. (if don't run into USA and maybe Cuba) but I saw another familiar name, Mehdi Zeidvand who lost to Zangeneh in freestyle but just won the Greco competition. Zeidvand represented Iran in World senior Champs before. this is probably near the end of his career

Felix Sanchez (ex Qatar NT coach) is the new head coach of Ecuador national team that's interesting because he was supposed to be announced as our coach today but yet apparently Ecuadorian stole him on his way to Tehran I really fear for the worst, I think that mafia boss local coach will finally get what he always wanted. I just hope they hire someone else. anybody, no matter who. just not this guy. I can't convince myself to cheer for any team he coaches, even if that's our beloved "Team Melli"

not really a surprise. Iraq is always a tough opponent for us and to be honest they were the better team and deserved the win. and I wasn't even sure if Iran seriously tries for the win for some politically motivated reasons (I watched the match and I know they tried, they just lost to a better team) per rules if you are European or American you are allowed to mix sports with politics, but since we are not, Iraqis should pray to not get "that team" in their group. I assume they won't play too btw I don't know why exactly but Iran never gets good results in youth level football. Iran even failed to qualify for the Asian U20 Cup last time

that's interesting, still not sure how important it is, I saw lots of ups and downs in Iran-Saudi relationships in my lifetime. in dictatorships you can solve all the problems or start a new conflict in just one night. these kind of "relationships" usually don't stand for a long time. but it seems they both "listen" to China. at least for now I think the regime in Iran knows they are in deep trouble because of the situation (I mean the economy) inside the country and if they don't act the next wave of protests (which will happen sooner or later) will be more dangerous for them. and Saudis know if/when the war starts, Iranian missiles won't land on US, they will land in KSA. it's in their best interests to not fight the "cornered cat" They know they can't trust the Americans to protect them. I just hope something good came out of this for the poor people of Yemen, it seems everybody forgot them. after all they don't have blond hair and blue eyes. as an Iranian I feel ashamed when I know my country is somehow responsible for their suffering (even though the Iranian regime don't take orders from its people but still)

Yes I still have my doubts if the report is correct. because it's reported by the 3rd party, (not Italy and not UWW) sometimes these reports are simply wrong but it's reported by the most reliable Turkish newspaper and Turkey have some guys in highest positions of UWW and can get inside news probably sooner than the rest of the world, so ... it can be correct. but I hope it's not.

some Turkish news websites claim that Frank Chamizo failed the drug test at the 2022 World Champs (which will result in Soner Demirtas receiving the bronze medal) still I can't find any other source confirming that. but this is a big news. I mean Chamizo is not as good as he used to be but he is still a big name. if confirmed that will be a very unfortunate news.

I think it's different for Europe and Asia, based on this https://www.fiba.basketball/news/pre-olympic-qualifying-tournaments-a-new-path-to-paris-for-countries-that-don-t-reach-world-cup for Asia it will be , those 4 eliminated in the 1st round but for Europe this says "Four other teams will be eligible from the EuroBasket Pre-Qualifiers Second Round." looking at EB 2nd round qualifiers, won their groups and is the best runner-up. so I assume these 4 teams will participate alongside those 12 mentioned.

wow. how Argentina blew up a 17pts lead? it looked like an easy game for them at the beginning, but they just managed to lose it.

I didn't know we have someone who can score big points in Vault is it once in a lifetime ? we don't even have a proper gymnastics federation since 2021 but he got lucky Dolgopyat finished 4th, I don't know how Olfati could stand on the same podium with him.

Venezuela will be out only if they lose to CAN, (by more than 20 pts at least) and DOM lose to ARG + all teams in other groups (MEX,BRA and PUR) winning their games. I mean it looks a very unlikely scenario to me. they just have to lose by 19pts or less to qualify 100%.

dramatic finish in Georgia, they played with fire when they decided to miss that FT on purpose (to avoid overtime) after 2 series of FTs GEO missed last FTs (this time not intentionally) and Iceland could grab the quota by a single point but missed the last shot. ISL needed a 4pts win but they won by just 3.

no as far as I know, lots of Russian wrestlers switch country each year simply because they are too good in this sport and you can have only 1 in your own team. (and this is an amateur sport, if you don't wrestle at the Worlds/Olympics you are wasting your time) for example half of 97kg wrestlers in the World are from Russia (no kidding) simply because of Sadulaev. in wrestling there is a short window at the end of the year to switch country. if you miss that, you have to wait until the next year. all of those guys mentioned switched countries before December 2022 which means they did that in at least December 2021, before the war. all of their top guys (except Sadulaev) are active in their own local competitions (sometimes international), with good prize money.