MHSN

Qatar will replace China and will host 2023 Asian Cup I believe Qatar can't host it in Summer (because of the weather). I assume it will be moved to late 2023 or January 2024.

yeah that was obvious based on this document about the World Ranking, they wrote this "OQTs / World Cup" which means World Cup is the same as an OQT. https://www.fivb.com/-/media/2020/fivb corporate/volleyball/world ranking/fivb world ranking - how it works.pdf?la=en we knew it for a very long time that FIVB has no desire to continue World Cup the way it was but apparently they have some kind of contract with Japanese TV channels about this. so this way they will have their own Qualification tournament + satisfying Japanese sponsors.

probably for the first time in 43 years, an Iranian girl still "representing Iran" in a serious international competition competed without mandatory Hejab in an international competition she finished 4th in high level Asian Championship in Seoul (in Combined event) that was a bold move, I think one way or another we lost her for good. had a realistic chance to qualify for the Olympics. well, I wish her best of luck in whatever path she is taking

After years of hard work, the great nation of Bahrain finally managed to win its first ever major medal in weightlifting proud Bahrainian Lesman Paredes won gold at the Asian Championship in Manama. another proud Bahrainian Gor Minasyan is expected to win the 2nd gold tomorrow.

yep Nekounam lost the quota by just 0.5 and finished 1st outside of qualified shooters. Great

yeah that's the plan to starve our people to democracy .

They will fall eventually, one way or another. but we are not there yet, that won't happen anytime soon. maybe not even in my lifetime. and right now they are not going in that direction to be "more moderated" but the opposite. the current president (who is also extremely dumb and uneducated) is "less" moderated than all presidents before him. (at least as far as I remember)

The current situation in Iran may have serious effects on our national teams in different sports. This time is different and everybody is forced to take a side, some athletes even take it further and already withdrew from their teams. (which is stupid IMO) since it's almost everybody (I mean famous athletes), it will be hard for the regime to punish some of them later but who knows, some of these animals (who consider Taliban as their role model) don't even care about sports and will be happy not having it at all.

Once again the situation is getting out of control here , several cities are "on fire". dictators just never learn from their mistakes. they think they shouldn't give up an inch until the day they have to give up everything. (but at huge huge cost ) we are not close to that date yet but people are extremely angry and just one "accident" is enough and these accidents are happening quite frequently in past few years.

what a proud moment for Albania , after years of hard work on youth level etc, they finally managed to win their first ever gold medal in this sport. hard work always pays off or you can always hire a Russian mercenary

that was a great week of wrestling, obviously something was missing without Russia but still Mohammadian ruined the tournament by losing that bronze medal match 8 medals could be a record for our freestyle team but he just ruined it. kind of funny that we were expecting gold from him, after failing miserably at the Olympics this is the 2nd time in a row. time to retire, give the spot to someone younger and better. speaking of younger and better, Amouzad at the age of 20 was the pleasant surprise of this competition by winning our 2nd gold medal today. he dominated everybody on his way to the gold but almost got pinned twice at the end of the day 2 gold, 3 silver and 2 bronze is a "good" result considering Russia's absence . also one of our best chances had to withdraw because of that Israel draw. speaking of Olympic weights, we have good wrestlers in 5 of them, "capable" of winning the gold. but 57kg is still the weak link. we won a silver last year in Oslo but we knew that was a fluke and won't be repeated this time.

Finally a gold medal thanks to Ghasempour who beat the giant Cox in the final. we are now 1-4 against team USA. and we will have another final vs USA tomorrow. unlike Greco where lots of counties can win medals, looks like the gap is increasing in freestyle. without Russia (which is still #1) USA and Iran brought 17 wrestlers (out of 19) to the semifinal. and it seems only Japan can still compete (only in lighters weights) I was expecting more from India too but looks like they are not having a good tournament this year. even some powerhouses like TUR, AZE and GEO are not having a good tournament. you might see lots of different counties in the medal table but almost all of them are Russian mercenaries

USA won 2 golds and 1 silver last night. they have 3 in the final tonight and the last 3 also made it to the semifinal (will be held tonight) only 1 out of 10 got eliminated before the semifinal even Russia never dominated the freestyle competition like this. of course Russian wrestlers would beat some of the Americans but still that's an unbelievably good performance. it wasn't a bad tournament for Iran so far. beside that Israel draw, only one of our guys lost before the SF, we have/had 8 in the semifinal but still no gold medal mostly because American wrestlers are too good to beat and our best chance at 125 threw it away himself.

yeah, I mean the whole thing is extremely stupid to make millions of funny excuses to avoid someone, mixing sports with politics etc but that was smart (despite still being extremely stupid at the same time)

well I don't think so 1) after banning Russian athletes for no reason (I mean no sport-related reason) international federations are in no place to blame anybody for mixing sports with politics. 2) the guy was overweight (intentionally though) during the weight-in to get disqualified "legally", I mean there is no evidence , even if everybody knows the real reason but still no rules have been broken. 3) UWW needs Iran, as simple as that. (specially after losing Russia for nobody knows how long)

Yep this time it wasn't even close. Taylor had a great plan and it worked well for him I think we are going to finish the tournament with lots of silver and bronze medals but with no gold. Ghasempour is probably our last chance tomorrow

US is completely dominating the freestyle competition. they had 3 in the final yesterday and now 3 more in the semifinal today (and I believe all of them will make it to the final) in general they just lost one match so far (125kg to Geno Petriashvili)

nope, Nothing goes our way in this tournament I can't believe how many close matches we lost despite having the lead late in the match. Zare just had to do nothing to beat a desperate Akgul instead he went for a stupid attack in last 20 seconds and gave up a TD. it was 100% guaranteed gold medal with Geno losing to Mongolia in the other SF. looking forward for Yazdani/Taylor tomorrow, but I expect another disappointment.

yes that's Dabir (without "i") Dabiri is another common Iranian surname but not for this guy.

oh well, apparently this is not suppose to be our tournament. our freestyle received the first shock during the draw . one of our best gold medal chances got ISR in the first round the team title is already gone. that was a big gift for USA this one is hard to swallow. even more than all those Greco-Roman losses

I hope he didn't give himself credit for Ali Arsalan this guy just joined the Serbian team few months ago and he still lives and trains in Iran. never saw him this good though. the same Serbian team just won a bronze at the European Championship few months ago, I wonder what they will do outside of Belgrade. and I wonder if they will buy more wrestlers to fulfill the blank spots at 55, 60, 82 and 130. we have lots of wrestlers better than Arsalan, maybe they can turn them into World Champions it was a terrible competition for Iran. everybody was sure about the team title (yes we care a lot about this) before the competition and now Iran will finish 4th behind TUR, AZE and SRB. most probably without a gold medal, no I don't think Mirzazadeh (or anybody else) can beat Kayaalp. we will end up with 2 silver and 1 bronze (at least all of them in Olympic weights) there was obviously something wrong with the team. we lost lots of close matches. one of our guys got pinned while he was leading 9-1 ! most of them lost to lesser wrestlers by 1 or 2 pts gap. Geraei is a great wrestler but his overconfidence hurts him sometimes. he was leading 4-0 comfortably and then he went for a takedown and instead of completing the TD (and get 2pts first) he went for a throw and threw the guy on himself, gave up 2 cheap points. that was a rookie mistake but I'm not that surprised. last year he almost lost to Japan, almost lost to Georgia. he found a way to win those matches but you can't live on the edge and survive everytime. he is not as dominant as some people may think. actually 1.5 years ago he was a nobody and we weren't even confident if he can even qualify for the Olympics ! I think the preparation was terrible this year. most of our top guys rested too much after the 2021 Worlds. (Geraei for example wrestled just in one tournament) when you don't wrestle enough, you do stupid mistakes in crucial moments. I believe we will do much better in freestyle, but still they had the same stupid preparation plan. that worries me.

who says they need all the big teams ? it will be called World Cup no matter which 8 teams participate.

I believe Japan is one of the hosts and that OQT event in Japan will be called "World Cup"

when Italy changed coach and started playing with this generation. who could imagine they can win the Europeans and the World Championship in less than a year. and Giannelli is simply amazing what a night for Italian sport

sometimes it took few days for FIVB to update the ranking (they are fast for main events but not for the rest). those 2 points belong to Belgium / Faroe Islands match in 2023 Euro Qualifiers late in August. China is still in if Russia remains banned