MHSN

what a terrible first day. nobody in the semifinal we lost 3 close (and winnable) matches. none of our wrestlers look in good shape. looks like the team title is already gone

The brackets are up for the Greco competition which will start tomorrow

our football is a circus (and not even a good one!) you would laugh hard if I write what happened in past few months. lots of things happened, Dragon Skocic almost lost his job (it looked like a done deal in July when I wrote this post) but all of a sudden things have changed and he kept his position to coach the team in Qatar but couple months later a new guy won the IRIFF election (actually the old guy who was in charge for years) and just yesterday Skocic was told that he is fired. still waiting for official confirmation but this time it sounds 99% official that Carlos Queiroz will coach Iran NT for the 3rd World Cup in a row ! but still in Iran, 99% is not 100%. things can change in a heartbeat but based on news Queiroz is coming back on Friday to sign the contract.

so losing to Iran wasn't that bad for Argentina after all

Maybe because those 2 teams played terrible during the group stage

It has more to do with politics than disinterest or financial issuses which is also a big problem nowadays. I call it "suicide out of fear of death" policy.

oh no it's not about WKF rules or being "eligible" to participate. we still had lot more of athletes eligible to participate . (Olympic Champion Ganjzadeh for example) it's our own "thing" to not participate (or send very limited number of athletes) Iran didn't participate in last World Karate Championship as well. I thought that's temporary but it's almost a year now they are doing the same in Taekwondo as well.

good to see Iranian Karatekas in global events after almost a year. results weren't great but still good with 2 in the final and 3 in bronze medal match, still it was limited to only few athletes in certain weights. I wonder if we ever get back to old days of sending 20-30 athletes to K1 events. I wish I knew who makes these super stupid policies.

so the Vicky who won bronze at the Asian Champs couple months ago at 92kg is now moved up to 97kg ? and you have a new Vicky (Vicky Hooda) at 92kg in his international debut ? I'm sure most people will make a mistake recognizing these guys. I won't be among them

wow. two guys with the same name Vicky ?! why Indian officials don't use the full name ? most Indians in UWW database are listed with just one name making it impossible for people like me to recognize who is who

so if we lose to the Netherlands tomorrow we will most probably face Brazil in 1/8 final so that's a must-win match for both teams to avoid Brazil or France (which is even a worst opponent) but if we win (we will end up as the 7th seed) then we can face Ukraine, Japan, winner of TUR/CAN match or even the Netherlands again. I think both Iran and NED will be happy to face each other once again the 1/8 final. there is a very good chance you meet USA once again in the QF. Poland is seed 1 now and USA will certainly end up as seed 8. Italy and Serbia will probably play Cuba and Argentina (still not clear who plays who)

things were already complicated with this format. winning the group doesn't necessarily give you an easier path in the knockout round.

Entry list https://uww.org/article/wrestlebelgrade-world-championships-entry-list

UWW ranking doesn't really show the quality of wrestlers. some guys are ranked high only because they participated in more events. some better wrestlers are unseeded simply because they changed weight or took a quick break after the Olympics. Viky lost to some random Mongolian wrestlers at the Asian Champs, I don't think he is a medal candidate in Serbia. he has the same Mongolian guy and our World Champion Ghasempour on his side of the draw (and God knows how many other unseeded good wrestlers will fall in this side too) I believe Ravi (57) is one of the favorites for gold, I expect to see him in the final against Gilman (USA) but there are couple other unseeded wrestlers (specially Abdullaev from UZB) who are capable of challenging Ravi. other 3 seeded guys in Ravi's side of the draw are no match for him. it will be harder for Bajrang this time, he is aging and he has Tevanyan probably in QF. Bajrang lost a close match to our youngster Amouzad at the Asian Champs final and Amouzad is unseeded 86kg final will be between Taylor and Yazdani. everybody knows it. only an unexpected injury can prevent that from happening. Deepak has a chance for bronze but he has Amine (the same guy who beat him in Tokyo) on his side who is your 61, 70 and 74 representative ? 61kg should be someone good all of our predictions are based on the current seeding but we know this is not final. for example if guy #2 gets injured and doesn't come to Belgrade that will change the whole bracket.

we knew Iran has a strong junior team this time, actually we were expecting more from the freestyle team 5 of these guys are well-known wrestlers in senior level and 4 of them were in contention to make the senior team this year. yet only 2 of them managed to win the gold (we had a surprise gold medalist at 79kg too) I watched most of the matches and I have to say in the Indian team I was more impressed by your 65 and 74kg guys. before the competition I would bet on Sujeet to win the 65kg gold, I'm following him for months and I think he can even beat Bajrang right now (or at least challenge him) really surprised he lost to Azerbaijan in the semifinal. to me that was just lack of analyze from the Indian side. Sujeet just didn't know how to deal with the Azerbaijani plan (attacking from the distance) Sagar Jaglan surprised us by beating (and eliminating) one of our best chances, Erfan Elahi who won the junior title last year at 70kg (and was in the senior team and only lost 8-8 to the eventual world senior silver medalist) I just don't know how the hell Jagal lost his SF to Japan. he surely is someone to watch out. about your 125kg, I know you are not that good in heavier weights, (which is surprising consider how tough Indian wrestlers in lighter weights) he is probably a better prospect than your current heavyweight guys but still he wasn't really "impressive" he was on the easier side of the draw. no shame in losing by superiority to Masoumi in the final. Masoumi is 2nd in our senior team ladder (only behind World Senior Champion Zare) but Mahendra also lost 10-0 to our reserve junior team guy at the Asian Championship. which means he still can't compete in senior level.

Seeds in Men's freestyle for the World Championships in Serbia https://uww.org/article/freestyle-seeds-announced-22-world-championships lots of top wrestlers are unseeded but this seeding shows what we should expect from the brackets. of course it can change even if one guy withdraws. without Russia the team title is between USA and Iran. everybody talks about possible Yazdani/Taylor in 86kg final or Cox/Ghasempour in 92kg final but personally I'm more interested in Snyder/Mohammadian matchup, most probably in 97kg semifinal.

yeah Sterkenburg brothers are not U20 anymore. they wrestled 2019, 2020 and 2021 in Junior competitions. it's time to face the big guys (still can wrestle at U23 too) I don't think they are capable of winning Senior world medals right now but that's certainly possible in near future. they both moved to Olympic weights (87 and 97) already. it will take time to adjust to the new weight.

today was the last day of World Juniors (U20) in Bulgaria. the most interesting is the host nation Bulgaria finished the competition empty-handed and in the men's competition (which I followed much more) none of their wrestlers were any good. Bulgaria used to be a powerhouse in this sport, they still had some good/great wrestlers until few years ago. this is just sad it was a "good" tournament for Iran, wining both freestyle and Greco team titles with 7 gold medals overall. even though people will always question those medals because the strongest team in this sport, Russia wasn't there.

watching World U20 Championship in Bulgaria, it seems France is the new superpower in freestyle wrestling they will have 3 wrestlers in the semifinal later today , all 3 of them are a bit Russian though. (probably moved to France at younger age) looks like the whole Dagestan are moving to France,

you are correct in general but not in this case. his given name is simply Mohammad, just that. that's what he is called by friends, family etc. Seyed is just a title. (everybody else in his family has that too) he just wanted to be cute by writing that on back of his shirt. unfortunately this is a new trend in most of Iran national teams in different sports, players just write whatever they want on back of their shirt, you can find everything in just one team. surname, given name, sometimes just a funny nickname to look cute

so at the end of the day all those crazy athletics records are nullified we had lots of guys running under 10 seconds. this is officially the worst organization ever

yeah we knew he is a jerk, he just confirmed it once again, btw his name is Mohammad, this is dumb of him to use that Seyed thing on the back of his shirt players withdraw from the NT all over the world, that's a personal choice but it's totally disrespectful and stupid to announce it in a press conference before talking to the coach who just announced you as his captain few minutes earlier in another press conference.

it sucks when you outscore your opponent 43-24 in 3 rounds yet the ref finds a way to disqualify you. with new rules they give too much power to the center ref and he/she can simply disqualify you no matter what you try. this is 49kg final from yesterday

yeah Taftian ended up running 10.05 in the semifinal with -0.2 wind and 10.02 (NR) in the final with 1.7 m/s wind. still a NR after all with just 0.01 on other hand, our women's 100m NR was broken by a huge margin from 11.44 to 11.12 !! quite an achievement for Fasihi (also winning the silver medal) considering the situation for women in Iran.

that makes sense, his PB (which is also the NR) is 10.03. it was unbelievable breaking PB by 0.15 seconds in heats (where he didn't even push himself 100%) but that result alone made some people excited here, like "wow all of a sudden we have a world level 100m runner" they will learn the truth when he runs the semifinal tomorrow