MHSN

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

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