MHSN

everything has changed since I wrote this comment, Iran became a completely different team and beat USA, Canada and Poland to make up for all of those lost ranking points. I know it's still a tough task to stay in top 10-11 in the ranking to qualify for the Olympics but at least we are not hopeless anymore. even if they lose next 3 matches, 5 wins is already much better than my expectations. good to see we still can challenge top teams even with this new squad.

Having 8 quotas (6 + 2 hosts) for Asia/Oceania is really generous and yet our team most probably will fail to qualify we used to beat Kazakhstan by 30pts but this time Iran managed to lose twice to this team and it's not like Kazakhstan improved a lot. first defeat was OK, we missed some key players and Kazakhs had a dream day from behind the arc but this time in this window we gathered all we had and everybody was confident that we will beat Kazakhstan handily but it was another humiliating defeat, Iran also set a new World Record in failed 3 pointers, our guys finished the game 0 of 19 from 3 points line (even our U16 girls' team could do better) Kazakhstan losing to Bahrain in the last game gave us as little hope but still I can't see this team winning 3 or 4 games in the next round, they have to win 2 at very least to stay alive. Korea's disqualification and Iran's extremely poor performance made the 2nd round predictable, I believe NZ, Lebanon, Jordan, Australia, China and Kazakhstan will qualify from Asia alongside those 2 hosts.

wow I didn't know Egyptian athletes face the same kind of problems. it's usually only our problem one of the Iranians is the Olympic Champion Sajjad Ganjzadeh (the other 4 are world championships medalists too) I can bet it's highly unlikely to see a headline on ITG or any other website about "two Olympic champions denied visa by the great mighty USA"

I didn't know IOC is OKish with Jaloud, I thought they consider him part of Ajan's team. good to know at least there is a chance for one of the oldest Olympic sports to survive. Thanks and good to see you back

if I'm not wrong a total of 40 athletes from Iran qualified for the WG but they are all being removed from IWGA website one by one. (13 are left but I believe it will be zero at the end) WG is not under our NOC's umbrella and national federations had to go through the visa process on their own. some of them were smart enough to withdraw since they realized it doesn't worth it. (considering what country is hosting the event) but one federation which was VERY interested was Karate. they did everything in time to get the visa but the whole team got denied and WKF (instead of pushing the organizers to do something) just replaced Iranians with other athletes. nobody probably knows or cares about the World Games here, I got interested in this event from 2017 but I surely will not follow this anymore. Thanks for showing us once more that how sports are not mixed with politics. and I hope people here learn from this. it doesn't worth sending any team to certain hostile countries unless it's highly necessary.

I thought nowadays you are allowed to play whoever you want, isn't it the new rule ? I mean some countries even qualified for the World Cup by not playing against a certain team. but oh yes, this is the world of double standards. but that won't be a problem this time. our football sucks big time these days, U20 team most probably can't even make it out of the group stage in AFC Cup. (they may not even qualify for the AFC U20 Cup)

Mijain Lopez recently wrestled in an exhibition match in Germany (Frank Stabler's last fight ceremony) and people there asked him about his future plans. he answered that he is NOT going to wrestle at the Worlds this year and most probably next year but he is looking forward to wrestle in Paris for his 5th Olympic gold he will be 42 in Paris, but he looked better than ever in Tokyo at 39. I think even at 42 he will be the favorite for the gold.

any chance to watch the wrestling finals ?

These guys are unbelievable https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1124985/weightlifting-election-wrong-result

and now Tamas Ajan's son in law Atilla Adamfi is elected as one of the vice-presidents !

Mohamed Jalloud (IRQ) is the new IWF president. everybody else withdrew so he won the job without the election ! not sure if that satisfies Tommy B. Jalloud isn't clean. he was part of Ajan's team.

are Bann and Perrin retired ? I thought they just took a break. Perrin was in Iran for a club tournament few weeks ago though. what about both setters ? Blenkenau and Sanders Iran is also an entirely different team now, only 2 players from the Olympic squad are here in Bulgaria.

I know Canada is not playing good as well (they could lose to Australia) but this Iran team is the worst we had in last 15 years ago. I highly doubt Canada doesn't win that match. by losing next 7 matches (which is my expectation and of course I hope I'm wrong) Iran will lose lots of points and will fall behind in the ranking. I believe the Olympic qualification is already done for Iran. actually it happened right when they appointed this disastrous coach, it still makes me laugh that some people would actually think this guy can deliver in the highest level of competition. it's like having a high school teacher among professors. firing him tonight is better than next week, I hope losing next 7 matches will be enough to get him sacked but I'm afraid they are going to keep him for the World Championship. I believe you have to battle with Cuba, Slovenia (which is playing very bad as well), Netherlands and Germany for the Olympic quota. Cuba is gathering a very strong team this year. they are going to become a top 8 team once again.

another drama in our weightlifting (which never fails to create drama) all of our top weightlifters (I mean everybody, 100% of them) left the training camp and boycotted the national team to protest against the WL federation and its president Ali Moradi. the guy who was close to Tamas Ajan long time ago and he is a candidate in IWF election. what a joke and Mr Moradi claims that's totally OK if they leave, we can create another team!

I know the whole story, and as you know there are millions of Iranians in Canada, and almost all of them dislike the current regime (same as me) but that has nothing to do with a football match which was supposed to bring people together. national teams represent people, not the governments. I know the huge majority of them was happy and excited about the game and the match was sold out quickly. but they are ordinary people with jobs etc, they don't spend 16 hours per day in social media. that loud minority make lots of noises as usual. most of them are paid mercenaries. they have no other job, they are being paid by certain countries/groups to spread hatred and of course they made up lots of fake stories in the process. they did the same with a wrestling dual in USA couple months ago. they count on naivety of western media who are usually easy to be manipulated Canada soccer at least could cancel the match earlier. giving Iran more time to plan friendlies. Iran was supposed to play 3 matches in North America. now they are in Qatar desperately trying to find a team, any team ! (looks like we will play Algeria after all)

Well Karma is a bitch, Canada Soccer derailed Iran's WC preparation and plans for June by that late cancellation. (we will most probably end up playing 0 matches for being stupid and not predicting this) actually I know it wasn't all CSA's fault. some lying traitors did that mostly, that's a long story but still, I can't hide that I'm glad about this Panama cancellation thing. that's some consolation. CSA screwed up both teams pretty good.

so it will be England, USA, Iran and Wales in Group B. feel sorry for Ukraine they missed lots of chances. this is an interesting group with 3 English speaking countries, what I wanted but things have changed a lot since the draw. with this preparation at the moment I expect Iran to lose all 3 matches.

well. Talakhadze is human after all. (I was starting to believe otherwise ) for the first time after 7 years he struggled and could lose the gold medal to Lalayan . even though he still won the gold with a mediocre record I don't know if it is just one not-great tournament or the age is catching up with him finally. he is still 28 so I believe he just wasn't in a great shape.

I was expecting a world record today. mostly from Karlos Nasar but it was Antonino Pizzolato who broke the WR today! 89kg was a non-Olympic weight until few months ago with a low level and those Standard WRs were still there until today but the Italian broke CJ and Total WR today. 392kg in total is an impressive result. might be enough for an Olympic gold.

is there any livescore ? can't find one on EWF website but I remember they used to have one during their competitions.

The greatest Judoka ever, the symbol of freedom, sportsmanship and blah blah is going to represent Azerbaijan from now on https://www.ijf.org/judoka/68901 he said at the end of "his 3 years contract with Mongolia" he now signed another 3 years contract with Azerbaijan. this is still amazing how come he sold his Hollywood style fake story to the world. how many athletes represented 3 completely unrelated countries ( I mean not Soviet or Yugoslavian breakups kind of things) at the Olympics ? he is a rare type.

I was checking some wrestling results. Vietnam won 17 out of 18 gold medals in this sport. the last gold medal at 125kg freestyle went to Cambodia. it was interesting because they hired a famous Iranian wrestler to coach their wrestling program (famous athlete, 2012 Olympic champion but a newbie coach) at first look it was an interesting coaching result but the gold medalist turned out to be a random Iranian wrestler when you are a poor coach and can't help local athletes to improve. you always can call some help from home to get results.

max 1 team per NOC in mixed doubles is the only notable change.

cutting one quota from K1 and C1 and adding 1 quota to C2

Canoe Sprint Document is back with some changes in the number of quotas per event this is fantastic to publish something and changing it after less than a day ! looks like Mr Bach is busy saving the world and forget to hire qualified people to do simple jobs like this.