MHSN

why not ? we already lost a possible gold medal contender today. don't tell me there is a story about him I'm not aware of I assume you are asking because he got knocked out (and lost consciousness momentarily) during the Asian Championship. yes he recovered the same day and won the Beirut Open 2 or 3 days later to make sure he overtake your guy Pontes in the ranking.

still no news about Canada getting that one ? I can't see how anybody else can get that quota. unless they make some phantom rules

am I right that if the Asian Champs wasn't cancelled. Japan most probably would qualify someone there and therefore they wouldn't be interested in this quota?

yes unfortunately

I was a bit lazy to count the individual scores. but I had the feeling that Japan has more points but isn't this irrelevant now ? I assume China is going to pick this quota

it seems Keikha won the Pommel Horse event in Doha. is there any chance for him to qualify ? that would be some kind of consolation after today's big terrible news. but I'm afraid this is not enough. he missed his chance when Azerbaijan cancelled the World Cup final in Baku.

well everybody knows the name now. that's Bahman Askari. world Champion at 75kg and Rank #1. apparently took something from a doctor when he had COVID but that doesn't really matter. he ruined his life time chance. I believe his quota will go to Scott of USA. of course the ban is not official yet. obviously he will try something but everybody knows the suspension is inevitable at the end.

Iran had 4 quotas. all of them qualified by finishing in top 4. and 3 of them actually finished #1. and the guilty athlete is one of those 3. I will write the name soon, I'm just waiting for one of the official news websites to officially report it. I believe that will go to the next best ranked athlete from the ranking.

بله اما ترجیح میدم اسمش رو اینجا ننویسم. پیام خصوصی بدید تا بگم

all news websites in Iran are reporting that one of our "biggest names" in this sport who was supposed to be the gold medal contender in Tokyo is tested positive for doping. as usual they claim he just took some medicines without consulting with the doctors. we were supposed to have 3 strong gold medal contenders in Tokyo, while they didn't mention a name , I believe I know who is that athlete. but I'm not going to write it here because it's not official. well well. the whole Karate qualification process was a mixture of bad luck and bad results for Iran and this is the last nail to the coffin. so instead of having 8 athletes in Tokyo. we will end up with just 3.

That's interesting, Mansouri participated at 74kg a week ago in Asian Championships. and lost a very close match to our guy. he was very good but still probably very undersized for that weight. I assume Burkina Faso already had that 80kg wild card, they had to send this guy to the next available weight Afghanistan won a gold medal (their first ever) by another athlete Mohsen Rezaee at the Asian Championships but unfortunately for him that was 58kg and the quota place was already filled by the host athlete. btw at least for Afghanistan this is official. their NOC confirmed the news.

World Cup results are available here https://www.dohagym.com/

Russian team is announced (only the mean's team) Freestyle 57: Zaur Uguev 65: Gadzhimurad Rashidov 74: Zaurbek Sidakov 86: Artur Naifonov 97: Abdulrashid Sadulaev 125: Sergey Kozyrev Greco-Roman 60: Sergey Emelin 67: Artem Surkov 77: Aleksandr Chekhirkin or Abuyazid Mantsigov 97: Musa Evloev 130: Sergey Semenov there will be a match between Chekhirkin and Mantsigov to determine the Russian team member in Tokyo. two time Olympic Champion Roman Vlasov is out of the race. Update: Chekhirkin beat Mantsigov 4-1 and made the team

Samad Nikkhah Bahrami will be Iran's flagbearer in Tokyo. I was expecting someone from the basketball team (I mean Hamed Haddadi) but not him because he was the flagbearer in 2010 Asian Games and there is an unwritten rule about not picking someone twice. they had limited options. our wrestlers won't be in Tokyo during the Opening ceremony. we have lots of new faces. Noshad Alamian would be a strong candidate but he lost the Olympic quota to his younger brother. Mojtaba Abedini was probably the first choice but men's Sabre competition will be held next day morning. he probably wanted to focus on that. Najmeh Khedmati could be the only notable female candidate but she also has the same problem. (competing the next day morning) so that left only Ehsan Haddadi or someone from Volleyball or Basketball teams. Ehsan Haddadi is convicted of sexual abuse back in 2016. so no way he deserves such a thing. and from the volleyball team those two big names Saeid Marouf and Mohammad Mousavi did something stupid in 2016 and boycotted the opening ceremony. (for some stupid protest) so no chance for them. basketball was the last option and Samad NB was the team's captain. I still believe Hamed deserved it more but who I am. this will be the first time Iran will have someone from a team sport to carry the flag at the Olympics. Wrestling 1968, 1972, 1976, 1992, 2000 Weightlifting 1952, 1956 Taekwondo 1988 Shooting 1996 Judo 2004 Rowing 2008 Boxing 2012 Archery 2016 our basketball team was lucky to qualify. they will lose all 3 matches for sure. so the "flagbearer curse" can't do more damage but took a look at what happened to our recent flagbearers 2016 - Nemati lost in the first round 2012 - Mazaheri got disqualified "unfairly" by a German referee. AIBA later accepted that and ban the judge. 2008 - Hosseini finished exactly last in her competition 2004 - Miresmaeili as 2 time World Champion got Israel in the first round and after crying the whole night still carried the flag and later didn't make weight on purpose to get disqualified "legally" 2000 - Amir Khadem made to the bronze medal match but lost it in a very stupid way. and let Macedonia winning its first (and as of today only) Olympic medal. 1996 - Fariman finished almost last. she is still famous for wearing that all white dress, the delegation was named "ghosts delegation" 1992 - Soleimani lost 0-0 to the eventual silver medalist and finished 6th. 1988 - Zahedi didn't make weight and got disqualified ! (TKD was a demonstration sport at the time)

of course they don't, if Taliban had any kind of public support they would enter the election. (but they don't believe in elections. they just want the power) but people also don't fully support the current government. the government is weak and corrupt and didn't improve anything there in past 10 years. that also applies to Afghan troops. lots of them simply run away when they hear that Taliban is coming. they probably think it doesn't worth risking our lives for this government. since we share the same language (well, almost the same) I can read Afghan media (and social media) and it's clear that people are just tired of this endless war. there are lots of people who don't support Taliban but they may prefer Taliban taking the power because at least that means stability. that means you shouldn't be worried about a suicide attack whenever you leave your house. Taliban increased its attacks in past couple of years exactly for that reason, they want to create fear, they killed lots of activists, lots of journalists, lots of famous TV hosts, specially women. but educated people in general are very worried about Taliban. because they know what's next. (specially for women, everybody knows how Taliban thinks of women) I saw lots of people were happy in social media when Biden won the election. they "thought" he will have a different policy and won't give up to Taliban (but unfortunately they were wrong)

Afghanistan was always a mess. the world just didn't care. Taliban gained power the moment USA said they want to make a deal with them. there were lots of unbelievable tragedies in past few months, killing pregnant mothers (or those who just gave birth with their babies), suicide bombing at a university, and the last one (which was really really heart breaking) planing a bomb next to a schoolgirl and killing lots of innocent little girls. USA forced the Afghan government to release 5000/6000 of them and they are back in streets killing people and taking towns after towns. without the help of foreign troops, Afghanistan army is going to lose to this war. in probably 3 or 4 years. and the world doesn't care as long as Taliban promises to not have terrorist attacks outside of Afghanistan borders. and one must be very stupid to believe Taliban's promises. I also can't believe those in power in Iran invited these animals and "talked" to them. just because they "think" Taliban is the enemy of our enemy. Taliban itself IS the enemy. enemy of humanity. you can't talk with these guys. you can't make a deal with them. they killed lots of Iranians before, diplomats included. and they will do that again once they regain the full power in Kabul.

fortunately Iran didn't go for IOC's "wise" advice. one flagbearer and that will be Samad Nikkhah Bahrami (basketball) and since I'm quite sure some people will start to create some stories from this. Iran had female flagbearers in past 3 big events. (2016 OG, 2018 AG and 2018 WOG) this time was men's turn. beside that we don't have a notable experienced female athlete in our delegation this time. they are all 20-22 or younger. the only possible candidate has her competition few hours after the ceremony. PS: it seems Mojtaba Abedini (Fencing) was the 1st choice but he rejected that since the men's sabre competition will be helf the next day morning.

top seeds for women's freestyle and men's Greco-Roman are also available here, of course if NOCs decide to send someone else the next wrestler in the ranking will be seeded. https://uww.org/sites/default/files/2021-03/201214_ranking_ww_1.pdf https://uww.org/sites/default/files/2021-03/201214_ranking_gr_0.pdf

indeed. but you have a good point here which I didn't notice until now. the rules say "WKF World Ranking as of May 2021" . it doesn't say the Olympic Standing but that's weird. everything was about the Olympic Standing but this one is about the World Ranking . but OK at least this one was within the rules.

that's very interesting, the Macedonian girl is ranked 67 in the world and the rule made it clear that being in top 50 is mandatory for everybody to qualify (except those who qualified in Paris qualifier) but who cares about the rules. WKF obviously doesn't. that's why this sport (despite being much more popular than at least Taekwondo) is not in the Olympic program.

UWW announced top 4 seeds in each men's freestyle weights in an instagram post ! this is exactly the same as what I posted after the Polish open. https://www.instagram.com/p/CQYa0PUlyDg/ as they said this list is not final because we don't know if all of these 24 wrestlers will be selected in their own countries to wrestle in Tokyo. but based on what I know all of them will go to Tokyo so this seeding list is 99% final top seeds in each weight 57kg: Micic Uguev Atli Ravi 65kg: Rashidov Bajrang Niyazbekov Muszukajev 74kg: Chamizo Kaisanov Sidakov Hosseinkhani 86kg: Yazdani Deepak Amine Naifonov 97kg: Sadulaev Snyder Yergali Nurov 125kg: Petriashvili Batirmurzaev Akgul Khotsianivskyi

Jenny Fransson is not going to Tokyo. that's for sure but Sweden still can use her quota. maybe Swedish users here can help us better in that case. but UWW has no special Olympic section in its website. they never even published the full list of qualified NOCs. they also have to reallocate that 125kg quota. 5 July is the deadline so I guess that should be someday before that date

yeah, when I started to write that line. 3-2 was still possible. which would brought us back to that scenario but then Denmark scored the 4th before even I finish that line

I believe Russia was 3rd. I mean before conceding the 3rd goal (and now the 4th goal)

so "not represented" means not represented in that specific event. not the whole Karate competition. that also makes sense if France takes women's 61kg quota