MHSN

since the first edition of this "Continental Cup" system whoever beat Iran in the men's side qualified for the Olympics eventually. the same happened for Australia this year. so the key to qualify for the Olympics is to get Iran as early as possible in the draw

I see. thanks, wrestling used to have the same system from 2000 to 2004 . groups of 3 as much as possible with maximum 2 groups of 4 but my main question is how the seeding works ? only top 13 will be seeded and the rest will fall in the groups randomly ? or there will be pot 1, pot 2, pot 3 based on the ranking ? obviously our girl is capable of beating only few of these players.

can somebody explain the Badminton competition format in Tokyo? I know it will be round robin. but how many groups ? how the seeding works ? I have my own reasons to be interested in this

The great Abdulrashid Sadulaev picked up the 3rd defeat of his career today in Aliev tournament in Russia. but before people get too much excited I have to say that was a walkover defeat he reached the final but didn't wrestle Magomed Ibragimov (Russian-Uzbek) in the final. Russian coaches claim because of a small injury obviously the Russian tank is NOT in his best days. he struggled in that tournament against wrestlers he usually eats for the breakfast. he lost to Kyle Snyder in 2017 World Final mostly because he was too small for this weight at the time. yesterday I saw him "beatable" for the first time since 2017. at the moment his gold in Tokyo is not a sure thing anymore.

well to me that's a stupid policy but at least this time I have absolutely no problem with that any female athlete qualifying for the Olympics is a good news for me. even if she loses 21-2 21-3 or something like that. I noticed the Dutch girl is also named "Soraya" so that's from one Soraya to another Soraya.

don't give me false hopes but I really hope he does. he really deserves it. worked too hard for this.

Iran Badminton Federation confirmed that Sorayya Aghaei is going to Tokyo. it seems some NOCs rejected quotas. (I assume NED and FIN) she will be the first ever female badminton player from Iran at the Olympics. I wasn't sure if she is healthy and ready to play. she herself was out of competition for something like 2 years. had to go through two surgeries but it seems she is recovered now.

Today was a really bad day for Iranian sport in general. we had two doping cases among our national team members. while official media still refuse to use their names. everybody knows who they are. Bahman Askari, World Champion in Karate and one of our biggest gold medal chances in Tokyo. that was really shocking. I really don't think you need doping in Karate. our Karate federation claims he proved he doesn't use the drug intentionally but still the suspension is inevitable . they just hope to reduce his ban. I'm afraid he will also miss the Asian Games where he was the defending Champion. the other name is not revealed yet. officially it's a member of women's taekwondo team. but I know that's Youth Olympics Champion Yalda Valinejad. she got caught by our local NADO and her suspension has nothing to do with international organizations. she was supposed to participate at the Asian Championship few days ago but all of a sudden pulled out after the draw. which was suspicious at the time. now we know why she did that. I believe using the drug has something to do with our coach pushing he to cut lots of weight in order to make the 57kg. doping is a bad thing but doping for such a young athlete is much worse.

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.