MHSN

@Vic Liu can you help me with some Chinese names Hasibagena and Menghejigan have just one name ? Awusayiman Habila and Walihan Sailike? in what order you call these guys

Time for freestyle 57: I believe the two biggest names are both in the bottom half, Higuchi (JPN) and Mongolia. the bottom half looks harder in general with Liu (CHN) and that guy from Tajikistan. still I believe the winner of JPN/MGL match will qualify. the top half will be between KGZ, KOR and UZB, Uzbekistan is bringing a new guy who was impressive in Ukraine. I say and 65: out of 3 "better" wrestlers here, two of them are in the top half. I think Bekbulatov will qualify easily from the bottom half. he is a former European champion from Russia. in top half our Yazdani will most probably face the Russian guy of Bahrain in the semis. while this guy had some good results I think the Yazdani junior can beat him. so and 74: Abdurakhmonov has to deal with 3 good wrestlers to qualify from the top half, I think he will. we have more wrestlers in the bottom half but I think at the end it will come to Iran and India wrestling in the semifinal. the Indian guy is new and I'm not really familiar with him, but he beat some good guys in the Indian trials so is dangerous for sure, still Emami is a world bronze medalist (he is new to this weight though) , still and 86: top half looks competitive with 4 good wrestlers, I think Takatani will qualify but all 3 other guys had some good results before. won't be easy at all. I see 4 wrestlers with a chance in the bottom half, KAZ, KOR, UZB and LBN. this guy from Lebanon (he is American in fact) left the LBN wrestling team when they forced him to withdraw against Israel, now he is back! but I assume he didn't train well recently. have a hard time to pick between UZB and KAZ here but since KAZ is the host so I think and 97: top half looks easy for the Olympic bronze medalist, Ibragimov should qualify easily. bottom half is crowded but still Mohammadin usually techs these kind of wrestlers (techs = 10-0 win) that Korean guy had a good run at the worlds in 2019 and I know MGL is strong but still people expect Mohammadian to challenge the great Sadulaev, this should be easy for him. and 125: again 4 "good" wrestlers in the top half, I was impressed by this Kazakhstani wrestler before. so I pick him for the top half. even though nothing is guaranteed. the bottom half is between MGL and KGZ and maybe JPN. I say and Uzbekistan is favorite to win 4 quotas (65, 74 and 97 are almost guaranteed to me) they have a good chance at 86kg and their 125kg is not that bad. it's possible if they qualify all 6 weights on Sunday.

I can't remember the last time we were "this" lucky with the draw. or maybe one of our guys hacked the draw software this time if Kazakhstan had this draw I would say this is fixed for sure all of our 6 wrestlers won't face their main rivals before the final. unbelievable ! I will start with Greco 60: China already has the quota in the top half, maybe only that Mongolian kid can do something. the bottom half is a little more interesting, Sharshenbekov is huge favorite but Korea and maybe India won't be easy for him. I don't know this Korean guy, he is new to me but they are always good in this lower weights. and are easy picks here 67: top half is much much harder, with Ryu, Shermakhanbet , Vardanyan + JPN and KGZ. I pick Ryu since he is already in the semifinal. dream draw for Geraei! out of 6 guys "capable" of beating him 5 of them are in the top half! India has to be in the bottom half because of the seeding, I believe his biggest opponent is from China. and Geraei only has to beat the winner of CHN/IND! I say and 77: the great Kim Hyeon-woo is the main favorite and I think he will qualify from the top half but he got the toughest possible opponents here, Gurpreet from India and then Makhmudov (KGZ) who beat Kim at the Asian Games. I still think Kim survives this. the bottom half will be a direct match between China and Japan. really hard for me to pick between these guys but since the Chinese guy is new to this weight I say and 87: Sunil is already in the semifinal to face the winner of KAZ and JPN. I think these 3 guys are more or less in the same level. in a neutral country I would say India but to beat Kazakhstan in Kazakhstan you have to work a lot to beat the refs too! the bottom half looks good for our Nouri. he will face the winner of CHN/KOR in the semifinal. that won't be easy but still I expect Nouri to beat any of these guys relatively easily. so and 97: things are not very easy for the Asian Champion Saravi , he has to beat Uzbekistan and China to qualify but he will do that if nothing crazy happens. still he has to be careful. the bottom half looks more complicated with 4 or 5 wrestlers in the same level. while Kazakhstan will do its normal magic with the refs I expect that Kyrgyz kid to qualify. and 130: this one is more competitive than other weight, 7 wrestlers more or less in the same level. two groups. I think Abdullaev will advance from Group A, hard to pick the 2nd guy. group B will be closer , I don't know how good is the grandpa Tsurtsumia. he used to be very good but he is 40 ! I have a bold prediction here, wants to give it to China. but south Korea is a former bronze medalist. I say and but as I said all of these 7 guys are capable of wining the quota.

I'm waiting for the brackets , I believe we will have them in an hour but the UWW website indirectly announced the seeded wrestlers, the start list is slightly different than the previous one, for example the other Russian wrestler of Bahrain is back and he will be the top seed at 65kg. those numbers is the final number of wrestlers per each weight. huge huge surprise that 40 years old Georgiy Tsurtsumia is back ! he is a 2004 Olympic silver medalist he was inactive since 2008 57 (9): Myrzanazar uulu Liu 65 (10): Ali 74 (12): Lee Sharipov 86 (10): Takatani Dauletbekov 97 (10): Ibragimov Kadian 125 (11): Batirmurzaev Lazarev 60 (9): Walihan Sharshenbekov 67 (13): Ryu Ashu 77 (9): no seeded wrestler 87 (8): Sunil 97 (9): Saravi Nara 130 (7): Kim Abdullaev 50 (5): Round Robin 53 (6): Amanzhol Keunimjaeva 57 (6): Anshu 62 (7): Kassymova Sonam 68 (6): Zhou 76 (5): Round Robin * in two weights with 5 wrestlers it will be round robin, the seeding doesn't matter. in 5 other events we have 6 or 7 wrestlers, which means 2 groups of 3 or 4. top 2 will be separated at least for the group round.

points from other weights will be transferred without any change, if you receive 900pts when you participate at 102kg, that will be counted exactly as 900pts at 109kg too. for example you can see Brandhuber has exactly the same number of ranking points in all those 3 weights. but to be eligible you have to participate at least twice in a weight. Brandhuber has two results in any of those 3 weights, so he can pick any of them. but the French guy Bernardin Matam has only 1 result at 73kg. he is not eligible to qualify in this weight.

I watch most of the things on the internet nowadays but since we are getting close to the Olympics, I "improved" my satellite channels to have more "options" and found some interesting Turkmenistani and Tajik sport channels if I want to watch football . our own sport channels show pretty much everything. (UCL, Serie A, La Liga, Premier League, BundesLiga, even France Portugal, sometimes even the Netherlands) I'm more interested in other sports. but I assume we are talking about different satellites, I don't think I can have what you have in Italy and vice versa. btw I used to be satisfied with having some Arab channels (mostly UAE) but then Al-Jazeera (now BEIN) happened and swallowed everything.

nope, they never had. they had 3 from 2008 Olympics and served one year suspension because of that few years ago. 2017 if I'm not wrong

This is the current list https://www.iwf.net/wp-content/uploads/downloads/2021/01/Number-of-ADRV_06012021.pdf but as I said Romania and Colombia has 3 cases already, for Romania it's almost a sure thing, Colombia still has chance to somehow survive

this is sad, any country missing the Olympics is sad. I don't know (nobody knows I assume) how things work in North Korea but I assume winning an Olympic medal will change the life for everybody, even in North Korea. some of their athletes will miss their lifetime chance hopefully there will be a solution Turkmenistan is sending wrestlers to the Asian OQT, don't count on our Turkmen friends btw I recently found out I can watch most Turkmen state TV channels from where I live interesting stuff their sport channel shows "teaching Chess" + "Serie A " that's the best combination ever. and everything is green in their studios just kidding, not trying to make fun of any country, but between our neighbor countries, Turkmenistan is the one I'm less informed about. so I was kind of curious to see what's happening on their TV.

rank in the competition doesn't matter here, records matter. I'm a bit lazy to calculate her and her appoints' ROBI points . but looking at the current ranking she is 17th, that sounds far from top 8 right ? but not really ! China has 4, remove 3 of them. Colombia and Romania are in verge of being banned completely. Russia has only 1 quota available, not sure if they use it here. same goes to Kazakhstan. she will be in top 10 with this and even for other countries you have to check their other weightlifters, they might have better WLers in other weights and not pick these girls after all. so I say anybody in top 20 in the current ranking has a chance to qualify, good chance actually. but nothing is guaranteed, you are sure about the quota only if the athlete is in top 8, for the rest you have to consider so many variables. I think she is the only Polish girl with a decent chance to qualify. on the men's side Michalski has a good chance if he is here (is he?) and lift a decent weight. he may qualify even without lifting a thing. slim chance for Zwarycz but that mostly depends on other countries and how they select their teams. you have some other guys in the ranking but I think only these 3 has a realistic chance to qualify. I say Poland will qualify 1 or (most probably) 2 weightlifters for Tokyo but I didn't check the start list, everybody should participate in this Euro to be eligible to qualify. this is a must. all weightlifters need to register in one competition in 2021 and for the European WLers this is the only chance (we have an event scheduled in Colombia too but I won't be surprised if they cancel it eventually) PS: IWF claims they sent the modified qualification rules to IOC to be approved, it's possible to have some minor changes. (with huge affects) This is the worst and most complicated qualification system ever

it's really hard / almost impossible to analyze the current ranking, someone from the bottom of the list (with only 3 valid result) can move up the rank rapidly by a good 4th result. while most weightlifters already finished their 4th valid result and can only slightly improve their score. also most countries will have more quotas than they can, they have to pick some which will remove their other athletes from the other weights. I mean there are lots of variables. but in short GBR has a good chance to win 3 quotas. I think all 3 of them (Davies or Smith at 64, Godley at 71 and Campbell at +87) will qualify at the end. but nothing is guaranteed for any of them.

The Asian Judo Championship starts tomorrow in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan the brackets are not published yet but I have some parts of them, the Iranian kid at 81kg has to beat Jordan first to meet the the top seed, the Mongolian hero, the greatest human on the planet earth Saeid Mollaei in the 2nd round ! that will be "interesting", but unfortunately this bout won't be even competitive, walk in park for the Mongolian hero. this will be the first competition for the Iranian team after something like 2 years. and since almost the whole "old team" left the sport (except just 1) , they had to build a new team with youngsters. they didn't even know they will be allowed to participate here until couple weeks ago, I'm not even sure if he can beat Jordan to even face the Mongolian hero.

whoever reaches that record first (in snatch, CJ or total) finishes higher. in the case you explained, lifter A wins the total , when you are down 1kg in snatch you have to lift 2kg more in CJ to win the competition.

list of qualified wrestlers 57: 65: 74: 86: 97: 125: good day for Algeria, they didn't qualify a single wrestler in men's freestyle last time in 2016.

that was the ugliest way possible to qualify ! the RSA wrestler was totally healthy before the match, their heads bumped into each other and the doctors couldn't stop the bleeding. and if you can't stop the bleeding in 4 minutes you lost ! that's it. but what if the doctors suck ?! the wrestler will pay the price

Midana for his 4th Olympics he is 36 now but he was a pretty good wrestler in his prime days. probably in top 8 of the world at some point. btw feel sorry for the Algerian wrestler, he was really devastated at the end but the call was obviously correct and he knew it himself , that was a desperate try

The Egyptian guy Fathi gassed once again like his other matches, but this time the opponent didn't give him a second chance. he is good actually but with this level of conditioning he can't do anything. btw the Iranian guy of Australia was dominating this Tunisian wrestler in the first round but then he gave up a take down and Dakhlaoui turned him multiple times for a 14-3 win. I also think we share the same blood with the Egyptians their wrestlers always complain even when the call is "clearly" correct. that's our speciality !

that was his golden chance, once in a lifetime chance. I was somehow screaming , "don't let him go" "don't let him go" he could score because the Algerian guy was confused at the first. we saw what happened in the second period when he realized the FSM wrestler is not that bad and tried to be conservative. what a pity. he really had the chance

I watched almost the whole session (I mean as much as possible, it's impossible to focus on 3 mats at the same time) this is what I think 57: vs // vs Algeria for sure but the 2nd semifinal will be interesting, the GBS guy survived two hard matches against EGY and NGR, I will he will be favorite against Ansari but that will be close. so I say and 65: vs // vs Senegal won the quota right after the draw lol, but the bottom half was very interesting, the Egyptian wrestler showed some heart to bring himself to the SF. he gassed early in both his matches against NGR and GBS but somehow managed to hold on to the win. in his QF he was actually down by a point but took advantage of his opponent's dumb mistake and threw him for good. if he had to wrestle right now I wouldn't give him much of chance but now he has several hours to rest and recover, so I say and 74: vs // vs really surprised to see ASA here, he beat South Africa but no chance really against Egypt who beat a good Nigerian wrestler earlier today. and Midana will be clear favorite for the second semi, he used to be a very good wrestler even Jordan Burrughs had hard time against him once, he is 36 now but I think he will make it for his 4th Olympics, I say and 86: vs // vs both EGY and ALG looked good in the first match, really hard pick for me, they looked at the same level, I say and 97: vs // vs I think both semis will be close, really hard to say who is the favorite here. I say and 125: vs // vs Egypt will be the favorite, and I think Algeria has the edge in the other semis, it was the only weight with two groups, both of group round matches between these 4 wrestlers were close so everything is possible, to me and while I didn't predict for Tunisia but I think at least one of their wrestlers will find a way to the final

US Olympic team: Men 57: Thomas Gilman 65: Jordan Oliver (has to qualify the weight in Bulgaria) 74: Kyle Dake 86: David Taylor 97: Kyle Snyder 125: Gable Steveson Women 50: Sarah Hildebrandt 53: Jacarra Winchester 57: Helen Maroulis 62: Kayla Miracle 68: Tamyra Mensah-Stock 76: Adeline Gray Greco 60: Ildar Hafizov 67: Alejandro Sancho 77: Jesse Porter (has to qualify the weight) 87: John Stefanowicz 97: G'Angelo Hancock 130: Adam Coon (has to qualify the weight) USA has 15 quotas already and 12 of those wrestlers who qualified the weight for USA made the team too! only Dake and Steveson in freestyle and Stefanowicz in Greco managed to beat the guy who won the quota.

The great Jordan Burroughs is not going to Tokyo he lost twice to Kyle Dake in US trials . Dake is a two time world champion at 79kg and he was the better wrestler tonight without doubt. but it was just sad to see a great champion like Burroughs leaving the mat like that. he didn't announce retirement in the interview after the match but I believe that was the last time for him.

that's really weird. I guess you are right. maybe they don't reallocate it the way I was "imaging" at first even though this is a bit "different" because the Nigerian is not withdrawing her quota. so I don't know really they can give it to Tunisia or Poland or nobody after all!

I was talking about the Swedish girl who won silver at the World Champs but later tested positive for doping, her quota normally should go to 7th place wrestler which was the same Nigerian girl who won the competition here. where did you find that line ? I can't remember such a thing in wrestling rules. as far as I know there is no such a rule

won the 62 spot at 68, won her match but that was a PO1 win which wasn't enough. gets the quota and I believe will get another one later. unless they want to give that to as the next best ranked at the Worlds. so at the end 4 (+1) 3 (-1) 2 1 1 1

Egypt for sure. she has more classification points. but I assume she didn't know that at the end of her match Tunisia finishes 3rd and I believe she will get the quota later. when they reallocate World Champs quota