MHSN

and it seems that wasn't just a simple plane crash. apparently it was shot down by accident. even though Iran denies it and invites everybody involved to investigate the accident  and I personally don't believe anything coming from the USA under this administration but there are signs making me believe the theory.
 
reading stories about the passengers, it's really tragic, most of them were highly educated. mostly Iranian-Canadian or Iranians living/studying in Canada came to their home country for their holidays there were at least 3 couples coming back home just for their wedding
 
this is one of the victims, his latest tweet few minutes before the accident, he is actually making a joke about his possible death
 
 
I have lots of friends, former classmates and even close relatives (aunt, cousin etc) living in Canada and when I was reading the list I was afraid to see a familiar name and I did, my classmate and actually my closest friend in my MS studies were there. I wasn't in contact with him for couple years, didn't know he was even married ...
 
oh well, bad news keep coming

and it seems that wasn't just a simple plane crash. apparently it was shot down by accident. even though Iran denies it and invites everybody involved to investigate the accident  and I personally don't believe anything coming from the USA under this administration but there are signs making me believe the theory.
 
reading stories about the passengers, it's really tragic, most of them were highly educated. mostly Iranian-Canadian or Iranians living/studying in Canada came to their home country for their holidays there were at least 3 couples coming back home just for their wedding
 
this is one of the victims, his latest tweet few minutes before the accident, he is actually making a joke about his possible death
 
 
I have lots of friends, former classmates and even close relatives (aunt, cousin etc) living in Canada and when I was reading the list I was afraid to see a familiar name and I did, my classmate and actually my closest friend in my MS studies were there. I wasn't in contact with him for couple years, didn't know he was even married ...
 
oh well, bad news keep coming

yes but mostly crappy naturalized players. in volleyball you can have one "naturalized player" officially. they are mostly unknown players but they are playing good as a team.
 
Qatar brought Australia to the tie break at the Asian Champs in Tehran, so it was expected to be not easy for Australia, still a 3-0 defeat is a big surprise.
 
I think Australia will be out if Korea beat Qatar tomorrow.

no more of that nice lady who wanted to hug everybody ?! pity

No... Looks like she enjoyed more popularity abroad than here. And now it will be the complete opposite. This new guy is so short-tempered that he is just waiting to make new enemies.
 
It's weird (at least for me, as I don't dwell on politics, at all). For a long time she enjoyed the highest approval ratings of any politician, and then suddenly everyone started calling her stupid and stuff. As if we need a smart president - it's essentially a popularity contest given the limited presidential powers around here.

Threatening cultural sites ? I remember only two organizations did that before. Taliban and ISIS. this puts USA in the same category as them. actually there are more similarities.
 
only two months ago, IR was in its weakest point after the protests. this is a rough estimate but I can say their support was something like 10-15% at the time. but just after that terror and now the new tweet I can say things have changed completely. now it's something like 80-85% of course a foreign enemy always unified the people. specially someone with IQ of a monkey and a big mouth.
 
this terror has rejuvenated and prolonged IR for another 20 years . for people like me (who believe in slow changes) that was a punch to the face. that was 100 steps backward. threatening the cultural sites, even the thought of this will pull Iranians of all political spectra behind the IR. they lost an important general but gained a lot instead. the turnout for Soleimani's funeral was beyond imagination. for most people he died a hero. he died making Iranian borders "safe" against terrorist groups like ISIS , Taleban, Alahwaz, Rigi group etc.
 
to me personally, I can never convince myself to mourn for someone like him, yes he was a war veteran in 8 years bloody war against Saddam (and guess who sold weapons, specifically chemical weapon to him) and I always respect all of them but then he was a member of IRGC (aka Sepah) and while himself wasn't involved directly, but his organization is responsible for so many bad things here. but I can say most people do not share the same view as me.
 
ps: IR means Islamic Republic, the current regime

Ajan is the main reason for corruption  this is a common knowledge in Weightlifting community . people don't talk about it because almost all national WL federations made deals with him. he sold lots of World/Olympic medals to different countries.
 
that ARD report sounds correct to me. it fits with what i knew about IWF and Ajan himself. I give you guys some examples regarding Iranian WLers. these 3 examples are 100% confirmed for me, there are more stories though.
 
back in 2000 Olympics, 1999 World Champion and top favorite for the gold Shahin Nassirinia came to the stage, injured his arm in his first snatch attempt and left the competition. at the time it was just bad luck but later his teammates (and later himself) admitted that was fake, he was told by IWF to pull out, because IWF has "proofs" against the Iranian team (and specially Nassirinia) and will disqualify the whole team if he doesn't pull out ! it turned out IWF wanted their boy Pyrros Dymas to win his 3rd Olympic gold medal. Nassirinia never officially got suspended or even accused of doping. and Iran won two gold medals in the next days. (mostly because Nassirinia followed the order and let Dymas take that gold medal)
 
and in 2006, the whole Iranian team tested positive for doping except just one guy, Hossein Rezazadeh, he was double Olympic Champion and face of World Weightlifting at the time. simply the best weightlifter in the world at the time. IWF didn't want him to get caught. I heard from some of his teammates that someone else gave urine samples instead of him. obviously they were using the same drugs (thanks to the Bulgarian coach)
 
and one more example, back in 2009 in South Korea, the host nation didn't win a gold medal in men's weightlifting until the last day, they wanted that gold but there was an Iranian guy Saeid Alihosseini who had broken the WR in training and everybody knew he will win the gold. 2 days before the competition he was told to fake an injury during the training and leave South Korea because IWF found some evidences about his doping and if he leaves he won't get suspended. he did but still they suspended him. and that Korean guy who the gold medal. ironically that guy An Yong-Kwon never won any title (even continental) beside that gold medal !

New coverages by ARD (German TV) on doping and corruption in Weightlifting (which end the most naive hopes that there would ever by a paradigm shift in Weightlifting or IWF):
 
IWF president Tamas Ajan supported and benefited from corruption and supported doping over decades:
(Sources are only available in German: https://www.sportschau.de/hintergrund/Doping-Gewichtheben-Praesident-droht-Strafverfolgung-100.html
The most important points:
23 Million Dollars on IWF accounts vanished, Ajan was the only one with access to these accounts Certain countries and top athletes were basically not tested out of competition (including Georgian top lifter and past doping offender Talakhadse) 42 of 62 Russian medal winners between 2007 and 2018 had ZERO out of competition tests 77% of the doping tests worldwide between 2008 and 2017 were conducted by the Hungarian doping group (HUNADO) - allegations claim that some doping inspectors mandated by HUNADO were paid money by athletes/associations, in return third persons gave urine samples instead of the athletes who were supposed to be tested. For example all 101 doping tests of athletes from Moldova between 2008 and 2017 were conducted by HUNADO (no positive tests). Ajan strongly opposed against the plan that the doping tests at the WCh 2015 in Houston would be organized by USADA. However, the USADA conducted the tests in the end, finding 24 athletes who failed doping tests - more than ever at WCh. Moreover, 2012 OG Bronze medalist Rattikan Gulnoi from Thailand was filmed with hidden camera admitting doping since 2011 and talking about systematic doping in Thailand, including doping of 13 year olds. https://www.sportschau.de/doping/Thailands-Olympiadritte-gibt-Einblicke-in-Doping-100.html  
It is sad for the countries which support anti-doping but I personally think that there are no hopes for this sport in the near future. Will be interesting how IOC reacts on this one.

he was always there. Iraq, Syria, Lebanon. wherever Iran has proxy groups to support. I assume he was spending only 1-2 months of the year inside the country.
 
I assume you don't know what was his position, Iran has 2 armies (weird, I know) a regular army and IRGC or as we call it simply Sepah, they created Sepah after 1979 revolution because they didn't trust the "army" at the time. they were afraid of a coup , the country wasn't stable at all.
 
after 40 years Sepah is not just military anymore, they are in everything, everywhere, something like mafia.
 
Sepah has different units, one of them is Quds (or Ghods) which was leaded by this guy in past 23 years. Quds force "manages" things outside of Iranian border. that's why I said he was in shadow for so many years. I'm quite sure 7-8 years ago most people didn't know him here. the regime for a reason (which we don't know but we can guess) tried to bold him in past few years.
 
 
I can guess he was supposed to take a bigger role in future. maybe being the president in 2025 or maybe sooner in 2021 when people won't show up for the election (for obvious reasons) and with low turnout the hardliners always win. this is just my guess, nobody knew for sure

I just read on the news that Iran will send 6 athletes (3 boys 3 girls) to the YOG,  it will be the biggest delegation ever for Iran in any kind of Winter Olympics
 
and in the article I read, the journalist asked about what's the point of participation in Winter sports when Iran didn't improve even an inch after decades of just participating ?! and I'm kind of agree with that. while most of winter sports don't even exist here but at least Alpine, Cross-country and snowboard have a long history here. specially Alpine skiing.
 
most countries never have snow so they have valid reasons to never achieve anything in winter sports but that's not the case here, the thing is nobody cares about winter sports so why bother to participate ?
 
but still I wish the best of luck for those 6 young athletes. hopefully they won't finish last here

That was quite a goal and even after a day that goal is still on top of the football news here. good for him he was completely forgotten , genius Wilmots didn't even invite him to the NT for those 2 crucial matches.
 

Happy new year to everybody who celebrate it.   I assume it means everybody in this forum except me 
 

Happy new year to everybody who celebrate it.   I assume it means everybody in this forum except me 
 

Norouz is the only new year in Iran
 
and another thing, while you guys celebrate the new year exactly at 24:00 . here it's more fun sometimes it's 8 in the morning, the next year 14 pm. and it changes every year. exactly at the start of spring.

as @heywoodu said we have a different calendar. only christian minority celebrates 31 December. they celebrate both new years actually.

Norouz is the only new year in Iran
 
and another thing, while you guys celebrate the new year exactly at 24:00 . here it's more fun sometimes it's 8 in the morning, the next year 14 pm. and it changes every year. exactly at the start of spring.

Norouz is the only new year in Iran
 
and another thing, while you guys celebrate the new year exactly at 24:00 . here it's more fun sometimes it's 8 in the morning, the next year 14 pm. and it changes every year. exactly at the start of spring.

My money is on Iranian calendar  

Norouz is the only new year in Iran
 
and another thing, while you guys celebrate the new year exactly at 24:00 . here it's more fun sometimes it's 8 in the morning, the next year 14 pm. and it changes every year. exactly at the start of spring.

of course I knew, and indeed it was on top of the headlines for couple of days, even though most headlines here belong to an Italian guy Stramaccioni in past couple of weeks
 
Firouzja didn't talk to any media about this. so we don't know his exact reason but forcing to withdraw against Israeli opponents is probably one of the reasons.
 
after Judo now we are in trouble in Chess, apparently until 2019 it was a rule you could use to avoid whoever you don't want to face in Swiss table. FIDE changed that rule and that's when the problem started ! last week two of our players (Iran's #2 and #3 Maghsoudloo and Tabatabaei) were in a tournament in Spain and they both faced and beat an Israeli opponent !! they both claimed they didn't know the guy and it was a blitz competition without a flag on the table next to the players. that caused some "problems" here, and therefore Iran decided to not participate in the World Rapid/Blitz Championship, (or at least not sending a male team, there will be female players from Iran)
 
and that's when Firouzja revealed his old plan, he was living in France for few months and we had rumors he wants to eventually switch nationality, this accident probably forced him to do it sooner. so I can say this is probably not directly related to Israel but that was one of the reasons. this is different than Mollaei, this is his right to live wherever he wants and unfortunately he prefers somewhere else. Mollaei is a cheating liar.
 
The truth is this is not really surprising, he is considered a great talent and the situation in Iran is really bad these days. mostly financially, these guys had to pay for their expenses (tickets, visa etc) another thing is 10 years ago it was considered VERY BAD , treason or something like that but when something happens again and again this is not "bad" anymore. and unfortunately I won't be surprised to hear news about this again in the future. 

he was 7th place and yes I assume he will receive the quota even though you better wait for the official confirmation, but I'm something like 95% sure about it.
 
I was checking the result, it should go to the Azerbaijani guy who had "3 wins" (against 2 wins of the Polish guy) but UWW has some stupid classification points and tie breaking criteria. Rybicki had two wins by fall and superiority (against 2 relatively weak guys though) and while both of them had 10 classification points, Rybicki wins the tie by having more "fall wins".
 
feel sorry for Gadzhiyev he beat 3 World and Olympic medalists "narrowly" while Rybicki only had to beat Egypt and Mexico. but that's it. you got lucky sometimes.
 
and the bronze medal goes to Daniyar Kaisanov of Kazakhstan

I assume this is a good news
http://www.fivb.com/en/about/news/fivb-to-introduce-new-world-ranking-system?id=89970
 
it looks better than the current ranking

that was the "merit standing winners" what they used for the Olympic quota .
 
in most weights it was the same as 2019 GS final winner, simply because 2019 version has more points than previous editions. but for example Jang Jun didn't even participate this year, Walkden and Zhao also lost in the final. the other 5 athletes won the gold medal this weekend.

so what ? that was really a stupid and irrelevant comment,
 
what does that mean ? Iran do not want to win medal in women's sport ? and who's Iran btw ?
 
how many Muslim countries have the same number of medals won by men and women ? maybe just 1 or 2, probably even nobody. this is more a cultural thing. even before the "Islamic Revolution" Iran never had any kind of achievement in women's sports. all of female Olympians almost finished last in their competitions. nowadays it's different girls are more interested in sports, but still it will take years to make up for those years being far behind, and there are also some limitations in some sports because of the dress code.
 
and Iran is not a "person" to cares about anything. it's a country. most people in the country care but some do not care and even do not believe in equality. but things don't improve overnight. it takes time (Iran already has better women's team in some sports) and off course the current situation doesn't help. improving women's sport is not a priority right now in the country, there are million other priorities right now. that's a lengthy topic and I'm not going to write more for you.
 
and apparently human right is a relative thing, people talk about it only when it's in their benefit to do so,

so what ? that was really a stupid and irrelevant comment,
 
what does that mean ? Iran do not want to win medal in women's sport ? and who's Iran btw ?
 
how many Muslim countries have the same number of medals won by men and women ? maybe just 1 or 2, probably even nobody. this is more a cultural thing. even before the "Islamic Revolution" Iran never had any kind of achievement in women's sports. all of female Olympians almost finished last in their competitions. nowadays it's different girls are more interested in sports, but still it will take years to make up for those years being far behind, and there are also some limitations in some sports because of the dress code.
 
and Iran is not a "person" to cares about anything. it's a country. most people in the country care but some do not care and even do not believe in equality. but things don't improve overnight. it takes time (Iran already has better women's team in some sports) and off course the current situation doesn't help. improving women's sport is not a priority right now in the country, there are million other priorities right now. that's a lengthy topic and I'm not going to write more for you.
 
and apparently human right is a relative thing, people talk about it only when it's in their benefit to do so,