Olympic watch (2016 Rio news, qualifications, athletes)

[_Navid_]

whats the status on the super taekwondo woman of Iran? She won a WC but has bad ranking?

She missed the chance to qualify to the Olympics through ranking because she didn't participate in many tournaments to gather points. There will be Asian qualifications tournament in a month and the top 2 will qualify from there.
Since Japan, Korea and China will not be in that tournament due to already having 2 athletes qualified to Rio. She won't have a tough job qualifying. The only worry would be the athlete from Taipei who is ranked 4th in the world. I pray that they don't face off before the final!

[Ab-Gosht]

The only worry would be the athlete from Taipei who is ranked 4th in the world. I pray that they don't face off before the final!

wow thats like a semi in olympics just to qualify for it if they meet before finals

[IRAN300]

She missed the chance to qualify to the Olympics through ranking because she didn't participate in many tournaments to gather points. There will be Asian qualifications tournament in a month and the top 2 will qualify from there.
Since Japan, Korea and China will not be in that tournament due to already having 2 athletes qualified to Rio. She won't have a tough job qualifying. The only worry would be the athlete from Taipei who is ranked 4th in the world. I pray that they don't face off before the final!

Normally not, as they use the ranking to establish the draw and Kimia Alizadeh will be n°2 in this weight, but you never know. Anyway she already beat this girl from Taipei.
Also we will have Akram Khodabandeh in +67Kg as n°1, in a good day she can even win a medal in Rio.

[_Navid_]

wow thats like a semi in olympics just to qualify for it if they meet before finals

Yes. But since they are currently the 2 highest ranked participants if there is a fair draw they will placed in opposite sides of table to meet in the final.
Anyway Kimia has beaten the top ranked favorites of the weight like Jade Jones and the Croatian girl several times so I have faith in her.

[Irannn]

She missed the chance to qualify to the Olympics through ranking because she didn't participate in many tournaments to gather points. There will be Asian qualifications tournament in a month and the top 2 will qualify from there.
Since Japan, Korea and China will not be in that tournament due to already having 2 athletes qualified to Rio. She won't have a tough job qualifying. The only worry would be the athlete from Taipei who is ranked 4th in the world. I pray that they don't face off before the final!

The Taiwanese girl actually qualified for Rio through ranking but they gave up that spot probably to try her in 49kg. she is a world medalist in 53kg (non-Olympic weight) and probably cutting 4kg to make 49kg was a better idea for her.

but there is a former world champion from Thailand in her weight, but even if she participates she won't be in the same side as Kimia, they use World Ranking for the draw, Kimia as top seed won't face seed 2 and 3 before the final.

btw, you know why she didn't participate in many tournaments ? simply because she could not participate in senior events before 2015. (she was 16) so she has only one year to collect points while her opponents did that for 3-4 years.

both Kimia and Khodabandeh will be heavy favorite to qualify in Asia, in Khodabandeh case I think we won't have more than 5-6 athletes in Asia (as heaviest weight) she will have a bye in first round and probably one win in semifinal will be enough for her. as for Kimia, she has to beat 2-3 athletes at least.

[Irannn]

Hi bro!
There is no way to qualify more than 2 in judo as no one is listed in top 100 in any other category (other than 81 and 100), plus Israel is high in the ranking in all of these weights which means the federation doesn't even bother himself sending guys in these category.
Also about Boxing, do you know which boxers will be send to Asians ? I mean we have 3 good guys in APB currently (Mohammadpour, Ghasemipour and most importantly Delavari), can we send them at this tournament ? Otherwise other guys are much weaker in their categories, and I don't see any of them qualifying except Mehrabi in 75. Plus it will be a big waste to not use Delavari, as he will never qualify from international tournaments.
Thanks for the update.

if both of those guys Mollaei and Mahjoub finish in top 22 (still possible but not very likely to happen) the next Iranian is Mohammad Mohammadi Barimanlou , he has 62pts while the Iraqi guy is qualified now with 87pts, getting 30 more extra points won't be hard at all. we will have Asian Championship at the end of the qualification period.

this APB thing was the stupidest idea ever, they all wasted their time and energy there, I agree that only Mehrabi has a realistic chance to qualify from Asia, (they also won't send Golara to Asia, he could have a slim chance)
I have the list but most of them are young and unknown. beside Mehrabi, I give a little chance to Dana Esmaeilpour at 60, and maybe (just maybe) Amjadian, but we also have slim chance in heavyweight (Majid Sepahvand) because the level in Asia is not that high, they have to finish in top 3 to qualify. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan already qualified 4 boxers each.

here is the team
Ahmadi 49, Navi 52, Amjadian 56, Esmaeilzadeh 60, Armashi 64, Kazemzadeh 69, Mehrabi 75, Hajabbadi 81 (I can't understand why they send a boxer in this weight we already qualified !), Gholami 91, Sepahvand +91

[IRAN300]

if both of those guys Mollaei and Mahjoub finish in top 22 (still possible but not very likely to happen) the next Iranian is Mohammad Mohammadi Barimanlou , he has 62pts while the Iraqi guy is qualified now with 87pts, getting 30 more extra points won't be hard at all. we will have Asian Championship at the end of the qualification period.

this APB thing was the stupidest idea ever, they all wasted their time and energy there, I agree that only Mehrabi has a realistic chance to qualify from Asia, (they also won't send Golara to Asia, he could have a slim chance)
I have the list but most of them are young and unknown. beside Mehrabi, I give a little chance to Dana Esmaeilpour at 60, and maybe (just maybe) Amjadian, but we also have slim chance in heavyweight (Majid Sepahvand) because the level in Asia is not that high, they have to finish in top 3 to qualify. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan already qualified 4 boxers each.

here is the team
Ahmadi 49, Navi 52, Amjadian 56, Esmaeilzadeh 60, Armashi 64, Kazemzadeh 69, Mehrabi 75, Hajabbadi 81 (I can't understand why they send a boxer in this weight we already qualified !), Gholami 91, Sepahvand +91

Thanks.
It is more possible to see both guys qualifying directly (50/50 in my opininon) than having another candidate in any other weight, simply because Israel is very high in the ranking of all remaining weights, even if the guy earns the spot (very small chance) he won't participate at OG like what happened to Mahjoub 4 years ago.

These guys in the Fed are really stupid. We could have easily qualified 2-3 more quotas in Boxing if we could have all our guys in regular AIBA competitions. Plus Mazaheri retired at a bad moment, he had a much more easier task to qualify this year but he is not on the race anymore.
The main problem is that they don't understand or even know anything about the format, few months ago they posted an interview of Delavari in the website in which he told it is way more easier to qualify from APB to Olympics ! They can't even understand that it is a nominal qualification system, and if Sepahvand qualifies first they won't refuse the quota and we will send our #2 in this weight at Rio !

[_Navid_]

The Taiwanese girl actually qualified for Rio through ranking but they gave up that spot probably to try her in 49kg. she is a world medalist in 53kg (non-Olympic weight) and probably cutting 4kg to make 49kg was a better idea for her.

but there is a former world champion from Thailand in her weight, but even if she participates she won't be in the same side as Kimia, they use World Ranking for the draw, Kimia as top seed won't face seed 2 and 3 before the final.

btw, you know why she didn't participate in many tournaments ? simply because she could not participate in senior events before 2015. (she was 16) so she has only one year to collect points while her opponents did that for 3-4 years.

both Kimia and Khodabandeh will be heavy favorite to qualify in Asia, in Khodabandeh case I think we won't have more than 5-6 athletes in Asia (as heaviest weight) she will have a bye in first round and probably one win in semifinal will be enough for her. as for Kimia, she has to beat 2-3 athletes at least.

Thanks for the info. That would make life much easier then for them.

Regarding the bold part, yes I know she wouldn't participate due to her age. I noticed this in 2014 Incheon when the koreans stopped her in the last minute from participating (probably out of fear but using age as an excuse). She could have gathered a lot of points there.

[IRAN300]

Fantastic performance by Javad Mahjoub on Dusseldorf Grand Prix today with a 3rd place, and a lot of points for the Olympic Ranking.
That's the video of all his matches:

3rd Round against Saidov (Tajikikistan)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6i2E8OoWfQ0

Quarterfinal against Bisultanov (Russia)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRD3z7KrmHM

Repechage against Grol (Netherlands)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bJw9OaKFUg

Bronze medal contest against Fonseca (Portugal)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf1LIeC03F

He lost unluckily against the Russian Judooka, otherwise he could have done even better.

[Irannn]

Saeid Abdevali is the first wrestler officially selected for Rio 2016.

IAWF took some important decisions about Greco trials

75, Adevali already selected. as he beat his opponents twice this year
85, 6 wrestlers will fight for the spot, Habib Akhlaghi, Mojtaba Karimfar, Davoud Akhbari, Davoud Abedinzadeh, Hosseni Nouri and Yousef Ghaderian
98, Ghasem Rezaei and Mehdi Aliyari will wrestle in a best of 3 format for the spot

for other 3 weights, they have to qualify the weight for Rio first, if they qualify, whoever wins the quota plus 1 or 2 challengers will go to an international tournament outside of Iran to decide the Olympic team member. even though I believe if Sourian wins the quota, they will send him to Rio no matter what. Noroozi has a little competition with Biabangard and Zeidavand while Babajanzadeh has to beat Mehdizadeh and Ghasemi-Monjazi.

[_Navid_]

First post updated with the many new qualifications we had in the last couple of months.

[IranPowned]

Can Sourian go to Rio?

[_Navid_]

Can Sourian go to Rio?

Yes. There is 90% chance that he will be there. He first needs the participate in the qualification tournament and then beat the 2nd best Iranian wrestler in his weight which won't be very tough.

[Irannn]

^^
Sourian will wrestle in Asian Qualification tournament in Kazakhstan in 20 days, as someone who follows Sourian for a long time, I have to say this tournament is probably tougher than Olympic itself for him. because Sourian always picks once a year. which means he won't go to Kazakhstan 100% ready and there some very dangerous wrestlers in Kazakhstan waiting for him. since only top 2 qualify in each weight I just hope Sourian avoids Tasmuradov (UZB) and Hasegawa (JPN) before the final. there is also a very dangerous South Korean wrestler as well. this Japanese guy Hasegawa beat Sourian twice before (2010 and 2012)

even if Sourian fails to qualify, there will be two more worldwide qualification tournaments but knowing Sourian, losing in Kazakhstan will destroy his confidence.

if Sourian wins the quota in Kazakhstan, I highly doubt they make him wrestle anybody in (or outside of) Iran. Abdevali's younger brother "Saman" is our #2 in this weight which is a very good wrestler but still far from Sourian.

Sourian, Norouzi, Babajanzadeh in Greco and Komeil Ghasemi in freestyle will be our representative in Asian Qualifiers in Kazakhstan. Ghasemi and Norouzi should win the quota as there is no world class wrestlers in their weights, for Babajanzadeh, there is one Kazakh wrestler better than him

[04041374]

Things are not looking good.
Head of IOC Kiumars Hashemi is upest about Sports Ministery's lack of support and is warning of another Beijing 2008.

http://90tv.ir/video/223987/%D8%B9%D...8C%DA%A9%DB%8C