Olympic watch (2016 Rio news, qualifications, athletes)

[Payam_Ali]

Sohrab Moradi (94kg) is lifting tomorrow at the Pan Ams in Colombia. He got special permission by the IWF to compete because he needs two meets to qualify for Rio. He is in the "A" session but who knows if he will actually lift. All he technically needs to do is to weigh in to satisfy the requirement. My guess is he just does 1 snatch and 1 c/j like he did last week at the Fajr Cup. Also, since he is a special invite, it would be weird for him to steal the show since the Pan Ams is not that competitive. Here he is hitting 185kg snatch in the training hall (https://www.instagram.com/p/BGXvq9QC...en-by=atginsta). The current WR is 188. He will be a gold medal favorite in Rio.

[persianbruin]

We had a decent chance to qualify in Football, Basketball and Handball.
Basketball is still on the table, but we failed to qualify directly. Now we need to beat very hard teams in order to make it, which I don't think we will.
China blocked us from making it to the olympics in basketball.
Qatar blocked us from making it in handball.
Japan blocked us from making it in football.
We were constantly one step away from qualifying in these 3 team sports...
With a bit of luck, we would have had over 100 athletes in the olympics for the first time in history. Oh well. Maybe next time.

The boys have to beat Italy in Italy!!! Not gonna happen. I'm talkin about basketball

[IRAN300]

The boys have to beat Italy in Italy!!! Not gonna happen. I'm talkin about basketball

Plus Greece, Croatia ... even Mexico.
Anyway it won't be our first team anyway,

[persianbruin]

Plus Greece, Croatia ... even Mexico.
Anyway it won't be oir first team anyway,

it is our first team. The ones not there are considered old and slow.

[IRAN300]

it is our first team. The ones not there are considered old and slow.

It may be true for most of them but Samad is still good, he was the only one who could score against China last year with Hamed. But he will become too old sooner or later so we have to bring new players, for exemple the likes of Allahverdi, Sedighi and Yousefvand for Kamrani, Samad and Hamed.
Do you know if Kazemi will be allowed to leave the country and play in the OQT ? It seems that the coach want to use him as post 3 player.

[persianbruin]

It may be true for most of them but Samad is still good, he was the only one who could score against China last year with Hamed. But he will become too old sooner or later so we have to bring new players, for exemple the likes of Allahverdi, Sedighi and Yousefvand for Kamrani, Samad and Hamed.
Do you know if Kazemi will be allowed to leave the country and play in the OQT ? It seems that the coach want to use him as post 3 player.

-samad was a liability on defense and his offense has diminished. As far as team Melli is concerned he is done.
- Arsalan has been out of Iran for three weeks with team Melli already. They won a tournament in Jordan by winning all their games against Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and host Jordan. Then they went to the philipines and lost to them. They went to china last week for the atlas cup. Their first game was against Macedonia that finished a few hours ago. I talked to him right after the game and he thinks he played mediocre but the coach thinks he was outstanding.
Baurman really loves him and pushed hard to have him on team Melli.

[IRAN300]

-samad was a liability on defense and his offense has diminished. As far as team Melli is concerned he is done.
- Arsalan has been out of Iran for three weeks with team Melli already. They won a tournament in Jordan by winning all their games against Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and host Jordan. Then they went to the philipines and lost to them. They went to china last week for the atlas cup. Their first game was against Macedonia that finished a few hours ago. I talked to him right after the game and he thinks he played mediocre but the coach thinks he was outstanding.
Baurman really loves him and pushed hard to have him on team Melli.

Thanks.
I followed their results but as I couldn't find any player score for these matches I wasn't sure about who was on the team exactly. However it seems Arsalan has been injured against Lebanon on his back and has just restarted his trainings. Let's hope the team shines there.
The starting five today was: Yakhchali, Jamshidi, Kazemi, Sahakian, Haddadi. Very tall squad except on post 4.

[babak_iran]

Iran basketball team will only see the 2016 Olympics in their sleep. They blew their chance in the Asian championship vs. China

[persianbruin]

Iran basketball team will only see the 2016 Olympics in their sleep. They blew their chance in the Asian championship vs. China

i don't think anyone including them expects them to get there but you still play the game. As for the Asian championship, if only they had Arsalan.messed up federation

[Irannn]

IWF finally announced the list of 10 doped weightlifters in London 2012, no Iranian here ! interestingly the legendary Ilya Ilyin is here and most probably will miss Rio because of that !

on other note, Apti Aukhadov who finished 2nd in 85kg above Kianoush Rostami also tested positive which means Rostami probably will be upgraded from Bronze to Silver
after Ilyin's disqualification, Saeid Mohammadpour will be upgraded on 4th place. unlucky kid.

[Nokhodi]

Thanks.
I followed their results but as I couldn't find any player score for these matches I wasn't sure about who was on the team exactly. However it seems Arsalan has been injured against Lebanon on his back and has just restarted his trainings. Let's hope the team shines there.
The starting five today was: Yakhchali, Jamshidi, Kazemi, Sahakian, Haddadi. Very tall squad except on post 4.

Iran just beat Lithuania now as well.

[IRAN300]

Iran just beat Lithuania now as well.

Yes I've just seen it, with the same starting 5.
I ask myself which Lithuania it was, probably not A team.

Edit ................

I checked and it is a team componed by Lithuania league players, something between their B and C team, closer to the latter one but still great performance by our guys with an experimental team with a player which had not played for a year.

[persianbruin]

Yes I've just seen it, with the same starting 5.
I ask myself which Lithuania it was, probably not A team.

Edit ................

I checked and it is a team componed by Lithuania league players, something between their B and C team, closer to the latter one but still great performance by our guys with an experimental team with a player which had not played for a year.

i heard the American team they beat yesterday was more like university of Idaho!! 😂😂

[IRAN300]

i heard the American team they beat yesterday was more like university of Idaho!! 😂😂

It was indeed, Idaho Vandals.
But this is not the first time we meet this kind of teams from USA, as far as I remember there is always one team like this (or even worse, like bunch of Americans playing in various low level leagues) at William Jones Cup.
China team is also B team.
But at least our team will have some decent opposition before the OQT.

[Irannn]

Mohammad Arzandeh won quota #60 for Iran in athletics, Long Jump. with one more quota in Swimming via wild card. I think we will send 61 athletes to Rio.

we still have slim chances in athletics and Boxing to qualify 1-2 more but I highly doubt it.