Road to Olympics 2020 Tokyo

[Irannn]

Sepas
Obviously the quarterfinal match will be essential.
One other (pessimistic) scenario for Mirhashem is to get the quota at the Asian Qualifier, in case Mardani doesn’t finish in top 6, which looks pretty likely. Even though anything is possible with that guy.

They announced the November ranking. if all of those guys show up. Mirhashem will face Denisenko first and then the winner of Zhao and Ketbi (Belgium) he beat Zhao before but Zhao won the recent GP. it will be very hard considering it will be a do or die match for Mirhashem. while for Zhao it's just for ranking points and the money prize. Ahmadi also will face Achab (Belgium) in the first round (beat Achab in Bulgaria GP) and by eliminating him can do Mirhashem a favor.

and based on the new rnaking. my calculation was right. none of those guys can add anything to their score before the final GP except AbuGhaush of Jordan he got only 30pts from minor events, 10more is possible for him but I doubt he tries that. he was injured recently and didn't participate in the Bulgarian GP. I predict he will focus on the final GP. but if he gets those extra 10pts. it will be even harder for Hosseini. still a silver medal will be enough in any scenario.

of course he can qualify in the Asian qualifier, but if Mardani qualifies through the Grand Slam, Iran is not going to reject his quota (which is the right decision) and hosseini will miss the Olympics. and Asian qualifier won't be very easy, even though as seeded athlete Hosseini won't face that Taiwanese guy (who is also very good) before the final. right now I don't know any other dangerous athelete in this weight, but then this Jordanian guy AbuGhaush was unknown before the Rio 2016, he came through the Asian Qualifier and won the gold in Rio. There are some good young athletes out there don't participate in GPs because of their ranking.

[Irannn]

and here is ranking for those two other weights. not really important but since I did the calculating. let's take a look

58kg:
1. KOR 455.70
2. ESP 354.23
3. IRN 328.05
4. RUS 317.98
5. ITA 286.31
6. IRL 233.12

as you can see the 6th guy is more than 80pts behind Hadipour. that's the max points available in GP final. Hadipour is qualified even mathematically

+80kg:
1. RUS 580.80
2. KOR 422.65
3. NIG 271.41
4. GER 267.55
5. GBR 265.36
6. SLO 262.48
7. KAZ 225.67
8. BRA 222.65
9. AZE 216.35
10. IRN 212.84
There are some other guys close to Mardani but they don't matter because after all only the gold medal and 80pts will be enough for him. even 48pts for the 2nd place won't take him to top 6. but Mardani didn't fulfill his minor event points yet. they still can send him to more mminor events to grab something like 20 more points. but considering he is injured and out of shape. it's better for him to rest and get ready for those events in December. but they are thinking about sending him to another event in Croatia in few days. maybe if he collects those 20 extra points. even a silver qualifies him for Tokyo but most probably only gold will be enough.

but as you know Mardani still has a good chance in Grand Slam where he only has to rank higher than the Korean guy In Kyo-Don to qualify. that will be after this one. so if Hosseini fails to qualify here I will cheer against Mardani unfortunately.

right now it looks unlikely scenario but I still hope all 3 of them qualify.

[Irannn]

Another news, I also wrote about women's 3x3 basketball and how our federation is collecting points by having internal competitions day by day. but that wasn't enough at the end. why ? because other countries knew that rule too and at the end Mongolia qualified instead of Iran (Mongolia is even weaker than Iran in women's basketball) it turned to be a scandal at the end and FIBA had to make the ranking invisible in past couple of weeks. to cover their mess with this stupid qualification system.

but Iran is now qualified for the Olympics qualification tournaments. for both of them. in first tournament there will be 20 teams competing for 3 spots and in the last one . only 6 team for 1 quota. obviously there is no chance for Iran to qualify.

and since our federation only focused on the women's 3x3, our men's team didn't even qualify for those qualification tournament.
I'm somehow glad Iran didn't qualify this way, because I can guess when Olympic comes. the international media will focus on the issue and will mock Mongolia for qualifying this way. good we won't be in their place.

[Irannn]

The Asian Shooting Championships which is the last qualification event in Shooting started today, top 3 in each event qualify for the Olympics but since some Asian shooters are already qualified, it's very possible to qualify with lower ranks.

we won a quota today but we were very unlucky , it could be 3.

in 10m Air Rifle. Mahyar Sedaghat made it to the final and finished 7th, missed the quota. a 6th place finish was enough for him.

in 10m Air Pistol Women, Hanieh Rostamian finished 8th in the qualification and made it to the final. Golnoush Sebghatollahi finished 12th only and only 1pt behind Rostamian but that 1pt made a huge difference. Rostamian qualified as first (all 7 other shooters above her were already qualified) but Sebghatollahi became 4th and missed the quota by the narrowest possible margin.

Congrats to Rostamian, this is our 3rd quota in shooting. all of them won by girls. even though Rostamian qualified in this event but per rules she also can start in the other women's pistol event "25m Pistol"

there are still more events in next 6 days but these two were our favorites. still I'm hoping for more quotas in men and women 50m rifle 3 positions and Sebghatollahi also can try her chance in women's 25m pistol. + we still have men's 10m Air pistol.

we also participated in shotgun events but our chance doesn't look good there.

[_Navid_]

The Asian Shooting Championships which is the last qualification event in Shooting started today, top 3 in each event qualify for the Olympics but since some Asian shooters are already qualified, it's very possible to qualify with lower ranks.

we won a quota today but we were very unlucky , it could be 3.

in 10m Air Rifle. Mahyar Sedaghat made it to the final and finished 7th, missed the quota. a 6th place finish was enough for him.

in 10m Air Pistol Women, Hanieh Rostamian finished 8th in the qualification and made it to the final. Golnoush Sebghatollahi finished 12th only and only 1pt behind Rostamian but that 1pt made a huge difference. Rostamian qualified as first (all 7 other shooters above her were already qualified) but Sebghatollahi became 4th and missed the quota by the narrowest possible margin.

Congrats to Rostamian, this is our 3rd quota in shooting. all of them won by girls. even though Rostamian qualified in this event but per rules she also can start in the other women's pistol event "25m Pistol"

there are still more events in next 6 days but these two were our favorites. still I'm hoping for more quotas in men and women 50m rifle 3 positions and Sebghatollahi also can try her chance in women's 25m pistol. + we still have men's 10m Air pistol.

we also participated in shotgun events but our chance doesn't look good there.

Honestly I personally don't care much about getting quotas for Olympic events that we will just participate without any chance for a medal or even top 10 finish.
The only shooting event where we will have a medal chance would be women's 10m, and since Elahe Ahamdi won't be there I think Najme will be our only chance to medal there. I watched her competition in Rio and she had only one single very bad shot which prevented her from reaching the final. On her best day, even gold wouldn't be impossible for her.

[Irannn]

Honestly I personally don't care much about getting quotas for Olympic events that we will just participate without any chance for a medal or even top 10 finish.
The only shooting event where we will have a medal chance would be women's 10m, and since Elahe Ahamdi won't be there I think Najme will be our only chance to medal there. I watched her competition in Rio and she had only one single very bad shot which prevented her from reaching the final. On her best day, even gold wouldn't be impossible for her.

I care about all quotas because that helps developing that specific spot for the future. you can't jump from being a nobody to an Olympic medal. you have to improve step by step.

but in shooting I care more because anybody can medal in shooting. I mean it. this girl Hanieh Rostamian won a medal in one of World Cup events this year. World Cup has the same level as Olympics. (probably even higher). if she can medal there, she can medal everywhere. still it doesn't mean she is going to medal in Tokyo (she didn't' even medal here, she finished 7th) she will be one of the candidates and we will have lots of candidates, something like 30 in each event.

shooting is the most unpredictable sport, Khedmati finished 10th here today, but ironically her record was better than 3rd place finisher in men's event !!!! her record was good today but she was just unlucky some other shooters had a dream day.

so whoever qualifies will have a chance for medal. very slim chance but still possible. it's not like Rowing or Cycling where we know our chance of medal is 0 for sure.

and btw, quotas are for the NOCs and not the athletes, Iran can send anybody. they usually send whoever wins the quota but if they want to replace Ahmadi with anybody, they can do it. and beside that if I'm not wrong Ahmadi is here trying her chance for 50m rifle 3 positions event. she is not done yet.

[Irannn]

Another quota for Iran in shooting, this time in Women's 50m Rifle 3 Positions.

It was Elaheh Ahmadi's last chance to qualify but she narrowly missed it because of her terrible last round, instead the youngster Fatemeh Karamzadeh (20 years old) made it to the final and secured her Olympic place. Ahmadi missed the quota just by 1 point.

there is one chance left through "World Ranking" but since Iran already qualified 1 in this event, that's not possible for Iran, so Elaheh Ahmadi officially can't qualify for the Olympics. they still can send her because quota belongs to Iran and not to the athlete but that will be unfair for those young girls.

just for info, there are 2 women's rifle events in Tokyo, "10m Air Rifle" and "50m Rifle 3 positions" we had our maximum 2 quotas in Air Rifle (won by Khedmati and Sadeghian) and now we got another one in 50m, per rules one of those 2 girls can also start in this event too. but Karamzadeh can't participate in 10m Air Rifle because we already have 2 shooters.

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still 3 events left for Olympic quotas. all for men, Skeet, 50m Rifle 3 Positions and 10m Air Pistol. let's see if we can grab more quotas or we will finish with 4. we had 5 shooters in Rio 2016 which was our highest number.

[_Navid_]

I think Khedmati should also participate in 50m. She is pretty good at it and reached the final in Rio 2016.

[Irannn]

I think Khedmati should also participate in 50m. She is pretty good at it and reached the final in Rio 2016.

She was lucky in Rio because she finished her competition very early (as usual, she is always the first one finishing the competition) and the weather got bad and the remaining shooters (including Jambozorg) didn't perform well.

by saying that, she was also unlucky in her own event (Air Rifle) where she missed the final narrowly. I'm sure if it was up to her she would picked that final instead of 3 positions.

but she is improved in this event since then, even today she had the best result of the day with 1179, but since she already had the quota, our federation didn't register her for this event to give chance to 3 other shooters, Khedmati participated as MQS (that's for athletes who just participate to achieve the minimum qualification score which is necessary to participate at the OLY, Khedmati didn't need that just wanted to have a serious training) that score will be more than eoungh to put her in the Olympic final.
we are really good in women's rifle events but obviously right now Khedmati is our best shooter, you can't predict shooting but Khedmati is constantly good, let's just hope she will be at her best day in Tokyo. now she has two medal chances because she is good in both rifle events. I think that's almost a sure thing she is going to start in both events.

PS: because of US sanctions, Iran can't import bullets for training shooting. they only make bullets for "Air Rifle/Pistol" events inside the country. for other events most of the time they train with empty guns, this is amazing how they still can win quota in this event without even training properly.

[_Navid_]

Yeah it is really a pity they don't have enough bullets. They would have been even better if they had the necessary funding and training facilities.

[Irannn]

Another quota in shooting, Mahyar Sedaghat in 50m rifle 3 positions , he was close in air rifle but this time he made it by finishing 5th in the final.

With this he also can start in 10m air rifle event and most importantly Iran also can have a team in air rifle mixed team event , I expect alongside Najmeh Khedmati.

We had world junior champion Amir Mohammad Nekounam in this event too but he was very disappointing .

One more event left, 10m Air Pistol, we have a good chance with Foroughi and Pourhosseini. I hope at least one of them qualifies.

[Irannn]

and also quota in the final event, 10m Air Pistol by Javad Foroughi by winning the bronze medal (our only individual medal here), this is our 6th and final quota. there are two "pistol events" in Tokyo but unlike our other shooters Foroughi won't start in Rapid Fire Pistol event simply because that event doesn't exist in Iran and he doesn't have the MQS (minimum qualification score) to participate. but still he will team up with Hanieh Rostamian to participate in mixed 10m air pistol.
There is still one last way to qualify which is through the World Ranking and that's available only for 1 shooter per event, from what I see that's highly unlikely for Iran so we will have 6 shooters in Tokyo which is still a record number, our next best result was 5 in Rio.

beside Foroughi who is a grandpa to the rest of the team, the rest of our Olympic squad is very young. here is their name and age. but again keep in mind, Iran can replace any of these guys.

Javad Foroughi - 40
Mahyar Sedaghat - 23
Najmeh Khedmati - 23
Hanieh Rostamian - 21
Fatemeh Karamzadeh - 20
Armina Sadeghian - 17

There will be 15 shooting events in Tokyo, with this we are going to participate in 9 of them. we are not good in shotgun events and didn't qualify anything, so 5 shotgun events are out of reach, beside that we only don't participate in 25m Rapid Fire Pistol. here is the list of our events. of course we have some other options in women's Rifle events but I expect Khedmati to start in 3 events.

Men's 10m Air Pistol - Foroughi
Women's 10m Air Pistol - Rostamian
Women's 25m Pistol - Rostamian
Mixed 10m Air Pistol Team - Foroughi/Rostamian
Men's 10m Air Rifle - Sedaghat
Men's 50m Rifle 3 Positions - Sedaghat
Women's 10m Air Rifle - Khedmati and Sadeghian
Women's 50m Rifle 3 Positions - Khedmati and Karamzadeh
Mixed 10m Air Rifle Team - Khedmati/Sedaghat

[Payam_Ali]

Is anybody going to Tokyo for the Olympics? I’m considering it but the ticket process is confusing. It seems like you have to buy tickets for events generally, without knowing who is participating on that day. This makes it difficult bc I want to watch Iran, but I don’t want to get stuck watching judo, wrestling, or taekwondo for days where nobody from Iran is participating.

[Irannn]

Volleyball Olympic Qualification Tournament Draw

Group A: Iran, Chinese Taipei, China, Kazakhstan
Group B: Australia, South Korea, India, Qatar

top 2 from each group advance to the semifinal and only the winner goes to Tokyo.

Schedule:
7 January: Iran - Chinese Taipei
8 January: Iran - Kazakhstan
9 January: Iran - China

In middle of the European leagues, some of our key players will join the NT only few days before the competition, the scheduling is good for us, we can use the first 2 matches as preparation, we have to be fully prepared for the last two matches, SF and the final. there is no room for mistake.

[Nokhodi]

Volleyball Olympic Qualification Tournament Draw

Group A: Iran, Chinese Taipei, China, Kazakhstan
Group B: Australia, South Korea, India, Qatar

top 2 from each group advance to the semifinal and only the winner goes to Tokyo.

Schedule:
7 January: Iran - Chinese Taipei
8 January: Iran - Kazakhstan
9 January: Iran - China

In middle of the European leagues, some of our key players will join the NT only few days before the competition, the scheduling is good for us, we can use the first 2 matches as preparation, we have to be fully prepared for the last two matches, SF and the final. there is no room for mistake.

Let's hope our boys don't get complacent. Guys like Mahdavi and some of the veterans sometimes get arrogant and go on autocruise for these important games.