Road to Olympics 2020 Tokyo

[Foolad Khuzestan]

Thanks Irann, It would be a miracle anyway if olympics happen, or maybe without spectators ?

[Irannn]

Thanks Irann, It would be a miracle anyway if olympics happen, or maybe without spectators ?

well that's a very good question, things look better in Japan and east Asian in general. it seems they managed to contain the virus or will do that soon.

let's just hope things get better in our country too and also the rest of the world soon when we get closer to the summer

Japanese organizers still believe they can do it, we better trust them for now.

[Irannn]

at the end of Asian/Oceania Boxing qualification tournament Iran qualified two boxers for Tokyo 2020.

Danial Shahbakhsh (57kg) and Shahin Mousavi (75kg) won their bouts and qualified. while Omid Ahmadi-Safa lost his match 3-2 controversially. to me and IOC commentators he was the better boxer but somehow got robbed. Ashkan Rezaei also lost his bout in the repechage as expected.

there will be one last chance qualifier worldwide but I don't think we can do anything there, so most probably we will have 2 boxers in Tokyo. still not a bad result considering low expectations. I believe Shahbakhsh is not hat far from an Olympic medal. he is just 19.

[Irannn]

There were two events left in WKF calendar before the deadline for the Olympic qualification in Karate, they replaced one of them by another event in Madrid in April and decided to cancel the 2020 European Championship in Baku, therefore they will count points from 2019 European Championships instead. WKF also said if Madrid can't host that event in April they will not replace it and the current ranking is final. considering current situation it's almost impossible to imagine Spain hosting anything anytime soon. so I can say 4 of our athletes are qualified for the Olympics.

Men's 75kg: Bahman Askari
Men's +75kg: Sajjad Ganjzadeh
Women's 55kg: Sara Bahmanyar
Women's +61kg: Hamideh Abbasali

but if somehow Spain hosts that event, Bahmanyar has to defend her 450pts advantage over her only rival from Austria, I can say she has a very good chance for that. Ganjzadeh also has to defend 550pts over his German opponent if he fails the quota will transfer to Zabihollah Poursheib which is very unlikely. but still that quota is guaranteed for Iran.

but this is a bad news for Rozita Alipour, despite being in 6th position she is just 300pts away from the qualification but this cancellation will kill her chance and beside that she is not 1st ranked Asian athlete anymore to grab the Asian quota later, some girl from China in another weight is. that means Rozita Alipour (Women's 61kg) plus Amir Mehdizadeh (Men's 67kg) and our Kata athletes will have to participate in last chance Olympic Qualification tournament in France to qualify. they need a top 3 finish. and it doesn't matter if they postpone the Olympics, the qualification will remain the same.

[Adesor Vafaseya]

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe Says 2020 Tokyo Olympics Will Go Ahead
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/...-will-go-ahead

[_Navid_]

There were two events left in WKF calendar before the deadline for the Olympic qualification in Karate, they replaced one of them by another event in Madrid in April and decided to cancel the 2020 European Championship in Baku, therefore they will count points from 2019 European Championships instead. WKF also said if Madrid can't host that event in April they will not replace it and the current ranking is final. considering current situation it's almost impossible to imagine Spain hosting anything anytime soon. so I can say 4 of our athletes are qualified for the Olympics.

Men's 75kg: Bahman Askari
Men's +75kg: Sajjad Ganjzadeh
Women's 55kg: Sara Bahmanyar
Women's +61kg: Hamideh Abbasali

but if somehow Spain hosts that event, Bahmanyar has to defend her 450pts advantage over her only rival from Austria, I can say she has a very good chance for that. Ganjzadeh also has to defend 550pts over his German opponent if he fails the quota will transfer to Zabihollah Poursheib which is very unlikely. but still that quota is guaranteed for Iran.

but this is a bad news for Rozita Alipour, despite being in 6th position she is just 300pts away from the qualification but this cancellation will kill her chance and beside that she is not 1st ranked Asian athlete anymore to grab the Asian quota later, some girl from China in another weight is. that means Rozita Alipour (Women's 61kg) plus Amir Mehdizadeh (Men's 67kg) and our Kata athletes will have to participate in last chance Olympic Qualification tournament in France to qualify. they need a top 3 finish. and it doesn't matter if they postpone the Olympics, the qualification will remain the same.

4 confirmed quotas is not bad at all, specially since they are our best 4 karate athletes. To be honest Alipour isn't an Olympic medal chance anyway in my eyes. And Mehdizadeh in his good day can easily finish top 3 in France.

[Irannn]

4 confirmed quotas is not bad at all, specially since they are our best 4 karate athletes. To be honest Alipour isn't an Olympic medal chance anyway in my eyes. And Mehdizadeh in his good day can easily finish top 3 in France.

I believe Alipour's chance is higher than Bahmanyar. Bahmanyar never competed at 55kg, even for an experienced athlete like Mehdizadeh it took a year for him to adopt to the new weight. Alipour always runs into that Chinese girl (World Rank 1) in most of K1 events. she won medal several times in K1 events before. she is surely a medal candidate, even though actually whoever qualifies for the Olympics in this sport will be a medal contender. there will be only 10 athletes in Tokyo in each weight.

nothing is guaranteed in Karate, there will be lots of competitors in France, maybe 100 in each event, if it was round robin yes for sure but in direct elimination format everything is possible. Mehdizadeh for example won gold in a K1 event but then lost in the first round a week later. I hope both him and Alipour qualify in France. beside that we also have a good chance in women's Kata in Fatemeh Sadeghi. I think men's Kata is the only event we have no realistic chance to qualify.

btw Alipour has a slim chance to qualify even if she fails in France, she is 2nd in line for the Asian quota, they will award continental quotas after the France tournament, if that Chinese girl at +61kg qualifies directly in France, the Asian quota most probably goes to Alipour but that's not something she can count on.

Iran Karate federation is not still sure about the cancellation of Madrid event, since they know they can't come back to Europe anytime soon, our team stayed in Europe (in Frankfurt, Germany) the whole time. some of them came back home today, but Bahmanyar, Alipour, Ganjzadeh and Poursheib are still in Germany, waiting for confirmations about the Madrid event, Hamideh Abbasali is also in Hannover Germany for her treatment.

[Irannn]

It's official now, WKF announced cancellation of Karate-1 event in Madrid

so those athletes I mentioned before are now officially qualified for Tokyo 2020.

Men's 75kg: Bahman Askari
Men's +75kg: Sajjad Ganjzadeh
Women's 55kg: Sara Bahmanyar
Women's +61kg: Hamideh Abbasali

[diz]

Japan's Abe insists Olympics will go ahead

Quite a lofty goal IMHO

https://www.yahoo.com/news/japans-ab...063722306.html

[Irannn]

update

The IOC has given itself a deadline of 4 more weeks to consider a postponement of Tokyo 2020. It held an Executive Board meeting today & ruled out a cancellation.

I think this is a sure thing they will postpone the Games which is the right decision. the question is for how long. I think Summer 2021 is probably the best possible date.

[Ab-Gosht]

impossible to not postpone. Just postpone it 12 months

[Nokhodi]

Summer 2021 is going to be packed with all sorts of sporting events (if this cursed Corona is crushed finally).

[Payam_Ali]

Seems to me like postponing the Olympics is great news for Sohrab Moradi

[_Navid_]

I was waiting for 4 years for these Olympics and now they want to postpone it.

[Adesor Vafaseya]

I was waiting for 4 years for these Olympics and now they want to postpone it.

Its for the better!
We don’t want our athletes to get infected, or our fans. That would be a bigger disaster.