Interview with Ali Reza Dabir, head of Iran Wrestling Federation

[irani 654]

https://www.khabarvarzeshi.com/fa/news/257395/دبیر-حالا-می-فهمم-حق-با-کی-روش-بود

here is my translation of the parts I thought were interesting

On the selection process he said "I know what I am doing when an give an order.  Read the orders I gave to the head coach, technical director, Institute, etc, and I will not allow anyone to interfere in other areas.  From day 1 I ask the Institute to set up the process for selecting the national team.  I did not ask the head coach or someone else.

On the subject of the selection process he said :  two months before I joined the federation, I discussed the selection process with my colleagues.  I asked Sourian, kaven and others to share their opinions, but despite all the respect that I have for them, I asked the Institute to make a decision.  We must not take make the process so rigid that we cannot do anything with it, and keep on adding amendments as we did in previous years.

He added, in this process it's specified how medal winners will enter the selection competition, and those who don't have any medals know what they have to do,  I myself, when I wrestled would compete in selection matches or wrestled in the Takhti Cup, and then go to the world cup.  Some people did not compete in the selection process and there was nothing you could do. Hassan Yazdani wrestled in the summer in the world championship, we can't just leave him alone and 9 months and then just say come wrestle.   The selection process results in monitoring of the wrestlers.  In this process a wrestler does not earn his spot on the team with just one win, he must be in good condition for 6 months.

He continued: The design of the selection process has started, many say it cannot be done, but we will do our job.  Don't wrestlers in Russia and US earn their spot on the team by competing?  I told Ghassempour thank god you are in Hassan Yazdani's weight, because if you win, you can be the world champion,.  Hassan Yazdani must also defeat his domestic rivals in order to compete internationally.  This is a process that will be designed and executed.  It's not like Hassan Yazdani will just be given the national team spot.  They used to constantly send me to competition so I would lose but I kept on winning.  It's expensive to compete internationally, but it's a necessary part of selecting the national team. We considered the three cases of Medalist, non medalist, and non qualifier and each will know how they have to participate in the selection process.  I am against the head of federation choosing the wrestlers, and this will not happen.

He pointed out last year we had under 45,000 insured wrestlers, and in addition we have about 2 or 3 thousand ranked cadet and senior wrestlers, while in the past we had 1 million 600 wrestlers in the country.  The number of wrestlers in the country has dropped substantially, and we must find a serious remedy to this

On the subject of quarantine, he said I am not a fan long camps,  If Sourian wasn't always in camp the Babak Club would have never closed.  When i wrestled, when i went to different club, many people would to wrestle me and that motivated them .  When the Olympics are delayed by 15 months, it's too early to have a national selection camp under these conditions.

On the subject of the high budget of wrestling camps, he said the GR national team alone at the senior level has a budget of about $900 for their food.  That does not include utilities and other expenses.  The entire federation budget is 

 

 

Edited May 3, 2020 by irani

[quanon 161]

5 hours ago, irani said:

He pointed out last year we had under 45,000 insured wrestlers, and in addition we have about 2 or 3 thousand ranked cadet and senior wrestlers, while in the past we had 1 million 600 wrestlers in the country.  The number of wrestlers in the country has dropped substantially, and we must solve a serious remedy to this

The number of wrestlers in Iran has dropped from 1,600,000 to 45,000?  Can that be right?

[wrestfan 613]

2 hours ago, quanon said:

The number of wrestlers in Iran has dropped from 1,600,000 to 45,000?  Can that be right?

not exactly, you can't compare those numbers, the new one is the number of insured wrestlers, while the other number is just an estimate (which he says he heard from someone else) for the total numbers of wrestlers from years ago.

this is correct the number has dropped big time but not like that.