Two of Iran’s top weightlifters’ hopes for qualifying for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games are looking very bleak.
According to an Instagram post from @weightlifting_me, and Weightlifting House first reporting, 2016 Rio Olympic gold medalist Kianoush Rostami (96kg) and 2017 Weightlifting World Championships silver medalist, Saeid Alihosseini (+109kg), have been left off Iran’s weightlifting team for an Olympic qualifying event in Switzerland taking place at the end of October.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B3DOj2DH87d/
Why is this a big deal? Well, both Rostami and Alihosseini need to compete at the 49th “Challenge 210” event in Switzerland at the end of the month (October 24th to October 27th) in order to meet the standards for the new International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) Olympic qualification system.
This new system requires athletes to compete at least once during the three six-month qualifying periods. This is the second qualifying period (May 2019 through October 2019.)
The 2019 IWF World Weightlifting Championships just wrapped up last week and Iran’s Ali Davoudi (+109kg ) and Mohsen Dadrasasl (+109kg) competed for Iran instead of Alihosseini. Rostami competed at Worlds, however he bombed out in the 96kg men’s competition.
So where we’re at now, neither Alihosseini nor Rostami will be able to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games if they do not compete at the end of this month. As of right now, they do not appear to be on the roster for Team Iran heading into “Challenge 210”. This has caused a bit of stir on Instagram and Reddit, with Alihosseini even posting his feelings about missing the game in a post on @weightlifting_me.
Check out the post below:
On Alihosseini’s personal Instagram page we have not seen any posts about this matter. Similarly, Rostami has also not shared anything about not making the team.
At the end of October, we will be concluding the second qualifying period and transitioning into the third and final period ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. It is getting more and more competitive as we get closer to the end of the qualifying periods, so we have a feeling this is really only the beginning of big names failing to qualify for the 2020 Olympics.
Featured image from @weightlifting_me Instagram page.
