The 10th Polish Armwrestling Championships which are going to take place on the 10th and 11th of April 2010 in sports – entertainment hall GOSIR at 5/9 are Olimpijska Street in Gdynia, are coming. A round anniversary of the sports discipline which is armwrestling. It’s worth to look back at what happened 9 years ago during the 1st Polish Championships – the 30th – the 1st July 2001. We want to remind you that the first national armwrestling tournament was called the Polish Cup and took place in 2000 in Gdynia, too.

Polish Championships – a little bit of history...

The idea of organizing the 1st Polish Championships appeared in 2001. Why? Of course there were some arguments for that. First of all  popularization of the discipline in Poland. Second selection of the National Team of Polish Armwrestling Federation (Polskiej Federacji Armwrestlingu) – PFA (that is how the first institution gathering Polish armwrestlers, which was later changed into  FAP – Federation of Armwerstling Poland (Federację Armwrestling Polska) was called) for World Championships organized in Gdynia at the end of 2001.

troubles with selecting the National Team appeared in 2000, when Igor Mazurenko (the present President of Federation of Armwerstling Poland) was for the first time organizing in our country (in Tornado club) European Championships. Then. although Poland was already the host of the European Championships the Polish team consisted of only 11 people.

At the 1st Polish Championships 40 competitors took part. As  befits the Polish Championships it lasted two days (on the first day the left hand rivalry and on the second day the right had rivalry took place). The rivalry contained men and women seniors, masters and disabled classes. Of course there were quite lots of weight classes, but because of the small number of the competitors some of them were joined.

The championships were the event accompanied Strong Man rivalry (the World Couples Cup) which was quit medial at the time and unfortunately obscured the national armwrestling rivalry. The venture which were the 1st Polish Championships was not such a medial success (not only media and fans were more interested in Strong Man but also the Polish Championships were organized outdoor – a concert bowl near the Music Theatre in Gdynia). However they have for sure left a trail in the history of the Polish Armwrestling. A fortiori that such competitors as  Artur Głowiński from Choszczno, Zbyszek Chmielewski from Piaseczno, Piotr Kajstura from Jastrzębie, Janusz Piechowski from Gdynia or  Dariusz Gabrynowicz from Lębork took part at the 1st Polish Championships.


A curiosity is a fact that although the number of competitors at the 1st Polish Championships was quite small, the National Team at the World Championships, organized in the same year in Gdynia, consisted of 42 participants (the additional qualification was the 2nd Polish Cup – Gdynia 2001). Not bad, isn’t it?

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