A lot of world stars, a lot of emitions and armwrestling on a high sports level, the organizers team domination – the Russian National Team, two silver medals (the first one won by Igor Mazurenko from Gdynia in masters +100kg right hand class, the second one by Grzegorz Nowak from Gdynia in 110kg left hand class) one brown medal (Natalia Kwiatkowska from Koszalin in junior upto 55kg left hand class) and the 8th place in the general classification for the Polish National Team. That is how we can shortly describe this year’s jubilee 20th European Armwrestling Championships that took place between the 1st and the 7th of June 2010 in the capital of Russia – Moscow. 

The place of the European arena was the sports jockey hall “Arena Mytischi”. Almost 400 best competitors from 22 European countries, therein: Belarus, Turkey, Ukraine, Poland, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Sweden, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Romania, Latwia, Finland, Check Republic, England, Switzerland, Germany, Croatia, Greece, Israel, Georgia and of course the host - Russia applied for the start. Poland was represented by 26 competitor - participants of the National Team selected during the 10th Polish Championships which took place at the beginning of 2010 in Gdynia. 

It is impossible to use warm words to describe the place of accommodation of all the competitors. “Klyazma Hotel” or maybe a guesthouse of a Russian standard that we May remember from Poland of the eighties, in the middle of the wood, far away from the centre turned to be the organizational failure. But we can say a lot of good things about the sports hall settled about 20km away from the accommodation place. Well prepared stage, sounding, lighting and ventilation, which is necessary for the large amount of people. The organization of the tournaments can also be included to the super league. I do not mention the organization with no reason as the Polish side was taking care of the whole registration and tournaments management procedure.

“During last few years we noticed that the European armwrestling tends to become the Real sports discipline. For the last few years the European Federation EAF has been lighting for the tournaments to take place in a sports hall, and such attributes as stage, set design, sounding, lighting, certificated tables are the standard for ever organizer. The last tournaments in Russia shown us all that the tournaments themselves are not just a hotel or different attractions but mainly the place of the tournaments and the level of management. Arena Mytischi lets us feel that we are at the real championships. So let’s hope I will be the same next years” – said Igor Mazurenko, the president of the FAP and vice president of the EAF.

But let’s go back to the most important case so the sports rivalry itself. On the first day of the tournaments (the 2nd of June) juniors, masters, grand masters and disabled rivalry for left hand took place. Whereas on the second day (the 3rd of June) the rivalry took place at the same weight and age classes but for right hand. The next days (the 4th and 5th of June) was devoted to seniors’ rivalry.

We came back to the country with 3 medals: Igor Mazurenko the silver one of masters, Grzegorz Nowak the silver one of seniors and Natalia Kwiatkowska the Brown of juniors. The rest of our National Team unfortunately did not managed to reach the podium. But a lot of finished the rivalry just behind the medal zone. Taking into consideration the fact that it was not our best lineup that went to Moscow, the result is satisfactory, even very satisfactory. For the next time we have shown that we should not be ignored. All our sportsmen fought at the tables as the real professionals. All of them showed their stuff. And that is what we would like to thank them for. This time only three European medals came to Poland. Previous results were as well better as worse. Let’s not forget that the best come to the European Championships. And we are among them – Polish armwrestlers!