On the 8th if March the international Women Tournament, in which 3 female representatives of each country took part, took place at our north neighbors, and namely in Sweden. Apart from the hosts also Lithuania, Latvia and Russia together as the one team took part.

The tournament called ‘World Challenge Best of the Best’ was meant to select the strongest country, which world of armwrestling is represented by the women. But it’s not all, as there was also an individual tournament, as there was one woman - Best of the Best, selected from four of the strongest women, who won the title of the ‘Best Armwrestler of the World’.

Sweden was represented by:

Fia Reisek

Heidi Andersson

Sarah Backman

And that’s what Heidi Andersson said about the struggles of her team :

The Swedish team was something surprising - World Challenge, which took place in Skellefteĺ on the 8th of March, the International Women’s Day. The team composed of Heidi Andersson, Ludo Reisek i Sarah Backman. We were the most tuned team, which was as durable as tacitly and technically strong, said Heidi Andersson.

In Skellefteĺ Kraft World Challenge everyone met everyone. Each team got a point after a winning duel of the team representative. Each fight was decided in “the best of three” style. When the best teams in the world were crowned, the best four were fighting for the title.

At the beginning it did not look good for the Swedish team.

After the first round, they were far behind the East team, but consecutively climbing to the top, after the final third round, it was clear that the Swedish team won the most of the duels. Namely – 30.

The East team ranked second. It was composed of two Russian women and one Latvian, who won 27 fights. The Lithuanian tem got 24 poinst of which 18 were got by Egle Vaitkuté.

Personally I am very pleased with my contribution. We have never won with the Russians before, so it was a huge step forward, says Heidi Andersson, who got nine points.

It made her get a place in individual finale, where also Sarah Backman was qualified with 13 wins.

The individual scores looked as follows:

1. Egle Vaitkuté "the Best Armwrestler in the World"

2. Irina Gladkaya

3. Sarah Backman

4. Heidi Andersson

Heidi Anderson was really happy of the event and hopes the tournament to become an annual event.

We will now conduct the evaluation and statistics of the tournament. It was the first time, we played team at the World Challenge and I guess we did great. This tournament is the fight for equality and it’s a sign that nothing is impossible – Heidi finished.

I think it would be nice to see also our Representatives at the tournament, which should make not only Women but also Men interested, as what can more beautiful that Women’s struggles for the title of the Best one on their Day…

Blazej Kuzniar