The host’s crew, under the President of the FAP Igora Mazurenko’s command prepared a snazzy opening ceremony of the 22nd European Championships. Perfect light effects, giant stage, screens where all the details could be seen, great sound and directory of the whole event! You can say, that it’s not done to pride yourself, but I’m just writing that it was the best opening ceremony in the whole history of Armwrestling!

The wholeness was added a splendor by the show of a young fitness competitor under the charge of the Champion - Aleksandra Kobielak. Their show made the biggest armwrestling fans to wonder if they could change the discipline!

The first day, the first medals. 

Euro Arm 2012 Gdansk, Poland

On the first ‘starting’ day of the championships (Wednesday, the 16th May) the youngest, the oldest and disabled were fighting in their weight classes. All together 48 sets of medals were handled.

Russia got 25 golden disks;

Turkey ‘only’ 4 golden medals, but the Turkish team was the best remembered by the audience. The general, choral perforation of the anthem was a great experience for everyone gathered in the AWFiS hall. Those who stood on the podium under the Turkish flag couldn’t hide their tears.

The German team had 3 players on the first place. The Swedes got 4 medals of the most important colour.

Then two medals got the competitors form: Ukraine, Belarus and Azerbaijan. One golden medal were won by: we- the hosts, Slovakia, Latvia, Georgia and Italy.

The announcement of the boss of the Russian armwrestlers, that each of them will come back home with a medal after the first day turned to be a little over the top. Among 48 decorations were 10 where on the podium was none of the Russian players. In seven classes the Russian had double score, occupying two podium places.

In case of silver medals, most of the got the Russians (12). 8 went to Turkey and 7 to Sweden. The Turks and the Russians ranked ‘bronze’ ten times.

The above ‘statistics’ is of course not an official protocol of the tournaments – I just want to show the fans a brief picture of the first day rivalry, on the left arm.