When only a controversial situation takes place at the table, referees start a discussion about… Almost anything which concerns Armwrestling. The conceptions that usually appear in such discussions are regarding what should be done to avoid such controversial situations. One of the very experienced referees said that his idea is to determine the fight’s result in the fight not regarding admonitions of fouls. “Let them show their strength!” Strength, endurance, tactics, technique are more valuable than so called “cunning” and luck letting the one to win without fighting by using opponent’s mistake.

One of the controversial situations is the elbow foul. It is hard to set the clear border. There is no beam as the one used in long jump. There is no clear line that sets touch. An elbow is an irregular “solid”. Crossing, getting out of the pad is hard determined. Skating an elbow foul at the professional tournaments of the highest rank is easier as referees have an opportunity to watch the whole situation as many times as they want to in the slow-motion. But at any other tournaments there is no such technique and what is done cannot be undone, the die is cast. When a competitor is sure he didn’t do an elbow foul nothing can console him, as he will be thinking he lost unfairly, and that’s all.

How to avoid it? Maybe modelling on the lines pained on roads, which utter in a specific way under the car wheels, which signal driver is in danger... That’s something that cannot be done yet. So referees are looking for alternative solutions.

During the World Championships 2011 in Kazakhstan, Leonid Harkles, the WAF Main Referee came to Igor Mazurenko – “Can you make such pads with a heightened edge? With such a border, which would let a competitor feel, that his elbow is almost falling off the pad. Do some of them and we’ll test them in Brazil.” – said Leonid. At the end of the 34^th World Championships the pads were ready and brought in Igor’s luggage.

Unfortunately, although the organizer of the competitions of the world championships rank is obligated to use table attested and approved by the WAF, the Brazilians made their own ones. They only looked like the official ones. The gaps in MAZURENKO EQUIPMENT tables are normalized and everything fits.

Here, on the spot it turned out that the pads made by Igor do not fit the tables. By the way the organizers’ tables broke down just after the first day and the competitors had rasped elbows because of the old pads. Did you see anything like that in Gdansk on EuroArms?

But let’s get back to the pads. They were unofficially tested during trainings and friendly matches. All the participants of the tries stated that, to make them really effective the edge should be about 10mm higher. Additionally to make it more comfortable for the competitors it should be more flexible.

Igor received these opinions but a doubt if a competitor being on the strength of excitement, at maximal pressure feels anything, appeared at once.

In spite of quite a big organizational chaos, it was possible to present the pads to the WAF Congress, and earlier at the EAF Congress. It was decided that as least some new pads should be ready for the next year’s European Championships (in Lithuania) and there they will be tried and tested in real fights.

Moreover every national Federation may obtain some new pads for tests.

On the other hand the EAF decided to assign 3 000 euro for the new equipment, which will let refereeing “using cameras”, so replaying and stopping at the Lithuanian championships, in every semi-final and final.

Only now everyone realized that the efficient use of the video cameras is useless when the pads would have the edge. As the video camera will not simply “see” if an elbow is falling off or not.

We have been analyzing it for long and there is just one conclusion, that the pads will be making difficult the recent achievement, so the possibility of replaying the fight frame by frame. Moreover there is a possibility that strong and mighty competitors may hurt themselves with the edge, rip it off or both.

It often happens that just like in an old proverb “let well alone”. How will it be this time with this novelty, so the pads with the edge?

The matter must be clearly determined. Maybe at the tournaments where the video cameras are not used they can be helpful for referees and competitors. It must be checked in real fights.

What’s your opinion? And maybe you have any suggestions? We are waiting for opinions form armwrestlers, referees, trainers and practitioners of our sport.

PeSzy