Lion Cup - Fitmax Challenge 2013

Saturday, 22 June, 2013, Lviv.

It’s 13.15.

Twenty competitors in the 78 kg category, left arm, entered the stage.

Among them were national and world champions. They are young and experienced.

One of them is Oleh Zohk. Judging by his appearance, he’s the youngest.

While the matches began, it’s obvious to everyone that Oleh would win this category.

Many competitors simply gave up.  

Eventually Valery Tchaika came in second with Roman Rudnicki taking third place.

Oleh won each match in next to no time. He hardly needed to break sweat to reach the final. No one stood a chance to beat him as he was unstoppable on that day.

Then the time came for matches in the +95 kg class.

There were nine competitors, including Andrey Pushkar, Oleksey Semerenko, Mamet Rasim.

Andrey Pushkar acted as a ruthless leader who didn’t give anyone a chance to win any match. He fought without much effort. While some competitors tried to attack him, the others just gave up their matches. It turned out that ”Sem” was not able to defeat his former rival. Let’s not forget that it was after his victory over Oleksey that Andrey’s career took off.   

Pushkar won each match with an apologetic smile on his face.

”Sem” and Mamet Rasim considered themselves the only worthy opponents.

The rest could only dream about taking fourth or fifth places.

As the matches in this category were over, it was time for the „absolute” class – the highlight of the event.

Only fourteen athletes decided to compete in this category.

And again Andrey was unstoppable. He defeated Oleksey once again.

In the middle of eliminations ”Sem” confronted Oleh. The fight was tough from the very beginning. But, as Igor Mazurenko said, “You could see failure in Olexey’s eyes”.

And then to everyone’s surprise, Oleh won against a much older and heavier opponent (Oleh’s rival was 36 kg heavier than he)!

Both of them were unstoppable winning all their matches (excluding Pushkar).

The semi-final…

After a short match Oleh pulled off a victory.

Would he defeat Pushkar in the final?

Did any fan expect such a possibility?

Not really. The match lasted a fraction of a second as Andrey pinned his opponent’s hand to the pad in next to no time.

It’s really worth taking a look at the results to see who was defeated by Andrey, Oleh and Oleksey.

Oleh was very happy! But only few people were around him to share his joy …

”Sem” was sad. But he’s an experienced athlete who knows what it’s like to win and lose.

Andrey was calm.

„What happened? Why? How come?” – these questions were asked after Semerenko’s losses.

Let’s sum it up.

I approached Igor Mazurenko and asked him about his opinion.

Igor: Semerenko told me: ”Igor, I used all the handles produced by Mazurenko Equipment while training! But no one has designed and produced a handle that would be similar to Oleh’s hand!” ”Sem” also told me that he had no idea as to how to defeat his rival. The thing is that Oleh has an unnatural predisposition to practise armwrestling, because of the way his forearms are built. For the time being it’s impossible to beat Oleh…   There’s no way to do it… Maybe if someone designed a robot with some unnatural skills, it could be done…

Igor, maybe in this particular case, the results of the matches with both arms should be taken into account?

Igor: No! We cannot discredit an athlete who has such unnatural skills. After all, there are many marathoners who has some extraordinary skills. Or athletes who has a natural predisposition to play football, or volleyball.

Did you expect this result?

Igor: I thought „Sem” would win the match. But, as it turned out, he’s not tough enough. You could see it during his match with Farad Usmanov, who was much stronger than Sem. And it’s worth mentioning that many fans wondered what would happen if Oleh were to confront Andrey. Pushkar laughed that he would do his best in the final. He said ”The kid (Oleh) is growing up and if he gains weight, he might be really dangerous, but he won’t beat me now!”

Thank you for the conversation.

Let’s put it this way: MAZURENKO EQUIPMENT has a task to complete. Namely, to design and produce a handle for those who want to beat Oleh Zohk. I wonder how they will deal with the copyright issue and how many people would buy this piece of equipment.

PeSzy