It’s incredible for this letter to surface at this time. Before the letter was published I had a meeting with the president of Asian Armwrestling Federation, Dzheyenbek Mukambetov in our office in the Olympic committee, in order to discuss the future of the new federation. We also had a conference call with Igor Mazurenko and Vladimir Petrenko about weight categories.

I guarantee that no decisions about weight categories will be made without discussion on the forum. But the forum should consider the following:

• The number of weight categories in Paralympic judo: - 7 for men, 6 for women

• Doubling in number of categories for disabled men (4), because of introduction of ARM 1 and ARM 2 classifications.

• Necessary number of contestants in one weight category(6), both in European and World championships (for all CIS countries)

• Introduction of medical examinations (ARM1, ARM2) in order to eliminate the “pseudo-disabled”

The opposition to the idea of separate contests for disabled and non-disabled should consider the past experiences. Those experiences ensure us in our decision. What’s past is past, and it wasn’t so good. Often people met at the table who were physically disabled, but also those who were sight-impaired, deaf or with chronic heart disease. Stand-up fights were allowed with contestants sitting in wheelchairs. All that was absurd and thankfully now it will be over.

I agree with necessity for restrictions. Let’s set the limit at no more than 4 contestants in one category.

An important and complicated matter is weighing-in of people with amputations. We will discuss the matter with a group of Russian disabled sportspeople and will inform of the outcome.

We will post all vital information concerning the workings of the federation regularly on armpower.net.

Alexander Filimonov