Speaking to sportsmen, the Federation President Alexander A. Filimonov focused on several key points.

"First of all, here for the first time there are no healthy athletes - they were eliminated according to the rules. This World Championship is completely yours.

Secondly, now we have a classification of athletes with disabilities. In our sport it wasn’t applied, and now we are seeing the results of the first attempt. This process is obligatory because without it we have no chance to get into the Paralympic family. Guzel Idrisova, a classifier, who has a certificate of the International Paralympic Committee, is working with us today. Guzel explained us all necessary codes and procedures and perfectly joined our team.

It is also worth noting that at this event, we are settled very comfortably, there is no need to run anywhere and everything is near by.

Оnce we feared to separate disabled athletes from healthy ones, but in vain. The chances of the World armwrestling Federation to join the Olympic family is very small. In addition, they have enough unsolved problems of their own for the years ahead. WAF for Disabled otherwise is going to the Paralympics.

In 2015 armwrestling is included to the program of the World games for amputee and wheelchair athletes IWAS. This organization, in fact, is where international Paralympic Committee appeared from. In these games will be six sports in total and one of them - armwrestling. We are invited to the Premier League. We will ask for weight categories update and adding athletes with cerebral palsy".

Alexander Filimonov noted that because of athletes’ participation in the World games, World Championship for Disabled 2015 will be held a little later than it was planned before.

"For some reason nobody paid much attention to disabled athletes at the World Championships before. Their competitions were conducted quickly to get as soon as possible to healthy athletes’ fights, - said Vice-President of the Federation Igor Mazurenko. - I think this is very unfair. Athlete with a disability doesn’t do less work, he doesn’t spend less money than healthy one. I am confident that through this competition we will be able to collect more and more athletes in the future."

Representatives of the Directorate discussed the importance of discipline during the competition. The organizers always have some losses for some teams do not fulfill the terms of the agreements. Such teams will not be allowed to compete.

Photo: Marcin Koszałka

AK