World Championship in Blagoevgrad is ready to accept 1200 athletes from 52 countries. WAF General Secretary, Mircea Simionescu-Simicel helped us to take stock of the last championship: "The competition gathered at the tables 1,100 participants. From about four athletes in the category of young men and juniors and 680 athletes in the category of seniors and masters. Total - 49 countries".

Mircea also shared important achievements of the official part – Congress: "During the congress we have considered and adopted a number of issues and changes: approval of the Grand master class for women (over 50 years old), Classification Code and clarification on the Disabled fees same as able athletes were some of the important issues with impact on future events."

WAF Head Referee Leonard Harkless shared with us the results of the referee team’s work: "With the juniors helping in staging and scanning we had 41 referees working the event.

With the new masters the number of masters was 19, 12 seniors and 10 juniors. I can’t estimate their work quality but I can say that the masters on the referee panel are some of the best in the world and that is why they are on the panel.

Our main aim now is getting enough master referees at the championship and we have been working hard to Get some of the Seniors up to that level. My goal is to have only masters refereeing at the world championship."

The quality of the referee can also be determined by the number of protests: this year it has been quite a bit of them, and the vast majority of them were rejected.

It is worth noting that the work of each team – administrative, judicial, media and technology – at the championship was well-coordinated and intensive. But athletes skills are progressing all the time, so WAF also need to work intensively about the organization, so we wish everyone involved in this important process have good inspiration