The way of Betkili in arm-wrestling began quite usually, like many other athletes – he saw it, tried to pull and did it well:

"I was in the city of Tskhaltubo and there was an armwrestling tournament, I took part in it and took first place. Tskhaltubo is a famous resort town, which is located 10 km from Kutaisi, there were athletes who trained in Kutaisi, and I asked them where to find a gym for practicing this sport, how they train and so on. They told me, I came to the gym and since then and to this day I have been training there, Irakli Gamtenadze is training me".

On the way of Betkili there were many victories, but he considers the most important victory at the last European championship:

"My biggest victory is a victory at the European Championships held in Poland, where I took 3 medals, gold and bronze among youth and gold among seniors. I have many victories, but I never took 3 medals".

A distinctive feature of this athlete can be called that he can fight different techniques at a very good level, which he demonstrated. To achieve this result, he devotes much time to working at the table:

"In training I work with iron and at the table, but I prefer the table more. I spend a lot of time fighting, practicing technique and endurance at the table and trying different fighting styles. I train 5 days a week, to prepare for the competition I have enough three months of good training".

Betkili looks quite big for his weight class. For performance in the category of up to 75 kg, he has to lose a lot of weight:

"Now I weigh 85 kg, but when I was preparing for the European Championships, my weight reached 92 kg and from this weight I lose to 75 kg. It was difficult for me to make weight at the European Championships, and I did not have time to recover by the first day of the fight, but already when I fought among the seniors, I felt great. Therefore, I have already started to control my weight in preparation for the World championship".

Out of the abundance of spectacular fights, Betkili noted several of them:

"I want to mention an athlete from Latvia - Vladislavs Krasovskis, he was in good shape, and we met in the final both in the fight among juniors and seniors. I remember the duels of Khetag Dzitiev with David Samushia, Evgenii Prudnik with Sasho Andreev and Alan Makeev".

At the moment, Betkili and the coach are preparing for the World Championships in Hungary. Judging by the dedication of this athlete, he will be in even better shape, and he will be one of the contenders for gold among juniors and seniors:

"At the World Championships, I will pull in 75 kg in two age categories. Now we are with my coach in the process of preparing for the championship. My coach is my main sparring-partner, we are fighting with him until I fall. The coach says that I can win the World Championships youth and senior classes, he believes in me more than I do. Before Europe, he said that I would win senior class, and I won".

We wish Betkili and his coach productive preparation for the Worlds. We will follow this athlete and tell you about it. Write your comments and watch the news on armpower.net.