For the first time the Russian championship among disabled athletes was held in the city of Sochi and many people have never been here. It was a pleasant surprise that the organization of this event was held at the highest level and most importantly, all the facilities of Sport Center “Yug Sport” met international standards and rules for competitions specifically for para-athletes.

We express our special thanks to the city administration and the leadership of the FGBU Sport Center “Yug Sport” for their support in organizing and holding the Russian championship, as well as the entire team of Russian Armwrestling Federation, led by its president Aleksandr Filimonov. The experience of the IWAS World Games which took place in 2015 in the same place was used.

This year, about 150 athletes were registered at the Russian Para-Armwrestling Championship, and it was a sign that our sport is developing and moving forward towards the cherished goal of recognizing armwrestling as a Paralympic sport.

According to the regulations, in addition to weighing and registration, the classification of new para-athletes was carried out, this procedure was led by the senior classifier of the Russian Federation of Sports for Persons with Physical Impairment Vadim Rabinovich.

And so, when all the formalities were met, two days of hot fights came.

In each category, the athletes tried to show that they came here only to win, there were a lot of interesting fights in each of the classes, this suggests that the level of participants is growing and healthy competition among athletes is felt. We can safely say that in this championship we saw a fusion of youth and experience, as quite newcomers and experienced athletes who are part of the elite of the world para-armwrestling took part in it.

It's worthy to note the coordinated work of the referee panel, which was headed by one of the most experienced refs of international level, the main referee Georgy Lobanov. Olesya Romanenko was the voice of the competition, thanks to her all the athletes received information about the course of their fights clearly and on time. The use of the electronic protocol system greatly facilitated the work of the secretaries, and on the whole made it possible to hold competitions quickly.

In the hot uncompromising struggle among juniors, the first team place was taken by the team of the Perm region, the second Moscow region, the third place was taken by the team from Tatarstan. Among senior athletes, the first team place was taken by the team from Dagestan, the second was the team of the Moscow region and closed the prize-winning team of the Tyumen region.

Summing up, we can say with confidence that the competition was successful, and Sochi for all of us has become a great new place where we will definitely return and will be able to enjoy its beauty, goodwill and the sports energy that has remained there after the Olympic Winter games.

MSMK Roman Sedykh.