Evgeniy Prudnik asked about equality of referee’s grip after his fight with Vitaly Laletin at the second stage of Top-8. The problem is often a sportsmen, who has long hand, has wrist advantage in the referee’s grip. We asked Zil Fadli, PAL Head Referee, about option to improve the process of gripping.

In my opinion current referee’s grip style has loophole in it. When I make a referee’s grip with the long arm and finger like Vitaly Laletin’s it’s not as easy as everyone think. It’s almost impossible to get fair referee grip while maintaining the thumb visibility.

We are working on some new style or improvement from the current referee grip style to suits everyone.

We had three hours discussion about it the night after the second stage.

There are few discussions:

1. to completely ignore the thumb knuckle visibility;
2. to add option for low and high grip on top of up and down thumb;
3. to impose compulsory strap during referee grip because in strap they can’t move much.

That’s just some idea but in Top-8 chances are we will have cases like Prudnik and Laletin again, so we must have solution for it, - commented Zil Fadli.

Armwrestling rules are made to regulate the process of pulling in the most gentle and fair way. Rules are strict while pulling but they must be agile in developing. Thanks to it we can expect even more participants and spectators in our sport!

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