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A Word from The World Armwrestling Federation President Fred Roy

 

 

December 19th 2011

 

The 33rd World Armwrestling Federation championships are in the history books. It garnered attention of being one of the largest WAF tournaments in country attendance. As usual, when you get such large amount of people and different cultures together there are always little bumps in the road.

We are not sure how or when at this point but from the time that we departed Canada to go to Kazakshtan, to the time we arrived there, there had been a complete change in the organizing committee. The company and individuals we had been dealing with for the previous four months were no longer in the picture! Even the hotels we were booked at were no longer part of the deal. Nonetheless upon our arrival our gracious hosts picked us up and whisked us off ( if 10 people or more with all the WAF gear can be whisked away) to our new main hotel. We asked where the contacts were that we had been dealing with. We didn’t get a direct answer but from what I could make out the Sport Ministry people became directly involved with the championships and out went the promotion company. Now we were in scramble mode. We met with the Sport Ministry people who were also very super and nice people. We surveyed the venue and world class electronics in the control rooms, the stage layout and holding pens for the athletes, registration, weigh-in, meeting and WAF staff rooms. We again relayed what we needed and wanted in order to do our job and we made a list of other requirements.  Our host and super gentleman, Mr. Mukahamedolla Agzamov, who incidentally turned 60 during the championships and hosted a super birthday party, went to work finding us all the required items that had previously been negotiated by our head scorekeeper and WAF staff organizer, Ms. Lise Blanchard.

The whole reason of this pre-amble is to serve two purposes, one, it is to show our readers that the WAF staff does not arrive as a vacation crowd as our critics try to make people believe and that we were doing the work again that had been previously done. Two, our hosts, Sports Ministry people and WAF staff did a very good job in doing in a few days and hours what usually takes months to prepare. So if there were a few glitches along the way I would look at the positives of this as opposed to the negatives as the critics always do.

Kazakshtan is a very beautiful country with gracious, beautiful and friendly people. Almaty, settled in the foothills of the mountain range is home to some two million people, filled with great history, universities, shopping and restaurants. It played out as a great host city for the championship. We thank the hosts and Sports Ministry for all their help and efforts to host a successful championship.

The future of WAF continues to grow and there are always many logistics to handle. The next three world championships are as follows: 2012, Brazil; 2013, Poland and 2014, Lithuania. We continue to get all relevant information from our member countries so that we can apply to the Sports Accord. There are still many hurdles to overcome as we go along this path. We did live streaming this year and will continue to do so, using this to try and increase some WAF revenue along with our virtual online merchandizing store. We are also discussing using the camera ability to help the referees in handling protests and we are looking at some changes to equipment design to facilitate and compliment the super job that our referees are doing. At the request of some of the Board Members we are also looking at some changes in how the points are counted which we hope to have in place for next year’s championships in Brazil. Next year is also election year for WAF, all the continental bodies and Referee-in-Chief.

 

The championships in Kazakshtan were a great success no matter how you measure it. I send out a personal big thank you and Season’s Greetings to the WAF staff and Board Members, member countries and athletes, this year’s hosts, Mr. Mukahamedolla Agzamov, Mr. Vladimir Drexler and the Kazakshtan Sports Ministry. It was a great pleasure and privilege to have worked with you at this year’s championships.

 

Yours in armwrestling,

Fred Roy

WAF President

 

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