Addressing the press conference, General Secretary of MAWA Dr Shrikant Warankar said, “Nagpur will be hosting the National Arm Wrestling and Para Arm Wrestling Tournament which will be held in sub-junior junior, youth senior and masters categories. Around 2000 players from Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra Manipur, Meghalaya Nihiraya, Nagaland, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal have registered themselves. The event will have 250 categories in which players will showcase their talent in their respective category. Apart from this 87 referees and 40 officials have been will be in city for this national meet.”
The tournament which will be witnessing more than 100 international and professional players will be inaugurated on June 7 at 10:30 am by President of Maharashtra Armwrestling Association Preeti Jhangiani.
“From this tournament teams for World Championship which will be taking place at Maldova in Europe and for Asia Cup which will be held in India in the month of November be selected,” said Warankar.
Talking about Maharashtra’s performance at the national level the squad he said, “ Maharashtra is performing well. In last national meet which was held in Mathura Maharashtra was successful in clinching 21 medals including 13 gold medals. This time we are hopeful that the number of medals will increase in Nagpur. In this squad big players like Dara Singh Handa of Nagpur, who was crowned champion of champions in the earlier tournament, Tohit Sheikh from Aurangabad will be seen in action. In the team of 108 players 45 players are of Nagpur and we expect a good performance from our players.”
Girish Pandav, Mudhoji Bhosale, Kishor Bagde, Sachin Madhane, Praveen Manavatkar, Ajay Sontakke, Anand Dabare, Sandeep Mohanty, Laxmikant Meshram, Ashish Mandpe, Chandrasekhar Dhabale, Dilip Bhoyar Saurabh Rangari Mahendra Vanjari, Nitin Bhandakkar are working hard to make the event a grand success.
Working President of Maharashtra Armwrestling Assocation Pramod Walmandre and other members were present during the press conference.