United World Wrestling (UWW) conducted a webinar headed by President Nenad Lalovic to discuss the way forward for the wrestling calendar. While most of the members denied holding any competitions anytime soon, Russia showed keen interest in resuming them. Iran and the US opposed Russia’s stand.
The webinar discussed the holding of age-group competitions at the continental and global levels, to which all the members asked for cancellation due to lost time, as well as the health of the athletes. However, the biggest challenge during the meeting was about holding the World Cup in September this year. To this Russian representative agreed to hold this competition, while Iran and the US representatives opposed it citing COVID-19 as the reason.
Wrestling News: Determination, Discipline and Sacrifice; A peek into Cuba’s wrestling culture
Ali Akbar Dodangeh, as a representative of the Iran Wrestling Federation, said: “Currently, our clubs are closed and it is not yet clear when the wrestling activities will start in Iran, and even if this permission is issued, our wrestlers will have enough time to prepare”. “They don’t have training and exercises, we don’t have the opportunity to do the selection competitions and hold our camps”. he added. The representative of the USA echoed his Iranian counter-parts opinion and the discussion on this issue did not reach a conclusion.
The representative of the Iranian Wrestling Federation suggested that the World Championships be held in 2021 and four months after the Olympic Games.
Dudangeh, who was the official representative of the Iranian Wrestling Federation in the meeting, said that the health of wrestlers is our top priority. He continued: “If we are going to have world competitions in 2020, what will be the task of the quota of these competitions, as well as the Olympic quotas that you have given to the top people of the 2019 world competitions?”
UWW had earlier asked for suggestions from all the national federations before finalising the calendar year. The deadline for the submission of the recommendations is June 30 after which the world governing body will release its new wrestling calendar.