Hungary Wrestling Federation has decided to resume its national championship series from July 18. It has also decided to raise the Olympic points for the winners of beach wrestling in order to give a boost to the sport. United World Wrestling (UWW) is working to include beach wrestling in the Olympic programme. Beach wrestling will be part of the 2022 Dakar Youth Olympics.
László Fábián, the sports director of the Hungarian Olympic Committee, took part in the first Beach World Games in Doha last year as the leader of the Hungarian team, where beach wrestling was also included in the program. “One of the most pleasant highlights of the Doha event was beach wrestling. It is a spectacular, easy-to-understand, well-followed, viewer-friendly discipline of wrestling. The audience loved it, there was a good atmosphere in the stands,” he said.
The Hungarian Federation is doing its best to strengthen the discipline, so this year it has decided to organise a cash-winning national championship series consisting of three venues: Esztergom-Kertváros, Öböl Music Beach, Balatonfüred, Füred Camping and Holiday Village, and Lupa Beach in Budakalász.
In the senior and U18 age groups, the winners will receive a cash prize of 100,000 Hungarian Forint. The reason for the decision as explained by the Hungarian Federation director Peter Bacsi is “KSF support also goes to associations for Olympic points, we wanted the points available for beach wrestling to be higher than before – in an effort to increase the value of the sport. It is already in the program for the next Youth Olympics, and the plan is to be present as a demonstration sport in 2024 in Paris. That is why we want to develop in this discipline, of course, we need to motivate both clubs and competitors; obviously this can also take the form of a grant. ”
UWW is also mulling over the inclusion of beach wrestling to the 2024 Paris Olympics. It is to bring gender parity. Fábián says,”I think it’s a good idea to be included in the Summer Olympics program as well, it can be a great addition to wrestling. However, I believe that the rank of traditional wrestling should be maintained, as it was already popular at the ancient games, and then one of the defining, traditional, ever-present sports of the modern Olympics, in which the Hungarians also have significant success. Furthermore, you can raise the question of who would start in the beach wrestling competition… I would not think about the fixed and free-range ones, nor would I be sure if there would be enough athletes who would choose beach wrestling in addition to the traditional sport (Sic.),” he concluded.