NEWS FROM THE 
2002 World Armwrestling Federation Championship

What a spectacular show and performance put on by the competitors at this year’s edition of the WAF championship. There were some great well dones and some opportunities to build on. The following points will try to capture these well dones and opportunities.

§        With the right representation attending this year’s championship, some great inward strides were made to bring the armwrestling federations back together as one. The year 2004 seems to be the year of choice to have this happen, with the year 2003 being preferred to build the foundation of the unification process and ground rules.

§        The numerical counting of WAF championships was corrected. The year of 1986 had been left out of the count of WAF hosting world championships, which left the accurate reading out by 1 year. For example last year was advertised as the 23^rd annual when actually it should have been the 24^th annual. It is now official and next year will be the 25^th anniversary of WAF sanctioning world championships. So everyone who purchased last year’s souvenirs, they’ll be worth that much more.

§        We did some clean up in the rules and constitution and the updated revision will be available very soon. We advise everyone that when they receive the new edition to destroy the old editions so that we are all referring to the same documents.

§        Mr. David Shead of the United Kingdom, handed in his resignation as Referee-In-Chief for WAF. He remains with WAF as a Senior referee and a member of the Referee Panel. His years of experience will always be an asset to WAF. We take this time to thank him on his past and future involvement. Mr. Leonard Harkless of the USA accepted the duties of Referee-In-Chief on an interim basis until the 2004 election year. Mr. Harri Naskali, Finland and Mr. Rick Blanchard, Canada are the other members of the referee’s panel.

§        A new identification system was used very successfully, inspite of some problems we had with the printer near the end of the weigh in day. The system was a used model, provided to us so that we could try out the system. We are awaiting a price proposal from Identicam Systems. A portion of the rental costs of the software and equipment will be applied towards the purchase of the special printer and software. WAF will then add this to assets we now have, which consists of 2 lap top computers and 4 armwrestling tables. This identification equipment would in turn be available to member Continental bodies for their championships. Their costs would be shipping and material used.

§        The new system for weigh in and registration also went well and we did not incur the problems of last year.

§        We have an opportunity to improve on our agenda adherence. Our General Secretary does a lot of work to try and get everyone to get their items in to be included on the agenda. The constitution is clear, get your items in 90 days before the Congress date or they will not be included into the agenda. So please do not be disappointed! Simply follow the rules set out by the constitution. The purpose of the Congress is to get WAF business accomplished. If the subjects you want to discuss are not important enough to get in 90 days before the Congress meeting, then they are not important enough to take up valuable time during the Congress meeting!

§        The use of elastic pin pads was passed officially. Pictures of the prototype component will be posted to the WAF websites so that you may build accordingly.

§        Enforcement of the rules for infractions on stage by member countries will be in the forefront next year. The infractions seem to come from the same groups. It is unfortunate that these steps have to be taken, especially when we are all working together for the same thing. There are proposals being put together to address these issues, which will be put forward at next year’s Congress for immediate implementations if passed in Congress. We will also post these proposals to the websites so that everyone may debate them before we get to next year’s worlds.

We have had a tremendously successful year and the next 2 years will be very busy with so much to accomplish. Unification is a high priority. General Secretary Willy Deneumostier is in contact with the GASIF to keep them informed of the progress we have made towards unification. We had hoped to be able to apply again by February 2003, but there is still too much work to do. We will be actively communicating with all the key people in the unification process.

Thank you for a great year and season’s greetings to everyone!

Fred Roy
President
WAF

THINK YOUR'RE TOUGH?

GRIP THIS!

ARMWRESTLING.COM- Dave Devoto (707) 537-7373