Sent: Friday, August 08, 2003 9:40 AM
Subject: Greetings from Japan Arm Wrestling Association
Mr. Shailender Kadian, Vice President, World Armwrestling Federation
(Asian Representative)
Mr. Bimal Kumar Chanda, President, Indian Armwrestling Federation
On behalf of Japan Arm Wrestling Federation, it is our great pleasure
that you are holding the Indian National Armwrestling Championships
together. We would like to congratulate you on your accomplishment.
The unity in India under your leadership is surely a wonderful news for
all the armwrestling officials and athletes around the world.
It is my first time to write to you, Mr. Bimal Kumar Chanda. My name is
Yuko Shingu, I am in charge of International Relations of JAWA (Japan
Arm Wrestling Federation), and I work for Mr. Mitsuo Endo, the president
of JAWA. Our federation has attended World Championships held by World
Armsport Federation in the past few years, but after reviewing all the
available information on the 2 WAFs, we came to the conclusion that we
wanted to be a part of World Armwrestling Federation, instead of World
Armsport Federation. Thus, we are now a member of World Armwrestling
Federation and attending the World Championships in Canada this year.
We are very happy to know that you, Mr. Chanda, have made the same
decision as we have and that you are now supporting the World
Armwrestling Federation lead by Mr. Fred Roy, working with Mr. Kadian
the WAF Asian representative. Many other countries are joining the same
World Federation, and we are very happy that countries around the world
are going to be one big family again.
JAWA is looking forward to working with you, and Mr. Mitsuo Endo sends
you his warmest greetings.
Regarding WAF Unity
I was present at the European Championships held in Hanau, Germany last
month, where I saw much positive progress made.
One of the bright outcomes of the EAF congress meeting (which I audited
as a visitor) was that all the countries in attendance unanimously
(except for one country, Kazakhstan) voted to support World Armwrestling
Federation and to go to the world championships in Canada.
I personally spoke to country representatives such as Mr. Claudio Rizzo
of Italy, Dr. Milan Capla of Slovakia, and Mr. Engin Terzi of Turkey.
Those countries had been with the other entity (World Armsport
Federation) in the past, but I confirmed that now they are strong
supporters of World Armwrestling Federation, wanting this federation to
be the only world organization.
I also learned that Mr. Alexander Filimonov's Russian Armwrestling
Association (RAA), a member of World Armwrestling Federation, is the
only armwrestling organization recognized by the Russian government's
sports ministry and is much larger than the other Russian federation.
RAA is also attending the World Championships in Canada.
I was particularly delighted to meet Dr. Milan Capla for the first time,
whom I found very warm, full of love and devotion for the sport. It is
our great pleasure to have someone like him as our ally. In Germany Dr.
Capla showed his commitment to work hard for the advancement of
armwrestling in World Armwrestling Federation. He stressed the
importance of having only one federation in the world as well as only
one federation in each continent for the recognition by IOC.
Regarding the Unity within the Asian Continent
I also had conversation with Mr. Agzamov and Mr. Drexler of Kazakhstan
Federation at the EAF Championships. (Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have
competed at the European Championships, but in the EAF congress meeting
it was pointed out that those countries could not be a part of two
continental federations and that they must choose either of European or
Asian federations. I feel they are likely to choose to be a part of the
Asian Federation from next year on.)
Kazakhstan still belongs to World Armsport Federation and voted to go to
the World Championships in Russia in the EAF congress meeting. In our
conversation (Dr. Capla kindly did Russian/English translation for us) I
explained that now more and more countries such as Slovakia, Italy,
Japan, and the strongest bodies of India and Russia are with World
Armwrestling Federation, and that Japan has contact with other Asian
nations such as Mongolia, Nepal, China, which will also be members of
World Armwrestling Federation, so it is better off for them to be our
ally.
They showed their interest to go to the world in Canada, but they said
that they might have difficulties obtaining visas to go to Canada.
As you may know Kazakhstan is hosting the Asian Championships under
World Armsport Federation in 2004 and they very much hope that prominent
Asian countries will attend the championships. I passed the words of
Mr. Endo to them that JAWA believes that all the Asian countries should
work together as one Asian Federation and would like to cooperate with
Kazakhstan for the success of Asian Championships, but first we must
resolve the problem of the divided World Federations.
We all agreed on the point that all the nations in Asia should work
together, but didn't reach agreement upon the issues on which WAF the
Asian federation should belong to because Kazakhstan could not decide to
take our side of the world federation at the time. However, we promised
to each other that we would work together to make the unification within
Asian Continent as soon as possible.
In order to have a strong Asian Armwrestling organization, I feel it is
important to have Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, two of the most dominant
countries in our sport, together with us. It is very good to welcome
them to join our Asian alliance and try to make it easy for them to join
World Armwrestling Federation and to go to the World Championships in
Canada this year.
This is just our suggestion for you to think over, but it may be a good
idea to consider supporting Kazakhstan as the host country of the Asian
Championships next year, if you, Mr. Kadian, do not hold a specific plan
for the Asian Championships next year. (Please let us know your ideas
about future Asian Championships.) But we must stand solid on the point
that this is possible only if Kazakhstan joins World Armwrestling
Federation because the majority of Asian countries are with World
Armwrestling Federation now and those countries cannot work with World
Armsport Federation lead by Mr. Das.
This is only our (JAWA's) suggestion, and of course all countries in
Asia should participate in the decision-making process with respect to
the Asian Federation and the Asian Championships.
We would appreciate it if you can let us know your thoughts and plans.
It is our great pleasure that we can work together for the advancement
of armwrestling.
We are looking forward to our future correspondence and to seeing you in
the near future.
Sincerely,
Yuko Shingu (Ms.)
International Relations, Japan Arm Wrestling Federation (JAWA)
On behalf of Japan Arm Wrestling Federation and its president Mitsuo Endo
