Major changes expected in wrestling
Wrestling, especially Greco-Roman style wrestling, with its current rues has almost lost its spectacularness. Most of the specialists share the same opinion. During the days of World Wrestling Championship underway in Paris, UWW conference was held, where issues relating to some major changes in the sports were discussed. Avetik Vardanyan, head coach of the Armenian national youth freestyle wrestling team, international Olympic referee, who was in Paris as a referee, presented the expected changes to the National Olympic Committee of Armenia, “According to the preliminary option, starting from January 1, 2018 the parterre position will be recovered in Greco-Roman wrestling, but not on all fours position, but in a lying position. And the opponent will start working from the side and not the back.In case of not gaining any scores in the first two minutes, the inactive athlete will receive a reprimand and parterre position and the active wrestler will gain one point. But it will not be on the last minute of the second round, but on the 4:30th minute of the wrestling. These are the preliminary options of the changes, which will enter into force starting from January 1, 2018. The final changes will be sent to the national federations by the UWW until December. In all the styles weight categories will be added becoming from 8 to 10; in free style 57-61-65-70-74-79-86-92-97-124, in Greco-Roman style 55-60-63-67-73-77-82-87-97-130. And the last change; tournaments in 2018 will be held with two days’ weighing. On the first day- pure weight, on the second day, those, who will fight for medals- with the right to be 2 kg more. This rule will operate until the end of 2018. Starting from 2019 the second day’s +2 will be removed. It means that on both days the wrestlers should have “pure weight”,” said Avetik Vardanyan.
