Immobility seems to be erased forever from the lexicon of world struggle. One year to the day after being reinstated in the Olympic program, one of the oldest sports of the Games summoned athletes and managers to Tashkent in Uzbekistan. The first ones have been battling it out since Monday morning on the mats of the world championships. The seconds were reunited on Sunday September 7. The International Federation of Associated Struggles (FILA) held its executive committee. A meeting overflowing with activity and decisions, proof of the new vitality of the discipline.
New name
Defenders of the sporting Francophonie (including FrancsJeux is part) will regret it: FILA abandoned its name, and with it its French-speaking origins. The institution is now called United World Wrestling (UWW), and no longer International Federation of Associated Wrestling. More modern, they say. More in line, according to its leaders, with the desire for universality of sport. Its executive committee approved the change, thus throwing part of its past into oblivion.
Former president
No change, however, at the head of the Federation. Inducted last year at the head of a FILA in the midst of a crisis, because it was threatened by the IOC with being wiped off the Olympic world map, Nenad Lalovic was extended to the presidency of the new UWW. An election without surprises, carried out by acclamation, and all in all logical. The Serbian can indeed boast of having saved his sport from collapse by putting it back in good place on the Summer Games chessboard. During the same election, United World Wrestling renewed its office. Three of its former members were re-elected for 6 years: Mikhail Mamiashvili (87 votes), Akhroldjan Ruziev (86) and Tesno Tsenov (71). Four new leaders enter: Pedro Gama Filho (Brazil), Fouad Meskout (Morocco), Hideaki Tomiyama (Japan) and Karl-Martin Dittman (Germany).
France almost chosen
For the French Wrestling Federation (FFL), the day was decisive with the announced designation of the host country for the 2017 world championships. France presented a candidacy file, built around an event organized in a brand new POPB. According to several internal sources at the UWW, she should win… for lack of rivals. Alain Bertholom, the president of the FFL, presented the Paris 2017 file, accompanied in his task by the two ambassadors of the project, Lise Legrand and Christophe Guénot, both former Olympic medalists. But, surprisingly, the three other planned candidates, Finland, South Korea and Kazakhstan, did not present theirs. The final decision of the UWW executive committee should not be known for several days, but it should logically go in the direction of the French project. Georgy Bryusov, the first vice-president of the Russian Wrestling Federation, assured the Tass agency: “It clearly seems that Paris will not have a rival in the race for the 2017 Worlds, just like Sochi for the championships from Europe the same year. » The last Olympic city is in fact in the race to organize the European meeting in 2017. A continental tournament which should come back to it. Barring any last minute surprises, France will host its fourth world wrestling championships in 2017, after Clermont-Ferrand in 1987, Besançon in 1995 and Créteil in 2003.
