Top hon­ours for Rus­sia, Ja­pan in 4th Premier 101 Armwrestling Con­test

KUCHING : Aleksander Bezi­aykov of Rus­sia and Yoko Ya­mada of Ja­pan claimed the men and women’s over­all cham­pion ti­tles at the 4th Premier 101 In­ter­nat ional Char­ity Armwrest l ing Com­petit ion which ended at Premier 101 com­mer­cial com­plex along Jalan Tun Ju­gah late Satur­day night.

Bezi­aykov beat Aus­tralian chal­lenger Jack Burmester in the Men’s Se­nior Left 95kg Above fi­nal and Malaysia’s Sae­don Abu Bakar in the Se­nior Men Right 105kg.

He was also the win­ner of the Men’s Se­nior Right Open af­ter beat­ing Yu Peng Yi of China in the fi­nal.
Yoko won the Women’s Se­nior Right 65kg af­ter beat­ing Shizuko Ashik­aga in an all- Ja­pan fi­nal while Sachiro To­gashi made it a Ja­panese sweep of the top three fin­ish.

Yoko’s other ti­tle came from the Women’s Right Open where she was the au­to­matic cham­pion as she was the only con­tes­tant in this cat­e­gory.

In the men’s com­pe­ti­tion, Yu Peng Yi of China clinched two ti­tles af­ter beat­ing Chia Jun Kit of Malaysia in the Men’s Se­nior Right 86kg fi­nal and An­drei Shakirov of Rus­sia in the Men’s Se­nior Left 95kg fi­nal.

Other winners in­cluded Jof­fey Jol­ley of Malaysia ( Men’s Se­nior Right 70kg), Ro­man Man­tyka of Ukraine ( Men’s Se­nior Right 78kg, Men’s Se­nior Left 78kg), Eric Wolfe of USA ( Men’s Se­nior Right 95kg), Calveen Petrus of Malaysia ( Men’s Se­nior Right 105kg).

Mean­while, lo­cal chal­lenger Abi­gail Kee Zing Ning from Sarawak ( Malaysia) added an­other feather to her cap when she beat com­pa­triot Tracy Ed­wina in the Women’s Se­nior Right 75kg fi­nal.

In third and fourth place were Malaysia’s Vera Kim­chong and Tu­bidah Nig­gal re­spec­tively.

The other out­right win­ner was Ber­nice Gan of Malaysia who was the only con­tes­tant in the Women’s Se­nior Right 75kg.

A to­tal of 580 pullers from 32 coun­tries took part in the one­day com­pe­ti­tion or­gan­ised by Premier 101 Armwrestling Club with sup­port from the Min­istry of Tourism, Arts, Cul­ture, Youth and Sports and Malaysia Armwrest l ing Fed­erat ion ( MyArms).

The or­gan­iser re­ceived a grant of RM20,000 from Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and Hous­ing Datuk Dr Sim Kui Hian who graced the clos­ing cer­e­mony.

The event of­fered to­tal prize money of RM70,000.

Also present were Pro­fes­sional Armwrestling League pres­i­dent Igor Mazurenko, Gor­don Kon who rep­re­sented Sarawak Sports Cor­po­ra­tion CEO Dr Ong Kong Swee, Premier 101 Armwrestling Club pres­i­dent Dato Sri Teng Chi Lik, The Fed­er­a­tion of Kuch­ing, Sa­ma­ra­han and Se­rian Di­vi­sions Chi­nese As­so­ci­a­tions pres­i­dent Datuk Richard Wee and event or­gan­is­ing chair­man Stephen Kee Chu Kiong.