Acting head coach of the Azerbaijani National Free Wrestling Team, Firdovsi Umudov, told Vestnik Kavkaza.

– It was unforeseen to get together you at the Rhythmic Gymnastics Championship…

– Wrestling has a shortest relation to gymnastics. As a professional in wrestling, I have forever advise parents to convey their children to a gymnastics school, as body elasticity and willingness to use dissimilar techniques mostly depend on this regulation. The children engaged in gymnastics will reach good results in other sports. Therefore, it is very helpful to do gymnastics up to a certain age, particularly for girls. Gymnastics acting a big role in the formation of a professional athlete.

I would also like to declare the consideration of the state to the growth of all sports in the country, and the present championship in Baku is a vivid proof of how the country treats the growth of youth sport.

– A little days ago the Golden Grand Prix International Wrestling Tournament came to an end in Baku. The tournament was really memorable by a huge number of famous players and high efficiency of Azerbaijani wrestlers. Are you satisfied with the results?

– Of course! Baku is becoming a global centre of the largest tournaments. The last Golden Grand Prix brought together more than 700 players from more than 50 nations, was a remarkable example of this. In recent years, Azerbaijan has happen to known as a sports country, thanks to President Ilham Aliyev, who pays particular concentration to the development of sports.

As the tournament held in memory of the national leader Heydar Aliyev, it had more importance. It is gratifying that both the number of participants & the wish of famous players around the world to take part in this celebration of sport are rising every year. It is enough to say that this event was attend by the earth strongest athletes, Olympic champions and prize winners of world and European championships.

We gave the young composition to the occasion to show them, because after the Olympics in Rio the core members of the national team are going through the revival period. But youthful members have justified our hopes, wrestlers won three gold, one silver and three bronze medals. But most essentially, we have seen new talents in the team, which will be included in the main team in the expectations.

In this competition we executed the test in two weight categories, which are careful non-Olympic – 61 kg and 70 kg, and picked up the athletes for these weight category, which will execute at the World Championships in Hungary on December 8-11.