Asia’s biggest arm wrestling tournament, Pro Punja League Arm Wrestling Tournament was today inaugurated by 22 times world arm wrestling champion, Michael Todd, also known as The Monster. The inauguration function, held at the National Institute of Physical Education was also attended by President of the Asian Arm Wrestling Federation, Jeenbek Mukambetov; President of the Indian Arm Wrestling Federation, Haseem Raja; Praveen Dabas, founder of Pro Punja League; Preeti Jhangiani, co-founder and director of Pro Punja League and President of the Arm Wrestling Academy, Gwalior, Dr Keshav Pandey among others. The Vice- Chancellor of National Institute of Physical Education Vivek Pandey and HOD of Sports Management and Coaching, Prof Ashish Phulkar also participated as Special Guests.
During his inaugural address, Michael Todd said arm wrestling is getting popular all over the world and opined that the future of arm wrestling in India is good as many people are getting interested in it. He appealed to the government to support this sport, so that India can become a heavy weight in this particular sport. Preeti Jhangiani, in her speech said that it is indeed an honour to have Michael Todd at the inauguration function and opined that this would create greater interest among public.
Speaking to media persons, Keshav Pandey, President of the Arm Wrestling Academy said that more than1100 wrestlers from all over the world will take part in this three day tournament. He added that software of innovative technology by name Arm Score will be used to correctly evaluate the performance of the wrestlers and give accurate points. This software has been developed in Romania.
Pandey further said that leading arm wrestlers of the country, Chetna Sharma from Assam, VT Sameer from Kerala, Yogesh Chaudhary from Haryana and Manish Kumar from Madhya Pradesh have already reached Gwalior and that they will be competing in the tournament.