Arctic Boxing in Bodø
The team of boxers from the Nenets Autonomous Okrug took part in the Arctic boxing 2012 tournament, which was held in Bodø, Nordland, Norway in the beginning of March.
Igor Balantsev, Nenets boxing federation and Marius Gjerdrum, Bodø boxing club
The Arctic boxing is the largest and one of the most popular tournaments in Norway. Every year sportsmen from Finland, Norway and Sweden take part in it.
The boxing delegation of participants from Nenets Autonomous Okrug consisted from Denis Gusev, President of the NAO Boxing Federation, Anatoly Viziryakin, Chief coach and three young athletes: Igor Balantsev, Sergey Kobrin and Parviz Maynusov. It was their first experience of international tournament. Igor Balantsev defeated his Norwegian opponent, but Parviz and Sergey lost to Finnish and Swedish rivals, correspondently. After the tournament it was the time to share experiences and discuss plans for future cooperation. Anatoly Petrovich Viziryakin held joint training for boxers from the Bodø boxing club. The trainings were highly interesting, intensive and were held on a high level, as Anatoly Viziryakin previously worked as the Chief coach of Kazakhstan and had trained Olympic boxing champion in Sydney in 2000. He has been working under contract in Naryan-Mar since 2006.
"We were very surprised when we had received the application for participation in the tournament from the Naryan-Mar team. We did not believe up to their arrival that they could come. But it was just great and very interesting. We are grateful to Anatoly Viziryakin for trainings, which he held in our club and we hope it will be possible to organize a trip for our best boxers to the tournament in Naryan-Mar in November this year” - said Jan Myhre, the chief organizer of the Arctic boxing and the leader of the Bodø boxing club.
Nenets team’s visit to the tournament was implemented with the personal support of Igor Fyodorov, Governor of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug and the financial support of the Sever-Hydromechanization company.