By Alexander Iazykov & Caoilte de Barra
The Junior Russian MMA Championships (18-20 years old) will be hosted in Berezniki (Perm Region) from April 16-18, supported by “Uralkali” and “Uralchem” companies. The Championship winners will form the national junior team and represent Russian MMA Union at the IMMAF European and World Championships in 2021.
Former UFC Bantamweight Champion Petr Yan, former Bellator MMA Heavyweight champion Vitaly Minakov and six-time World Combat Sambo Champion Kirill Sidelnikov will all be in attendance at the event. Fedor Team fighter, Sidelnikov, will be hosting a seminar and talk for local athletes the day before the event starts.
Gennady Kapshai, head coach of the Russian MMA Union, acknowledges how the young athletes are being trained by high level trainers and that the next step in the process is to ready the competitors physically and emotionally.
“The juniors have already had serious training for many years, their personal trainers are high-class specialists who have prepared the fighters to become Russian Championship winners. The next task for the squad is to prepare the fighters emotionally and physically from the start as well as train them to the best shape and weight for the European Championship, and then to the World Championship in order to win.”
Kapshai has a strong team of individuals around him in Doctor in chief Rozberg Elena Pavlovna, and the head coaches of the youth team Nikolay Elesin and Suren Balachinskiy. Head coaches of the national team are also involved too. The team has a proven system in place to prepare their athletes. These preparations are in line with the focus on returning from the European and World Championships with gold.
“We work according to our preparation scheme, which has not failed in 8 years. The main goal for the youth team this year is to win European and World championships in 2021. This year we have quite strong opposition from countries like Bahrain, Ukraine, Ireland and some European countries.”
The preliminary part of the competition will be held on April 16th, the finals will take place on April 18th. Broadcasts for the preliminary and final fights of Russian Championship are scheduled on vk.com/mma live and on unionmma.ru, finals will also be shown on Boxing TV.
