Delhi Team bagged numerous medals in India Open MMA Championship
New Delhi: Indian MMA Open event gave athletes a new chance to compete and served as qualifiers for IMMAF World Championships. After 7 months without action MMA India successfully held the Indian Open MMA Championships from the 10th-12th of September 2021 in Indore. The competition proved to be a success with 212 athletes competing across 3 days.
The event was a pivotal step forward for MMA India as it was the first time they operated with 2 cages and implemented the IMMAF weigh-in policy with no allowances. Lodging and boarding were also arranged at the venue itself making the event run much smoother. As expected, medals were given out, however, as a token of their appreciation, each category received Rs. 5000.
The improvements in the event management and operational side of the tournament were historic for the federation. The step-up in hosting events attracted the attention of national politicians and Celebrities.
Shri Ramesh Mendola, President of the Madhya Pradesh State Olympic Association came for the Inauguration and applauded the positive morale of the fighters and coaches.
Kailash Vijay Vargiya, the General Secretary of BJP, and Devendra Pratap Tomar, the president of MMA commemorated the winners with the award. The competition also witnessed the presence of Sahrif Babu, the President of MMA India and General Secretary Prashant Gaitonde.
The competition itself saw a large number of fights occur over the 3 days. The event witnessed good response with around 15 teams with 200 students participating in the national level championship. In total 29 states participated where Delhi, M.P., Haryana, Uttrakhand, U.P., Punjab, Bengal, Karnataka, Tripura, Sikkim, Assam, were some of the few states which participated in the competition among others.
The motive behind the event was to promote sports and self-defense, along with fitness in India. The Delhi team left an impressive impression on the event by winning many medals. Rahul Thapa from Delhi bagged the gold medal, followed by Mohd Aftab and Astha Bhatnagar who secured the silver medal. The bronze medal was won by Abhishek Mehra and Gourav Modak. The coach of the Delhi team was Thakur Pavan Sikarwar, who is from the Combat MMA Club from Delhi itself.
Following the event, a team of 15 athletes were selected and are now looking forward to taking part in the IMMAF World Championship later this year.
