European Games 2015 / Baku

http://www.ifbb.com/2015/06/bodybuilding-days-at-the-1st-european-games-in-baku

by Andrew Michalak

The historical 1st European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan, started on June 12th, 2015 and will be ended June 28th, 2015, so bodybuilding and fitness event will take place in the middle of the Games, on Sunday, June 21st, 2015, with semifinals in the morning and evening finals. IFBB officials, with President Santonja as a head, as well as national Teams will arrive on Friday. Technical Meeting and Official Registration are scheduled for Saturday.

Most of the current IFBB Championships have an unlimited participation but in case of Baku participation has been limited. Each European country could enter 3 competitors maximum, not more than two in one category. And number of categories is also limited to five Men’s Classic Bdyobuilding classes, one Men’s Fitness open and one Women’s Fitness open. Moreover, all nominated competitors had to pass the doing test via the ADAMS Program around 3 weeks prior to the contest. Altogether, 40 competitors have met these conditions, and this is an expected number.

Regarding participating athletes, some categories look great! Let’s start from the ladies: Women’s Fitness will be a real parade of stars: two 2014 world champions: Dominika Multanova (up to 163 cm class) and Liudmila Nikitina (over 163 cm class), 2014 World Championships runner-up Oksana Orobets (Ukraine), 2014 Arnold Europe runner-up and former world junior champion Nikolett Szabo (Hungary), World Championships bronze medal winner Emma Paveley (United Kingdom), multi time world children fitness champion Vanesa Belova (Latvia), former World Junior Championships bronze medal winner Olha Mohylnytska (Ukraine). Never seen so many stars in one open category!

In Men’s Fitness: top two from the World Championships: Fedir Khashalov and Nazar Kharkhun (Ukraine) plus European Championships finalist: Ferenc Rippel (Hungary).

In Men’s Classic Bodybuilding up to175 cm category; European Championships runner-up Andrej Varga (Slovakia) vs. former world men’s physique champion Valentin Petkov (Bulgaria). In the up to180 cm class: 2013 European Championships overall winner and World Championships runner-up Ali Emre (Azerbaijan). In the tall class (+180 cm): three former European champions Dmitry Krilov (Russia), Drazen Vrbancic (Croatia) and Boris Orava (Czech Republic), former World Championships runner-up Andrey Lopushankiy (Azerbaijan).

As we can see, at this contest quality dominates over quantity, so top emotion guaranteed!