…of protein in Kyrgyzstan.

Not quite what I expected to read, but it does seem logical seeing as armwrestling is a strength sport - and one with a greater following than one might first think, judging by the plethora of sites dedicated to arm wrestling on the Internet.

The full title of the article on 24.kg (in Russian) is:

The head of the Kyrgyzstani Armwrestling Federation views the high costs in the country of protein products that are essential for athletes’ muscle mass growth as a serious problem.

This opinion was expressed during a press conference in Bishkek about the results of the VIth Open Asian Armwrestling Championships, which was held from June 4-6 in Issyk-kul oblast.

The main problem actually splits into two problemshas two parts, as Jeenbek Mukanbetov explained:

[The physical training an armwrestling champion] is only effective when the sportsmen eat a large quanitity of meat and dairy products. The high costs in Kyrgyzstan of the latter are as yet still not being compensated for even by the import relatively cheap soy-based products. At the moment only there are only about 5 or 6 dealers importing this sort of product and so far it has not been possible to arrange direct mass imports of soy concentrates from Kazakhstan and Russia, noted the head of the Federation.

From a general point of view, the high cost of meat and dairy products is the more important one - and it doesn’t just affect elite athletes. A UNICEF report on Kyrgyzstan (no date) indicates the scale of malnutrition amongst children, noting that “Malnutrition is an underlying cause of 60% of deaths among children under five.” Meanwhile the poor economic situation is likely to impact on the population’s ability to buy meat and dairy products and consequently their health - a trend that was also noted in the early 1990s:

Additional stress is placed on the population by the rising cost of food, which has reduced the quality and quantity of most people’s diets. In 1993 meat consumption was reported to have dropped by 20 percent since 1990, intake of milk products by 30 percent, and consumption of fish (which was imported in the Soviet period) by 70 percent. The average caloric intake was reported to have decreased by about 12 percent since 1990.

In this respect, Mukanbetov’s comments have far bigger implications as if elite athletes cannot get hold of and/or afford sufficient quantities of protein-rich foods, then it is certainly worth thinking about the situation more average people find themselves in where meat and dairy products are often expensive luxuries to be bought and eaten for celebrations only.

Returning to the Open Asian Armwrestling Championships, despite the less-than-optimal training conditions, 24.kg also reports that Kyrgyzstani armwrestlers won 3 gold medals, so congratulations to Dmitrii Belyi (up to 50 kg), 45-year old Olga Yaroslavtseva (women’s up to 70 kg) and 19-year old superheavyweight Evgeny Lukyanov.

and in case you were wondering, armwrestling is not such a minority sport in Kyrgyzstan as one might think, as 24.kg notes:

At the present time in the republic more than 1000 people armwrestle as a sport in different regions of the Kyrgyz Republic. During the 10 years of the work of the Armwrestling Federation in Kyrgyzstan, the county’s athletes have won 7 gold medals, 6 silver and 10 bronze in international competitions.