Incheon: The UAE Wrestling, Judo and Kick Boxing Federation has fully backed the presence of international judokas in the UAE judo team participating at the 2014 Incheon Asian Games.
Victor Scvortov, Mihail Marchitan and Ivan Remarenco — all from Moldova — will be wearing the UAE colours at this week’s continental championships to be held in Incheon from September 19.
Scvortov and Remarenco, both 26 and bronze medallists at the World Judo Championships held in Chelyabinsk, Russia, in August, are tipped to return with medals in the -73kg and -100kg weight categories, while 19-year-old Marchitan too may spring a surprise.
After spending a major part of their sporting careers in Moldova, all three judokas switched nationalities last year. Nasser Mohammad Al Tamimi, General Secretary, UAE WJKF, was pragmatic about the switch. “This is nothing new in the world of sport. Sport is so much a way of life today and it is so well tied up with business that we are not the first country to have athletes with changed nationalities. It is my personal belief that country and boundary should not restrict sports, and that is the level of professionalism that has entered in modern-day sports,” Al Tamimi told Gulf News.
“The main thing about these sportsmen is that they give us a lot of hope. Two of them are 26 years and there is a reason why we have them in the national squad with an eye on the future. Success in sports is so much about having heroes to emulate and we want our judokas to look up to these guys in the future. There is a deliberate plan for the future for sure,” he added.
With this aim in mind, the UAE WJKF official is also expecting the three judokas to carry on their winning form and peak in time for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games. “The Asian Games is definitely a stepping stone for these three. Our main focus is Rio and we have laid out a very competitive programme for the trio in the next few months during the build-up to the Olympics. But for the moment, we are concentrated with what we need to achieve in Korea,” Al Tamimi stressed.
