World Armwrestling Championship 2022: Turkish athlete hides Kazakhstan flag as confusion sparks

The World Armwrestling Championship 2022 was being held in Azerbaijan. During the presentation ceremony, there was an incident after the Turkish winner decided to hide the Kazakhstan flag, leading to confusion.

The 2022 World Armwrestling Championship was held in Azerbaijan. On Tuesday, for the women’s division, the winner was announced. During the presentation ceremony, a couple of representatives from Kazakhstan took second and third place as they unfurled their nation’s flag on the podium in front of them. However, they were immediately joined by the Turkish winner, who unfolded her nation’s flag right in front of the Kazakh flag, hiding the latter in the process, leading to a scuffle between the athletes. As the Turkish athlete maintained her stand, the Kazakhs decided to lift their flag up and seemingly settled with the solution, as they were given out their competition medals.

However, the Committee for Sports and Physical Culture of Kazakhstan’s press service ensured that the incident was handled in a relaxed and calm manner, which would not affect the state of affairs between the two countries. “It does not affect the general state of affairs and the friendship between the athletes of Kazakhstan and Turkey,” it remarked. In the meantime, the coach of the Kazakh national arm wrestling team, Marat Asainov, apologised for the incident.