Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Amateur MuayThai world championships

Busy week this. The IFMA World Championships kick off (sorry) in Uzbekistan with the finals taking place on the 26th and 27th.Women from Germany, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Peru, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Ukraine, and Iraq competed yesterday -  a few surprises there. I remember being told many times that Kazakhstan would never field a woman's team, great to see that changing. Sadly Ireland doesn't have any fighters at all competing this year, thank you recession.

IFMA World Championships
And outside the ring, the highlight for women fighters is the launch of the Female Commission under Kiwi Sue Glassey. President of the Oceania federation and a successful fighter in her day Glassey has been pushing hard for greater prominence for women fighters over the last few months. Looks like it's paying off. There's been so much progress, will be interesting to see how much more can be done.

Some great photos from last year's contest and the Sports Accord on the new IFMA Female Commission here on FB.

Do you think it's more effective to split sports organisations into male and female admin sides?

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2 comments

Luanda Smith said...

Depending on how it works. IFMA Female Commission for example is one of 13 working committees and works to support and promote female muaythai amongst IFMA NF. One of the biggest achievements is to make visible female muaythai but it doesn't work by itself or separated of men. It helps to address issues that other way are not visible.

Niamh said...

@Luanda - thanks for commenting Luanda
I like your last point, women do get forgotten about so it's great to have a female committee to point things up.
Personally I think it would very hard in a relatively small sport like MT to totally separate, and so many issues like safety, anti-doping are important for both male and female fighters.
Still think it's great to have the Female Committee there, raising the profile - it's so so different to just ten years ago. Great work!

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