NOC President Meets Serbian Wrestling President

Iran NOC; Tehran: the meeting which was initiated by an invitation from Iranian Wrestling Federation took place with presence of NOC officials, Secretary-General and President Salehi Amiri. Both parties agreed on the positive and constructive bilateral relations and prompted for MOUs for further cooperation within respective NOCs.

Dr. Salehi Amiri stated: “Undoubtedly, increasing sports interactions and agreements between the two countries can lead to further growth and promotion in the field of sports, social vitality and cultural relations between the two nations, and certainly in the wrestling of the two countries can have constructive cooperation beyond the existing capacity”.

NOC President further held; “Wrestling is the oldest cultural work of Iranians and therefore is considered a national identity; although we have many athletes from 31 provinces of the country at the championship level, but the general public all ask about wrestling, we may not get results in many disciplines in the Olympics, but in wrestling, people expect us. In some sports you are ahead of us and in some sports we are more successful. We want to cooperate with you by signing a memorandum on exchanging coaches, athletes and holding training”.

Dr. Salehi Amiri continued his speech by pointing to the sincere and good relationship with Lalovic, President of the World Wrestling Union, and said that one of the swimming coaches in our country is a Serb who has good relations with the players and the President of the Swimming Federation is completely satisfied with him. In general, Serbs have a good position in Iranian sports.  

Following the meeting, Zeljko Trajkovic, President of the Serbian Wrestling Federation, thanked the Iranians for their invitation and hospitality and said: “I am proud to be in Iran, which is the national identity of this country. I have been following the Iranian wrestling since 2006 when I was in charge of Serbian wrestling. I do and I know your champions well, including Hamid Soorian. I always saw in competitions that when Iranian wrestlers entered the mats, all the halls were overjoyed by the presence of Iranian fighters and a special passion arose”.

“One of the reasons for our wrestling progress in the last 8 years has been the support of the government and the National Olympic Committee and our Ministry of Sports and we are trying to raise our level in this sport. Serbian wrestling has been more successful in Greco Roman but we are trying to grow in free style as well” added the Serbian Wrestling President.

“Lalovic, the president of the World Wrestling Union, worked hard to keep the wrestling in the Olympic Games and made many good changes” Zeljko Trajkovic said.

He further stated: “despite the unpredictable outbreak of covid-19, so far 62 countries have announced preparations to participate in the World Wrestling Championships, which will be hosted by Belgrade on December 5”.

Gifts were exchanged between the two sides, and Serbian Ambassador to Tehran, Dragan Todorovic, while expressing his happiness for attending the meeting, said: “given the current situation created by Corona, this is the first meeting we are attending. I have already met with the Minister of Sports and Youth and we have also signed memorandums of cooperation with basketball, tennis and table tennis federations”.