I have been attending “Battle of the Nations” since 2011. First of all, I’ve been doing that to support my friends and my brother, so I root for the Russian team. In addition, I have many friends from other countries, for example Austria, Germany, Finland and others, and when they are on the lists I’m worried for them no less than for our guys from Russia.

Working as a commentator of the online broadcasts of the HMB World Championship “Battle of the Nations”-2014, it was easy to remain objective and impartial. After all, the principles of mutual respect have not been canceled. I respect all people (without any exceptions) who are engaged in HMB. People from other countries commented the online broadcasts as well, and we tried to create an emotional background around what happened on the lists.

For example, I worked mainly with Mathias Kainz from Austria, and we did not want to hide who we were, and from where. And, of course, we rooted for our teams. There was a moment when the fight “Austria – Russia” was announced and we immediately agreed with Mathias that I would root for the Austrian team, and he would support Russians. It was fun and it made us unbiased.

As for the “objectivity”, I can say only one thing: we didn’t need to assess what was happening on the lists. We did not discuss the decisions of referees and organizers, we just tried to give all the information to the audience, so they do not feel alienated. Sometimes it happened that we did not understand anything, and in such cases we waited for formal decisions or announcements, together with participants and spectators.

Ivan Koryagin, Russia,
a member of the HMBIA Development Committee,
commentator of the online broadcasts of the World Championship in HMB “Battle of the Nations”-2014

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