This year, our team was not able to arrive with a support group, and it was difficult without those guys. We knew that we would need both moral and physical support, knew that our fighters would need someone to help them with putting on armor, bringing water… Unfortunately, we had too little time before the HMB World Championship “Battle of the Nations”-2014 to prepare our support team. But we decided that fact would not stop us, and agreed with the guys from our team to help each other. As a result, the fighters before going to the lists were assisted by those of us who did not need to fight at that time.

The first day of the Championship was pretty good for us, as our Team-1 helped the fighters of Team-2. But the second day of the competition was much more difficult, because in addition to mass categories, we also fought in Triathlon and all our men needed help. As a result, it was a kind of a marathon, as we had to fight and help our comrades.

After all, each fighter participating in “Triathlon” had one assistant, but the entire Team-1 (there were eight of them) was assisted only by three fighters from Team-2. The guys worked heroically, they dressed the men, brought water for no one to be thirsty.

Despite all these difficulties, I can say that our team did not give up, and all the guys fought to the end. Next year we will try to have a decent support group.

The result of this “Battle of the Nations” was that we united and worked as a single unit.

Juri Lönn,

captain of the National Team of Finland