Two brothers have been celebrating after one successfully defended his world title and the other became the new world champion in a form of South Asian arm wrestling.
Nazam Khan was crowned the new world middleweight champion on Sunday, at the same event his younger - but by no means little - brother defended his world heavyweight title in the sport of Beeni.
The form of arm wrestling, popular in South Asia, involves two fighters forming a special grip, and in a four-round bout having to either break free from their opponent’s hold or stop their opponent from escaping the hold. Fighters have three chances to break the grip per round, and points are awarded for breaking free or stopping the opponent from escaping.
In September 2016, Nazam Khan’s brother Umar Khan became the sport’s youngest ever world heavyweight champion aged 22.
On Sunday, at the event held at Lightwaves sports centre in Wakefield, Nazam, 25, joined his brother at the top of the sport by picking up the world title.
Mr Khan, who runs his own private hire firm, said he first got into the sport training with his brother three years ago.
He said: “I just wanted to follow in my brother’s footsteps.
“We train at the same gym and I have followed his workouts for three years.
“We have been all over the world training and competing, and now I am middleweight champion.
“I think my first defence will be in April or May.”
The pair, from Manningham, will travel to Pakistan for a series of exhibition matches in March, and Umar will also defend his title on the trip.
When they are not competing, Mr Khan said he and his brother are passionate about getting more young people from Bradford interested in the sport and training with them.
He said: “We have been working hard to attract a lot of youngsters to come into the gym and train with us.
“A lot of them have been following us and our success and we have seen a big development in the number of people coming to the sport in Bradford, which we have never had before, and that is mainly down to the work of my brother and I.
“There are a lot of lads now taking part and focusing on training and eating properly and coming to train instead of being out on the streets or doing no exercise.
“We have got between 50 and 100 lads training with us regularly now, and in the competitions now about 85 per cent of the people taking part are British Asian which is great to see.
“It is nice to see what everyone is capable of.”
When Umar Khan won his title in 2016, he told the Telegraph & Argus he hoped his success would be “an inspiration to kids to keep them away from bad habits and get involved in the sport.”
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