The opening ceremony of the event was held on Sunday afternoon with senior military officials including Deputy Coordinator of the Iranian Army Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, Commander of the Iranian Army’s Navy Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi and Deputy Commander-in-Chief Russian Navy Admiral Aleksandr Viktorovich Vitko in attendance.
Teams from Iran, Russia, China, Venezuela, Syria, and South Africa will compete in the 10-day event while Pakistan, Azerbaijan and Indonesia are taking part as observer countries.
Iran also hosted the depth competition last year in Nowshahr which ended with Iranian team winning the title.
Each team in the depth event consists of eight individuals – six divers and two reserves. The competition will be held in seven stages of water obstacle course, rescue on water, flange, welding, rendering first aid to the drowned, maintaining the life of the emergency vessel, and close space entry.
Flotilla Admiral Parviz Salimipanah, spokesman and head of the event’s committee, said in the opening ceremony that two referees from Iran and five from participating countries will judge the competitions. He went on say 128 foreign individuals have arrived on Kish Island and all the teams have managed to successfully go through each item of the event without suffering from injuries or any damage to their equipment.
“The 2019 Army Games will include 32 competitions on the territory of 10 countries (Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Iran, India, China, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and Uzbekistan). Over 5,000 servicemen from over 200 teams will take part in the games,” the defense ministry was quoted by Tass as saying. Army Games will wrap up on August 17.
