20 competitors showed up to the third edition of Cigar Smoking World Championship in Azerbaijan, and the obvious favorite was the 2023 champion, Elnur Adilov from Baku Cigar Club. This wasn’t his year, however.
“The cigar began to burn “spoon”, and being carried away by fixing this problem Elnur was eliminated just 47 minutes into the competition,” organizer and CSWC judge, Yevgeniy Zhidkov, says.
For the last half an hour two other guys fought for the title as newcomer Elnur Mammadov pushed Samir Rzayev, a board member of the cigar club Aficionados of Baku, into breaking his personal record as well as the national record.
At 1 hour 58 minutes and 51 minutes he was almost exactly 11 minutes ahead of Mammadov and another 30 minutes ahead of Ayhan Askerov in third place.
Rzayev’s result wasn’t the best this evening, though. Guest of honor, 2024 year’s second runner-up at the grand final, Anastasia Arsenova, once again proved she’s one of the favorites.
“This year she decided to participate in all the tournaments held by me,” Zhidkov says. “This time she gave up at the second minute of the third hour, realizing that she wouldn’t reach a better time than in Kazakhstan.”
Her time in Kazakhstan of 3 hours 24 minutes and 11 seconds took her to 8th place on the all time top 20 list.
1. Samir Rzayev 1:58:51
2. Elnur Mammadov 1:47:52
3. Ayhan Askerov 1:16:21
