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Russian Officials Believe Sambo Is On The Right Track To Become Olympic Sport

Russian Officials Believe Sambo Is On The Right Track To Become Olympic Sport

 

 

Sambo was developed in the 1920s in the red army as their own hand to hand combat technique.

President of the Russian Olympic Committee Alexander Zhukov told tass:

“Sambo wrestling is on a fast track of development and more countries keep joining this sport,” Zhukov said.

“More and more countries join the international competitions and the most important for us now is to join the Olympic family, however, this is not a speedy process,” the ROC president added.

Sambo wrestling originated in Russia in the 1920s, when soldiers of the then-Soviet Army developed their own hand-to-hand combat technique. The word Sambo is a Russian acronym, which stands for “self-defense without weapons.”

Russian officials first filed papers with the International Olympic Committee back in October of 2016.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said then that maximum efforts should be implied to make Sambo wrestling enter the program of the Olympic Games

“Sambo wrestling is one of the candidates viewed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and we need to do everything possible to make this popular and spectacular martial art to enter the Olympic program,” Putin said.

Other officials added:

“There are people, who are lobbying other sports disciplines,” Nurgaliyev, who is also the head of the Sambo development working group, said.

“I believe that all 100 countries, which are developing Sambo and all followers of the wrestling have the right for Sambo to be included in the Olympic program,” Nurgaliyev said adding that there is also “high competitiveness.”