Today the 11th International Sambo Tournament for the prizes of Honored Master of Sports Major-General Aslambek Aslakhanov will start in Moscow. Athletes from 17 countries will participate in this tournament, one of the stages of the World Cup. “The strongest athletes of the world traditionally participate in the World Cup because the World Championship is always held about a month later”, Aslakhanov says. All the national teams make the last assessments, and check the readiness of their athletes so that they participate in the World Cup. In recent years some states that assisted us before do not finance their athletes because of the fact that it is not an Olympic sports event, and many are forced to come at their own expense. Therefore, different problems arise. Almost all stages of the World Cup - both Nazarbayev’s stages and Lukashenko's stages and the competitions named after the founder of Sambo, Anatoli Kharlampiev – are slightly less attended. There are objective reasons for this - there is no funding. One of the strongest teams, the Georgian team, which came and always demonstrated excellent results, has not come for three years, because the head of their state has said: "This is a Russian sport , do not go there"; actually, he banned their participation. I'm sure that now we will hold competitions at the highest level. Generally, it is quite difficult to hold sambo competitions everywhere, and the Sambo Federation faces many difficulties, because the funding is very low”.
“The leadership of the Moscow Sports Committee does its best to promote and support sambo, again”, Nikolai Gulyaev, deputy head of the department of physical culture and sport of Moscow, says. “You know, we live in difficult times, unfortunately, and everything depends on the financial component, whether we like it or not. But, understanding the role and place of sambo in health promotion, education and the spirit of patriotism, the leadership of Moscow Sport Committee fully supports this move”.
According to Renat Laishev, first vice-president of the Russian Sambo Federation, Director General of "Sambo-70", “in November, the World Cup will be held in Vilnius, and the tournament for the prizes of Aslakhanov is the final stage in the formation of the Russian national sambo team. This tournament is held unconventionally, but seventeen countries will take part in it. Everyone knows that we are the favorites in this sport, and in order not to make the tournament useless we are giving the chance and opportunity to other countries to compete with each other and with the Russian team, and then we will see more foreign countries in the final competitions. This gives the opportunity to increase the geographic reach of our sambo”.
