Legend has it that before the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Red Army did not have a method of unarmed self-defense. For that reason, Vladimir Lenin ordered the creation of a group of experts to research and develop their own defense system..
After years of traveling to see and study other disciplines, specialists exchanged their knowledge and gave birth to the samboRussian acronym for unarmed self-defense.
For its creation, movements were taken from the koch originating from Armenia, the chidaoba from Georgia or the Mongolian khapsagay; also more popular disciplines such as jiu jitsu, karate and kung fu, and Olympic sports such as boxing, wrestling or Greco-Roman wrestling.
This is how sambo originated, which had its year of birth in 1938, when the Russian national fighting method that aimed to control the attacks of enemies in the fastest way and without weapons, was recognized by the Sports Committee of the Soviet Union. (USSR).
Sambo: this is the kurtka, the competition jacket
Then, the competitions began until the first Russian national championship was held in 1947 and the expansion continued to other Eastern countries, with international tournaments and memberships in federations, and then reaching other continents.
In 1987 the International Sambo Federation (FIAS) was created. In 2017, its executive director, Sergei Tabakov, was consulted about the versions of the birth of this sport by order of Lenin for the Red Army. “Of course not. They are legends. He had other things to do,” he said.laughing, to the Russian media Sputnik.
Sambo in Uruguay and the recent Pan American
Sambo arrived in Uruguay in 2008according to what he told Referee Nolberto Puentes, who is an international referee and secretary of the Uruguayan Sambo Association, an entity that has competed in South American and world championships since 2013.
“It is a Russian martial art created in the 1930s, in what was the Soviet Union. It was created with different martial arts specialists from the countries that made up the USSR and based on that, what sambo is was created, which is self-defense without weapons,” Puentes added.
Currently, at a competitive level, the sport has three variants: sport, combat and beach.
Sport and combat are combats with 5-minute rounds that can end sooner if there is a difference of 8 points between the rivals, by definition and by submission, while in the case of combat the modality of ending by knockout is added. Meanwhile, the beach mode is a three-minute round or a single fall or knockdown.
Bruno Vilanova, third from left, on the podium
Uruguay recently competed in the Pan American Championships in Santo Domingo held from September 6 to 8 in sport and combat modalities.
The light blue team had two athletes: Santiago Acosta and Bruno Vilanova, who won a bronze medal.
Bruno Vilanova in Santo Domingo:
In addition, both competed in the Beach Sambo World Cup that was held in that same place on September 9 and 10, without achieving podiums.
The Uruguayan delegation in Santo Domingo was completed by coach Pablo Solís and the Uruguayan referees Ángel Camacaro and Nolberto Puentes
Putin’s sport that will be Olympic
One of the The most renowned sambo practitioner is Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In the book “The Faceless Man: The Improbable Rise of Vladimir Putin,” its author, Masha Gessen, says that the president in his youth “was often picked on and harassed until he began studying sambo, a version of martial arts. , and then he switched to judo so he could compete.”
The president began with this discipline at the age of 11 in Saint Petersburg, his hometown. “We were all ragged then,” Putin recalled of those years of poverty when he went to the gym and trained in socks and a jacket made at home.
Vladimir Putin
“When Putin arrived at the section, he did not have any special talent, he did not stand out in anything. But some time passed and the results appeared. On the mat, the young man turned into a leopard, fighting until the last second. I think that is the highest human capacity: to be a warrior on the mat and then, after the fight, return to the state of a philosopher, thinker,” said his first coach, Anatoli Rajlin.
Putin later became a black belt in judo and in 2015 said one of his most memorable phrases: “50 years ago, the streets of Leningrad taught me a rule: if a fight is inevitable, you have to throw the first punch.”
Currently in Russia, where sambo is a national sport, more than 500 thousand citizens practice it, including more than 230 thousand children.
Bruno Villanova
For its part, In Uruguay there are about 150 athletes who are dedicated to this discipline.
“This year the Uruguayan League begins and in November the World Cup will be held in Armenia,” said Puentes.who announced that Bruno Villanova will surely represent the celestial team like last year.
This sport hopes to continue growing and expanding boundaries. In recent years it has been promoted thanks to mixed martial arts (MMA). Jabib Nurmagomedov, the Russian who is one of the world’s MMA figures, was a two-time sambo world champion.
Besides, Sambo entered the Olympic orbit, with all that that implies. In 2021, the International Olympic Committee recognized the International Sambo Federation and will include it as an exhibition sport at the 1928 Los Angeles Olympic Games.which will give you your maximum peak visibility.
2023-09-17 14:09:44
#Sambo #Russian #combat #sport #practiced #Putin #grows #Uruguay #Olympic
