Russians won 11 gold medals at sambo World championship in Panama

President of the All-Russian Sambo Federation and coach of the Russian national team Sergei Yeliseyev reported that Russian sambo wrestlers won 11 gold medals at the World sambo championship Panama: men won five gold medals and women - six.

According to him, despite a difficult flight and adverse weather conditions Russian sambo wrestlers proved their high level.

Yeliseyev indicated that the Panama championship facilitated opening of the Pan-American Sambo Federation which, in his opinion, represented another step towards popularization of that kind of sport in the world.

Famous sportsman David Rudman, founder of the Moscow "Sambo-70" sport school, who attended the press conference, stated that sambo in Russia had to become a similar actively cultivated sport like karate in Japan or judo in South Korea.

Rudman added that "sambo was a 100% Russian "invention" and taking into account its growing popularity in the world one might definitely state that soon as many sport lovers would go into it as presently were going into ushu or karate." Sambo (abbreviated from the Russian term of "unarmed self-defense") is a type of sport wrestling which combined the most efficient techniques taken from national styles of wrestling of peoples of the USSR. It emerged in the Soviet Union in the 30's, was included into the program of Olympic games in 1980, into European championships from 1972, into World cups - from 1973.