The European Sambo Championship was staged in Spanish Gijon. The correspondent of “Arguments of the Week” found out what representatives of national teams thought about the competition.
Dmitry Troshkin, head coach of the Russian national sambo team:
“We reached our goal, won the first championship place. In all three disciplines, the athletes showed excellent results. There were some fear about the new coming athletes going to fight, but fortunately, everything went smoothly. It’s nice that everyone returned with medals. Even the guys who participated in competitions of this scale for the first time, showed an excellent fight. I will note Maxim Yudin, who performed well and won the first place. All other newcomers received silver and bronze medals. Since the Olympic principle of counting medals was used at the competitions, the distribution of the winning countries was unexpected. It is wonderful that the medals are well spread geographically. This suggests that the level of struggle has been growing and the countries, which used to be outsiders, have been developing and showing high results. Many foreign athletes become leaders. For example, the French athlete Laure Fournier took the first place. Everyone also notes a high level of organization of the competitions: a functional sports hall, well-designed training zones. I should like to thank our Spanish colleagues! ”
Vadim Rogach, President of the National Sambo Federation of Ukraine:
“Our team performed with dignity. I am pleased with the result. As I see there was a chance to become the first in female Sambo, it didn’t work out, apparently, there wasn’t enough sports passion. This is the beauty of the struggle: it is dramatic, the results are unpredictable. I am glad that we have again proved to the whole world that Ukraine is among the leaders in the development of our sport along with Russia and has a worthy place in the history of sambo. Last year, our combat sambo team became the champion of Europe, this time we brought a renewed young team to see, who could potentially change the leaders of our team, and we have made some conclusions. Our men’s team is in a difficult situation, because we change the composition of our teams. New stars are emerging, such as Yaroslav Davidchuk and Alexey Moiseev. They took the bronze, but pay attention — they are only 19-20 years old, they perform in the youth team. I admit, we did not hope that they will receive medals, so this is a real breakthrough. I also want to mention the performance of our sambo player Hanna Antikalo. She struggled with the titled Belarusian athlete and snatched the victory. It was a pleasant surprise for us. ”
Guillaume Alberti, head coach of the French national team:
“We were hoping for more medals, but we take into account that these were the first international competitions for our newcomers. For experienced athletes, this championship has become a preparation for the European Games. I think that we could perform much better in combat sambo, our athletes had good fights, but they didn’t have enough skill to win fights. It is a pity that there was no consoling fight in combat sambo, as provided for by the regulations. This surprised and upset the team. The only gold medal was brought to our country by Laure Fournier. She performed perfectly, winning four fights quite easily and quickly. Laure is a certain leader of the French team and the greatest athlete in the history of French Sambo. ”
Veronika Kozlovskaya, 1st Deputy Chairman of the Belarusian Sambo Federation:
“In our team, several athletes were preparing directly for the European Championships, but for the others, these competitions became preparations for the European Games. All results were expected. Only the injuries of our athletes that they received during the bouts upset us. I will not mention specific performances and athletes, because it will be more negative comments. In general, the impression is very good, I am pleased. The level of our international colleagues grows day by day. There are new names, new athletes. This makes me happy”.