The president of the Combat Sambo League, Honored Coach and Honored Worker of Physical Culture of Russia Arkady Rotenberg shared his expectations from the upcoming European Sambo Championship in May in Ekaterinburg and recalled how he himself became engaged in this sport:
- Any competition, especially such as the European and World Championships, will bring a new impetus to any kind of martial arts, and even more so in sambo. It is important to us to host any kind of competition, and such tournaments of an international level require special attention. It is great that the European Championship will be held in Ekaterinburg. This is what any athlete strives for, especially a sambo wrestler - to realize himself in major competitions.
Sambo is our sport, I think that it will be nice if the children go in for any sport. We ourselves became engaged in sambo wrestling, and it is closer to us. I came to sambo when I was 13 years old, now kids begin to practice much earlier. Each sport is good in its own way, but sambo has given us a lot - purposefulness, the ability to allocate your time. Many things that we learned through the sambo wrestling we use in our everyday life, and sambo has played a big role in our lives.
EN