Croatian SAMBO Federation and FIAS: a road to the medals of the European Champ

Very soon, on May 17-21, the European Championship will be held in the Universal Sports Hall "Druzhba" ("Friendship") in Moscow. This forum traditionally gathers the best sportsmen from over 20 countries of the Old World who determine the strongest ones in sports and combat SAMBO in tough competition. The strongest ones are the best. The best ones are those who are in top competition form, which can only be achieved by long and intense training. The best condition must fall on the start date; if this happens, it will be the day of the sportsman's triumph, European triumph in this case. All the national teams in Europe make their own way to the victory; there are no recipes here. Everybody wants to win the medals but the Croatians proved to have their own additional motivation. The point is that the Croatian SAMBO Federation under the direction of its President ?eljko Bani? is now actively working at the promotion of SAMBO and does everything what is necessary for the recognition of the Federation by the Olympic Committee of the country. The superior sports body of Croatia is waiting for the medals to be won by its SAMBO representatives at large European and World Championships. Those medals may become one of the key factors that will help the Federation to gain recognition; recognition means support of the State that will help this sport develop more successfully in Croatia. In this regard, the Croatian Federation is developing both the grassroots sports to attract to SAMBO children and youth. And the elite sports where they count on sportsmen engaged in similar martial arts such as judo and mixed martial arts who can demonstrate excellent results in the closest time in case of skillful retraining. In the framework of preparation for the European Championship, Croatia decided to intensify the process of formation and training of the national team for the main continental tournament of the season by attracting the best coaches. As the result, the elite Croatian sportsmen trained during two weeks in March in Zagreb (the capital of Croatia with a 900 years long history and a population of more than 1 mln people) under the guidance of FIAS Sports Director Dmitry Maximov and experienced representatives of Russian SAMBO school Dilshod Makhmadbekov and Igor Antonyuk. 30 Croatian sportsmen improved their skills of combat and sports SAMBO. The best of those 30 were chosen for the Croatian National team who will take part in the European Championship in Moscow. Now the team consists of 7 persons: 4 combat sambists and 3 representatives of sports SAMBO (two men and one woman). Two weeks are quite a long time; it was enough to deal with all the situations in ground work, in standing position, as well as in the combat techniques which were of interest for the Croatian sportsmen. FIAS representatives gave answers to all the questions such as releasing from grips, defending oneself against armed attacker, or transition from standing position to mat wrestling. The answers were given and the new extensive knowledge was transformed into practical abilities skills during the two weeks. Now before the team is a hard task to transform the abilities in motor skills which sportsmen needs to fight a SAMBO bout. FIAS in its turn would like to thank the President of the Croatian SAMBO Federation Mr. ?eljko Bani? and his colleagues for the excellent conditions of the training camp and the warm welcome accorded to FIAS representatives in Zagreb. We would like to wish this young but very successful Federation the best and the most important thing they need now - the medals of the upcoming European Championship 2012.