World Sambo Championships Among Youth and Juniors: Closing Day Three

Spectacular and uncompromising wrestling in six weight categories among youth and juniors (boys and girls) marked the closing day of the Youth World Championship in the "Northern capital" of Greece, the city of Thessaloniki. The "baton" of the main FIAS events' organizer has been passed to Russia's “Northern capital”, Saint-Petersburg, where the World SAMBO Championship is due to start already in late November. 

The finalist in the 48-kg weight category among junior girls Anastasia Ivanova entered the carpet of "Pale de sport" quite confident and charged for victory. Before each "grapple" in the bout against her Kazakh opponent Ayzhan Zhilkibaeva the Russian wrestler made funny jumps thus psyching herself up for a "sambo exploit". And she actually accomplished it, having performed a superb hip throw, for which she was awarded 4 points, in addition to another 4 points for immobilizing her opponent. The next time she jumped on the carpet already as champion of the world – a remarkable progress compared to the continental championship where Anastasia ranked only second.

The crowning event of the finals in the 70-kg weight category among youth was the "eagle dance". This was how Russian wrestler Sayan Ondar celebrated his winning submission arm hold against Moldovan wrestler Julian Pyatikovsky. This Tuvan dance is often performed during the ethnic wrestling event called "khuresh". It turned out that Sayan was a frequent participant of that competition held in the land of Tuva. After his spectacular victory in Thessaloniki Sayan unintentionally familiarized the audience of the sambo tournament with the Tuvan culture and made the TV broadcasting more entertaining thanks to his exotic celebration. 

Belarussian junior wrestler Tatiana Tots defeated the Russian junior Ayako Ree in the finals among junior girls in the 64-kg category. This was reiteration of the finals that took place at the Youth European Championship in Limassol, Cyprus, where the Belarussian wrestler got the upper hand, and here in Greece she added the world champion's title to her gold medal in the continental competitions. 

In the concluding bout junior wrestler from Georgia Tornike Otinashvili opposed Dmitry Torgashov, Russia, in the 100-kg category. Tornike was on the offensive from the very first seconds in standing position, but missed a seemingly nonthreatening takedown that proved fateful. Dmitry knew what he was doing: the trapped heel tendon forced the Georgian's submission 33 seconds after the starting whistle, and another gold medal was added to the collection of the Russian national team.

Incidentally, a few words about team totals. In the youth event for boys team Russia ranks first, followed by Georgia and by Kazakhstan; as for girls, Russia tops the list again, followed by Kazakhstan and by Belarus. Among the junior boys the leading trio looks thus: Russia, Georgia and Kazakhstan. Among the junior girls Russians were the best again, followed by Ukraine and by Bulgaria.

Natalia Yukhareva

www.sambo.sport