Postponement of the European SAMBO Championships and other Changes in the FIAS Calendar

The dates of the European SAMBO Championships have been changed for the second time. The tournament was originally supposed to take place in May in Yekaterinburg, Russia. However, due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, the organizers decided to postpone it first to September, and now to November of this year. The European SAMBO Federation plans to hold a tournament from 27 to 29 of November. The organizers hope that by that time the situation with the virus in Europe will normalize.

“Today we see how many competitions in various sports are postponed and canceled. Unfortunately, SAMBO is no exception here. No one knows how the situation with the spread of the COVID-19 virus will develop in the future, so it is very difficult for the organizers of the competition to plan something. Someone is postponing tournaments to other dates, someone has to cancel them altogether. Of course, we all understand the importance of competitions for sambists, however, the health of athletes and all participants of the competitions is still more important,” Vasily Shestakov, President of the International Sambo Federation said.

As a reminder, in the current situation due to COVID-19, FIAS granted the national and continental SAMBO federations, which are the organizers of tournaments, the right to make decisions on the cancellation or postponement of competitions on their own, based on the epidemiological situation in these countries. Earlier, the FIAS website reported on a number of tournaments that were canceled by the decision of the organizing committees, but this list has increased. Therefore, the following competitions will not be held in 2020 either:

World Cadets SAMBO Championships (scheduled for December in Porec, Croatia);

Pan American SAMBO Championships (scheduled for July in Cali, Colombia);

Asian SAMBO Championships (scheduled for June and then for September in Bali, Indonesia);

European SAMBO Cup Open (scheduled for December in Madrid, Spain);

International SAMBO Tournament "Burdikov Memorial" (scheduled for August in Kstovo, Russia);

International Combat SAMBO tournament "Baikal Cup" (scheduled for August in Irkutsk, Russia);

International SAMBO Tournament “Chokheli Memorial” (scheduled for September in Tbilisi, Georgia);

International SAMBO Tournament for the Prizes of the President of the Republic of Tatarstan (scheduled for October in Tatarstan, Russia);

International SAMBO Tournament "Potapov Memorial" (it was planned to be held in April and then in October in Vladivostok, Russia).

Up-to-date information on the dates of the FIAS international SAMBO tournaments can be found in the "Calendar" section on the official website of the International SAMBO Federation.