First Medal for Mexico: Ginger Odeth Molinares Talks About Her Path in SAMBO

At the World Cadet, Youth & Junior SAMBO Championships 2026 in Thessaloniki, Mexico won its first ever medal at the tournament. Ginger Odeth Molinares took bronze in the Cadets’ 50 kg category (girls). Right after receiving her medal, the athlete shared her emotions and talked about the journey that led to this result.

“I feel incredibly happy and very proud, because history is being made for Mexico right now. I’m glad to have the opportunity to represent my country, compete under its flag and win a medal. Mission accomplished. We worked really hard for this, and I’m grateful to everyone who helped me along the way. I’m very happy, very emotional, and ready to keep going,” said Ginger.

According to the athlete, the road to bronze was not easy. She lost her first bout to a Mongolian opponent by a narrow margin, but then took confident wins over athletes from Ukraine and Spain.

“The first bout was without a doubt the toughest. I will definitely go through all my mistakes, draw conclusions and keep training. To be honest, I learn more from defeats than from victories. Wins bring me joy, but it was the losses that taught me more. I definitely need to keep working next year and in the years to come so I can represent my country even better. This is my first year of SAMBO. In fact, I’ve only been doing this sport for a very short time. I compete in mixed martial arts, but I’ll keep improving so I can bring better SAMBO results to my country,” said the Mexican athlete.

Ginger described in detail the tactics that helped her win at the World Cadet, Youth & Junior SAMBO Championships in Thessaloniki.

“I was looking for opportunities to go for the legs, looking for where I could take my chance to score points, and that’s how it worked out for me. That’s how it worked in the third bout, in the second, and it was working in the first. That was my strategy, and it’s something I can point to. It worked really well for me,” she said.

The tournament in Thessaloniki was Molinares’s first major international SAMBO competition, and she compared it with her experience in mixed martial arts.

“Because I compete in mixed martial arts, I’ve fought in different sports, and to be honest, SAMBO is something completely different, like nothing else. Personally, I found SAMBO harder than many other combat sports. Here, everyone is at their limit,” the athlete said.

Ginger came to SAMBO thanks to her father, who told her about MMA stars who had started out in this very sport. She added that she is familiar with the names of SAMBO’s global ambassadors, Fedor Emelianenko and Islam Makhachev.

“It’s all thanks to my dad, actually. He started explaining to me that these people had done SAMBO, and I said, ‘Then I need to give it a try, too.’ And I enjoyed the experience. Yes, I can really say that SAMBO is a very good foundation for MMA,” she said.

Sport, according to Molinares, has long been an important part of her life.

“I’ve done sports my whole life. When I discovered combat sports, I realized this was mine, that it was my second life outside of school. I realized I wanted to dedicate myself to combat sports, to make them part of my life forever. And yes, SAMBO and martial arts in general have already become part of my life, and I hope it stays that way in the future,” she said.

Speaking about her plans, the athlete did not rule out combining a professional MMA career with competing in Combat SAMBO, and named becoming a world champion as her main goal.

“First and foremost, I’d like to become a SAMBO world champion, maybe in Combat SAMBO. I will keep going until I achieve it. I’ll keep training, put in a lot of effort, keep studying my own bouts and my opponents’ bouts, as I’ve been doing, but now I’ll work on it harder and more specifically, so I can achieve better results,” said Ginger.

To conclude, the athlete said she hopes her result will help SAMBO become more popular in her home country.

“I hope I can attract more people in Mexico who will discover this sport, because it’s truly wonderful. I’d like many people to get to know SAMBO, because it’s another world, and it’s different from any sport I’ve done before. So I hope that in Mexico it will become better known and more accessible, for both men and women,” said the bronze medalist of the World Cadet, Youth & Junior SAMBO Championships.