We congratulate Sergey Eliseev on the election as the President of European SAMBO Federation

On May 17, in Moscow (Russia) they held a Report and Election Congress of the European SAMBO Federation. It was attended by the Heads of 30 National SAMBO Federations of Europe. Following the results of the Congress, Sergey Eliseev who had been the leader of the European SAMBO since 2004 was unanimously elected to the position of President of the European SAMBO Federation. The Congress also approved the new Executive Committee of the European SAMBO Federation and elected the General Secretary and the Vice Presidents. The main FIAS development trend is to secure admission of International SAMBO Federation into the International Olympic Committee. One of the main requirements on this way is the increase of number of National Federations in the world. This requirement was reflected in the work of the Congress by admittance of a new member in the European SAMBO Family: the Turkish SAMBO Federation. Now, the Federation of the Continent has 35 members. The new President sounded some target figures which European SAMBO is planning to achieve after one year of work. One of those targets is to increase the number of European Federations to 40, and the number of SAMBO Federations recognized by National Olympic Committees – to 35. Those are big numbers, but considering the report on the work of the previous 4 years presented to the Congress by Sergey Eliseev, the targets mentioned are quite realistic for today Europe. President of the European SAMBO Federation also looked to the future and familiarized the colleagues with our plans for the next 4 years. Those plans include the work aimed at the inclusion of SAMBO in the program of the Olympic Games, the introduction of a more balanced and structured schedule for the next 4 years, development of uniform classification system for the athletes, coaches and referees, and development of combat SAMBO in the new age category (Juniors). The goals chosen are strategically appropriate, and the tasks to solve are ambitious and difficult. However, the three hours of work at the Congress proved that the new President has a close-knit and enthusiastic team. This means that there are no doubts that our plans will turn into reality. We congratulate Sergey Eliseev on the election, and we wish him and his colleagues fruitful and creative work for the transformation of SAMBO into an even more modern, fast-growing and spectacular sport. Natalia Yukhareva press-service of FIAS