FIAS President Meets Blind SAMBO World Champions

A meeting between the President of the International SAMBO Federation (FIAS) Vasily Shestakov and the first-ever World Blind SAMBO Champions and their coaches was held at the International SAMBO Center.

The head of FIAS congratulated the athletes on their great achievement and noted that Blind SAMBO had generated great interest among the fans in the hall and viewers of the live broadcast of the World Championships held in Astana. He noted the importance of developing this discipline, which had already become the most important event of the tournament at its debut World Championships.

The champions, in turn, thanked Vasily Shestakov and the entire FIAS team for their support and great contribution to the development of Blind SAMBO. The athletes and coaches were interested in the further development and promotion of this discipline in the international arena, and they requested an increase in competitions for blind sambists at the international level.

Each athlete told how they went to their "gold". World SAMBO Champion in the Blind SAMBO discipline in the weight category up to 64 kg Andrey Demidov first competed at the international level as part of the FIAS demonstration team in 2019 in Korea. Then Andrey Demidov and Dmitry Samokhvalov demonstrated the technique and capabilities of wrestlers in Blind SAMBO for the first time as part of the World Championships.

World SAMBO Champion in the Blind SAMBO discipline in the weight category up to 79 kg Viktor Rudenko in 2023 became the champion of the first international SAMBO competition, which included the blind and visually impaired - the Open Asia and Oceania Championships, which took place in Astana, Kazakhstan. In the same 2023, he became the bronze medalist of the World Combat Games, which were held in Saudi Arabia in the city of Riyadh. For the world champion in Blind SAMBO in the weight category up to 98 kg.

Pavel Selivanov, the 2024 World SAMBO Championships was his debut start on the international arena. Pavel plans to repeat his success in 2025 at the next World Championships, which will be held in Turkmenistan.

FIAS President Vasily Shestakov presented commemorative plaques and memorable gifts to the champions and coaches:

Andrey Demidov and his coach Egor Panteleev.

Victor Rudenko and his coach Roman Khalikov.

Pavel Selivanov and his coach Maxim Koshkarovsky.

The head of FIAS also noted with letters of gratitude the chairman of the FIAS Commission for Athletes with Disabilities Roman Novikov and the chief classifier of FIAS Natalia Novikova.

“It is a great honor for every sambist to visit the International SAMBO Center and shake hands with FIAS President Vasily Shestakov. I managed to do this after I became the world SAMBO champion at the tournament in Astana, where I had an important mission – to represent a new discipline in the world – SAMBO for the Blind. Before that, I had come a long and difficult way, which bore fruit. Of course, this visit to the SAMBO Center will be remembered for a long time by me and everyone who supports me. I hope that in the future I will have more good reasons to visit the International SAMBO Center," Andrey Demidov said after the meeting.

Then a tour of the International SAMBO Center was organized for the champions and coaches. The guide told what the main SAMBO arena and training halls looked like, and the blind sambists and coaches also visited the gym and were able to try out some of the exercise machines themselves.

The tour ended with a visit to the memorial to the SAMBO founders, the blind sambists took memorable photos against the backdrop of the memorial and were also able to look at the sculptures tactilely.

"I really liked the complex itself. You can feel the huge scale: large training areas, incredible gyms, very comfortable locker rooms. We looked at everything, touched everything, the International SAMBO Center made a huge impression on me. And, of course, the meeting with the FIAS President became a historic moment for us, I am happy that I was one of the athletes who attended this event,” said Pavel Selivanov.

At the end of the day, the champions held a meeting with young sambists. Andrey Demidov and Viktor Rudenko demonstrated their SAMBO technique to the guys in an exhibition match. Each technique was accompanied by thunderous applause from the guys.

Then the young sambists had the opportunity to measure their strength with the current champions in a game form, and the youth team defeated the champions with a crushing score.

Also on the big screen, the young sambists were shown key moments from the World SAMBO Championships, where a tense struggle took place in the final bouts in the discipline of Blind SAMBO. In addition, they saw an archive video of the demonstration performance of the FIAS demonstration team Andrey Demidov and Dmitry Samokhvalov at the 2019 World SAMBO Championships in Korea.

At the end of the meeting, a friendly conversation took place between the champions and young sambists, the children were interested in literally everything, and they bombarded the champions with questions, which the heroes answered with pleasure.

"During the master class, we showed what we can do, and the children demonstrated their skills. The children asked many interesting questions – both simple and complex. We tried to answer as sincerely and clearly as possible for children of all ages. It seems to me that such master classes are useful for children, because they charge them with motivation, become an additional incentive for training and growth in sports," Viktor Rudenko said.

The impressions after such a meaningful meeting will remain for a long time both for the blind sambists themselves – the current world SAMBO champions, and for the future champions, who may well contribute to the development of SAMBO.

"On behalf of the World SAMBO Champions and their coaches, I would like to say a big thanks to FIAS President Vasily Shestakov and the entire FIAS team for their special attention to the first world champions in the history of Blind SAMBO. Without exaggeration – for our champions and coaches this day became a holiday! Everyone received unforgettable impressions and positive emotions that will remain in their memory for many years,” commented Roman Novikov, Chairman of the FIAS Commission for Athletes with Disabilities and President of the SAMBO for the Blind Charitable Foundation.