SAMBO'S CANADIAN EXPERIENCE

On May 19-26, in Quebec (Canada) one of the world's largest sporting events - the International Sport Accord Conference was held. The event was attended by more than 2000 leaders of modern sport. The delegation of International Sambo Federation headed by FIAS President Vasily Shestakov also took part in this sports forum.

Workshops and meetings in Quebec showed that world sports leaders highly appreciate SAMBO's contribution to the modern sports movement. SAMBO's successful start at the first Sport Accord Games in Beijing, cooperation between FIAS and AIPS (International Sports Press Association) and Eurovision (European Broadcasting Union), successful social projects, active participation in II Sport Accord Games in Saint Petersburg - surely contribute to SAMBO's positive image.

We would like to remind you that FIAS President Vasily Shestakov was one of the organizers of invitation of the second Sport Accord to Saint Petersburg. Now, the preparation for the Games is in full swing. In October next year, about 1500 athletes from 120 countries will meet on the 4 sports grounds (two of them are ice arenas) of the cultural capital of Russia. 30,000 sport fans will enjoy the competitions of the best athletes in 15 disciplines 5 of which are Olympic ones and the other 10 are not.

At the Plenary Session of International Martial Arts Federation the Second Games were presented by Mr. Pavel Zhuravlyov, Executive Director of Russian Martial Arts Association and Mr. Yury Avdeyev, Chairman of the Committee for Physical Education and Sports of Saint- Petersburg. They told the audience about the structure of project management in the territory of Russia as well as assured that Saint Petersburg is ready to accept this large-scale multi-sport event.

In the course of his speech, Vasily Shestakov presented to Sport Accord Management a number of projects which could be an adornment of the Saint - Petersburg Games. His ideas were accepted with great enthusiasm which gives us the reason to hope that they will be implemented in the closest future. What projects was he talking about? First of all, it was the organization of Museum of Martial Arts and Combat Sports as a part of the Games' cultural program.

The exposition will be based on the materials provided by the participating International Federations. Those can be training and performance outfit of the respective sport, photo and video materials, awards and memorable gifts, biographies of the best athletes, etc. The Museum will be opened 6 months prior to the beginning of the Games and surely this unique project will be an adornment of the Games. The second initiative was the research program "Combat Sports in the Modern World" to be implemented in the course of preparation for and holding of the Games. In the framework of this project, researchers from the entire world will study the problems and development outlooks of combat sports.

Such cooperation between sport and science will surely help the representatives of martial arts find their place in the modern sports and open the new horizon and perspectives for those sports. Now, let's switch from Sport Accord Games to Olympic Games. During the Convention, FIAS delegates met with Mr. Christophe Dubi, Sports Director of International Olympic Committee. He noted that SAMBO had good outlooks with regard to temporary recognition by International Olympic Committee. For this purpose, FIAS must prepare the entire statistic, information and presentation materials that will give IOC more information about SAMBO. The documents will also contain the information about the social projects run by FIAS.

Everybody knows that sport is an integral part of social life. This is why IOC, EOC and other international sport organizations now pay special attention to social projects in sports. In this regard, SAMBO perfectly meets today's requirements. It's no secret that quite a number of contemporary sports have only insignificant or indirect practical importance. On the contrary SAMBO is a unique self-defense system which us necessary for everyone. In this regard, FIAS implements some interesting social projects, such as "The Art of Falling" and "Life Safety Package". The social role of SAMBO was the topic of conversation between Vasily Shestakov and Mr. Jan Colenbier, Executive Director of "Sport and Piece" program.

The next joint project is the presentation of SAMBO at the Friendship Games. This event will be held on July 7-8 in the area of African Great Lakes, on the borders of several states (Burundi, Rwanda and Congo). It is expected that about 400 people will take part in the competitions in five sports. SAMBO will be one of the five, too. It was also resolved to make a presentation of SAMBO at the II International Forum "Sport and Peace" to be held in Sochi in November this year. "Quebec program was a large scale one but the most important thing for us was the atmosphere of friendship and understanding we could feel each time we started speaking about SAMBO and FIAS. Friendly attitude creates openness which helps us build up fruitful partner relationship. SAMBO needs it very much right now," - commented FIAS President Vasily Shestakov on the results of the Sport Accord Convention in Quebec. We are sure that friendly attitude will bring SAMBO more and more fans in the closest future.

Natalia Yukhareva,
FIAS Press-service