The FOK “Gazprom” in St. Petersburg hosted the 4th Blind and Visually Impaired Russian SAMBO Championships, which was held on October 24. The northern capital of Russia became the venue for this tournament for the first time.
Representatives of 8 federal districts took part in the main start of Russia in SAMBO for the blind and visually impaired: the Central Federal District, the Northwestern Federal District, the Siberian Federal District, the Southern Federal District, the Far Eastern Federal District, Ural Federal District, Volga Federal District, North Caucasian Federal District.
Welcoming speeches were addressed to the participants of the tournaments by the guests: Evgenia Lapina, the representative of the Committee for Physical Culture and Sports of the Government of St. Petersburg, Head of the Department for Sports and Mass Work; Yuri Zhukov, Vice-President of the Sports Federation for the Blind; Alexey Kolosov, Chairman of the Sports Federation of the Blind of St. Petersburg, Chairman of the Regional Society of the Blind of St. Petersburg; Mikhail Kokorin, Vice-President of the All-Russian Sambo Federation, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Regional Branch of the All-Russian Sambo Federation of St. Petersburg; Roman Novikov, Chairman of the Commission for the Development of Sambo Among the Blind and Visually Impaired in the All-Russian Sambo Federation, President of the Sambo of the Blind Charitable Foundation.
At the opening ceremony, Viktor Ignatenko, the senior coach of the Russian national SAMBO team for the blind and visually impaired, read out greetings to the participants and guests of the competition from the President of the International SAMBO Federation Vasily Shestakov and the President of the All-Russian and European SAMBO Federations Sergey Eliseev.
The guests of the tournament were titled sambists: international master of sports in SAMBO, European SAMBO champion, bronze medalist of the World SAMBO Championships Sergei Yalyshev and honored master of sports of the USSR in SAMBO, three-time World SAMBO Champion, honored coach of Russia Anton Novikov.
Images and source: sambo.sport
