FILA Thrust for World Dominance fails
Report by Martin Clarke BSF President
History:
F.I.L.A. International Olympic Wrestling Association
F.I.A.S. International Sambo/Sombo Federation
Sambo/Sombo is a Jacket wrestling sport invented in the ex Soviet Union in the 1930.s
F.I.L.A. controlled Sambo/Sombo till 1985 when it asked Fernando Compte to form an independent International Federation, F.I.A.S. was formed and F.I.L.A. relinquished all connections to the Sport.
1993 F.I.A.S. split into two factions. 2004 was reunified under the Presidency of David Rudman
Above is a very brief history of the development of Sombo/Sambo which is important to this report, for some years now rumours have been banded about that FILA seem to have been trying to collect all wrestling styles under their banner to secure a world dominance of all wrestling discipline, they now have Celtic wrestling and Beach Wrestling the latter being Wrestling done in a sand pit with only standing techniques allowed. There next wrestling style on their target list was Sombo/Sambo, which they were informed was in disarray, with FIAS being unrepresentative of the Sport instead of checking their facts they went ahead a formulated a Sambo/Sombo section culminating in a World Sombo Championship being held alongside their Beach Wrestling Worlds in Turkey which coincided with the FIAS World championships in Bulgaria.
FILA had 13 countries at their World Sombo Tournament and FIAS had 33 countries, it was not so much the numbers but what countries took part
FILA participating countries: Turkey, USA, Spain, India, Hungary, France, Morocco, Puerto Rico, Armenia, Panama these are the only countries I could find who actually entered but the FILA Web site does state 13 countries. The countries are in order in how they placed in the medal tally.
FIAS participating countries: 1 ARMENIA 2 AZERBAIDJAN 3 BELARUS 4 BULGARIA 5 CZECH REPUBLIC
6 FRANCE 7 GEORGIA 8 GERMANY 9 GREECE 10 GREAT BRITAIN 11 ISRAEL 12 ITALY 13 JAPAN
14 KAZAKSTAN 15 KOREA 16 LATVIA 17 LITHUANIA 18 MAROCCO 19 MOLDOVA 20 MONGOLIA
21 NETHERLANDS 22 NEW ZEALAND 23 PANAMA 24 ROMANIA 25 RUSSIA26 SLOVENIA 27 SERBIA
28 SWITZERLAND 29 TADJIKISTAN 30 USA 31 VENEZUELA 32 UZBEKISTAN 33 UKRAINE
countries are place alphabetically.
As you can see the calibre of the countries are totally different the FILA event had not one major Sombo/Sambo countries present in fact to my knowledge Turkey or India have never competed in any World Championships let alone been placed in one, yet Turkey who has never had a Sambo/Sombo federation wins most medals, what does that tell you. If you go to http://www.themat.com/index.php?page=showarticle&ArticleID=15368 you will read an interesting blog on the whole of the Turkish event, the event seems to be a tremendous success for those wishing to enjoy a holiday but as you read through the Blog you see the whole event was a bit of mix and match. Beach Wrestlers who had never tried Sombo was asked to compete, competitors did not have equipment I could go on and this meant to be THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS! More like the Come & Try Worlds, Glamorous Venues are OK but the reason you attend a World Championships is to find who are the best Sombo/Sambo players in the World not to have a holiday.
I could go on and make comments about the actual competitors but that would be futile and spiteful as all competitors who participated in the FILA Worlds were prepared to fight anyone in the world, it was FILA who misled them.
There is a plus to this debacle of FILA for once and for all everyone will see that FIAS is the true representative of International Sombo/Sambo and it seems by the Blog report everyone enjoyed Sombo/Sambo and hopefully those who attended the event will ask their coaches how they can compete in FIAS events, I am certain that all competitors from FILA Sombo/Sambo would be welcome back into the fold of the true International Sombo/Sambo and hopefully FILA will learn to stick to what they know. For information on FIAS results go to http://www.sambo.com/results-world-11-06.html and if your interested in competiting in the British Sombo Open in March 2007 all are welcome go to www.britishsombo.co.uk
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