The 25th Asian Sambo Championships began in Ulaanbaatar, the capital city of Mongolia earlier today (11 May). This is the third time that Mongolia  is organising the event. Over 400 athletes from 14 Asian countries including China, North Korea, Afghanistan, Iran, Japan, India, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are competing in the various age categories.

Mongolia is considered as one of the countries where sambo wrestling is highly developed; the country’s athletes have been participating in  competitions since 1973 when the first World Sambo Championships was held. Mongolia has 37 champions in this sport; over the years the country’s athletes have taken 57 golds, 21 silvers and 28 bronzes from various sambo competitions.

Sambo, originally developed in Soviet Russia in the early 1920’s as a way of improving hand-to-hand combat in the newly-formed Red Army. It is an acronym for self-defence (SAMozashchita) without weapons (Bez Oruzhiya). In recent years, it has become extremely popular – not least in Mongolia.