World Championships Start

The World Championships have started and have to admit am some what disappointed with the Venue after being spoilt with last Years Worlds in St Petersburg and the Presidents Cup in Dartford. The location is a large stadium outside the town and its refreshment area are a few burger vans outside the building.

Opening Ceremony for all these competitions are in the evening of the first day of competition always found that strange calling it an Opening Ceremony. This year we had a traditional drum opening on the drums, I found this to be quite a unique experience the effort put into this by the drummers was quite extraordinary, this was followed up by lots of boring speeches by the various dignitaries. Eventually we got to the first day of the finals .

This years I believe there was over 90 countries competing and was quite amazed to meet some representatives from Afghanistan, it seems that there must be an improvement in that country if people are beginning to participate in International events. The competition standard get higher every year and I think the overall results will show some interesting places from countries not always associated with Sambo.

Our only fighter from GB was Barry Gibson and his fight lasted just 15 seconds, he was competing in the u100k Combat Sambo class and was matched against a Ukrainian fighter. Barry is the current Commonwealth Champions in this weight and at 40 was to have this as his last competition. You only have to look at his Facebook to see that he was in excellent physical condition. So what happened?  Instead of the normal start to this fights where the fighters try and feel each other out, Barry and his opponent got straight into the action. Barry made a round house kick to his opponents leg and at the same tine the Ukrainian smashed into Barry's supporting leg, this took Barry to the floor . The referee in my opinion gave the right score of 2 points but was over ridden by the all powerful Mat Chairman who gave a Total Victory to the Ukrainian much to the disgust of Barry and the audience even his opponent put his hands up on disbelief. Showing great sportsmanship the Ukrainian went over to apologise and through an interpreter said he did not want to win on such a spurious decision

Let me explain what the Total Victory is in Sambo which a sport based on true Combat, the logic is if you are on your back on a battle field and your opponent remains standing you are a dead man. So in Sport Sambo if you throw or trip your opponent on to their back and remain standing you get a Total Victory. The Rules of Combat Sambo apply but as you can kick and punch it adds another dimension to the discipline for example if you can kick your opponents legs away and he lands on his back you get a Total Victory but his was "my opinion" not the case in Barry's situation his was more of a stumble to the ground there was no clear big throw and bang but the all powerful Mat chairman saw ii differently. Sometimes the Mat Chairman should awe to caution these players had travelled thousands of miles and at extreme cost, to lose on a very debatable decision into just seconds of a fight is deplorable. The Ukrainian lost the next round so Barry was out of the tournament, I hope this explains what happened and Barry is not judged to harshly. Sunday we see Matt Clempner in the Combat Sambo u90k class

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/t3BrEqRN5rI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>