Baku, Azerbaijan, June 22
By Anvar Mammadov - Trend:
Sambo events kicked off at the First European Games in Baku June 22.
The athletes will compete for 8 medal sets in these events today. Azerbaijan will be represented by eight athletes.
Sambo in particular has its roots in the military history of the Soviet Union. It is a martial art, it was devised as an element of Red Army training in the 1920s with the intention of sharpening soldiers' hand-to-hand combat skills. Throwing, groundwork and submissions are all elements - the sport has echoes of both wrestling and judo, but rules and restrictions are different - and the name is a truncated version of the Russian for 'self-defence without weapons.'
The European Games that kicked off June 12, will last till June 28. There is a total of 20 sports at Baku 2015: 16 Olympic sports and four non-Olympic sports.
More than 6,000 athletes from across Europe came to Baku to represent their nations over 17 days of competition. Baku was awarded the games by the European Olympic Committees (EOC) in December 2012.
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