“SAMBO 80” from Hafnarfjordur became the first sports club in Iceland and the second in the world to receive FIAS accreditation. The organization was one of the first to respond to the initiative of the International SAMBO Federation and submitted its application. As a result of the consideration by the FIAS commission of the package of documents sent by the Icelandic club, it became the owner of the coveted accreditation.
“Obtaining accreditation has become a significant event for us, which opens up great opportunities for future work on certification and development of SAMBO in Iceland. It is also a recognition of our past achievements and an advance payment for future work. We believe that the FIAS initiative on accreditation of clubs, as well as certification and registration of athletes, coaches, referees and their licensing is the right step for the development of SAMBO at the level of national federations and schools,” said the head of the SAMBO 80 club, president of the sports association Sambo Ísland Alexander Stolyarov.
He also told that the “SAMBO 80” club, which is positioned as a wrestling and self-defense school, got its name in honor of the 80th anniversary of SAMBO, as it was registered in the anniversary year for SAMBO in 2018. At the same time, the actual work of the club, as an independent wrestling organization with its own premises, began in November 2019.
The club employs about 60 people, about 70% of them are children aged 4-18. There is also a group for adult athletes and a separate group for parents. The club closely cooperates with the Sports Committee of the city of Hafnarfjordur. For the second year, work is underway with one of the city’s schools: classes are held with children of 14-16 years old (2 groups of 10 people — girls and boys) to study the elements of self-insurance, self-defense and SAMBO techniques.
“We cannot yet call this a full-fledged SAMBO to School program, since the school curriculum in Iceland has its own characteristics. However, we continue to work and hope that from the fall of this year, at least one more school in our city will join the classes,” Stolyarov said.
According to him, the main attention in the club is paid to the preparation of children, because in this way the foundation is laid for the further successful development of SAMBO in Iceland. Work is also being actively carried out on the training of referees, coaches and qualified athletes.
“We are grateful for the cooperation, as well as for the attention and trust shown to us by the leadership of the International and European SAMBO Federations. For our part, we promise to further promote and develop SAMBO in Iceland. We would like to express our special gratitude to the FIAS sports director Dmitry Maksimov, who acted for us as a coordinator on the issue of obtaining accreditation for the club,” Alexander Stolyarov said.
Earlier, the FIAS website reported that on February 20, the world’s first FIAS accreditation certificate was presented in the city of Gagarin, Smolensk region of Russia. It was received by the sports club of martial arts “SAMBO Federation of Gagarin”.