DUSHANBE, April 1, 2010, Asia-Plus  -- Tajikistan’s national team (men) won the 2010 Central Asian Sambo Championships that took place in the Tajik northern city of Chkalvsk on March 28-29, according to Tajikistan’s National Olympic Committee (NOC).

“In all, some 100 athletes from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan took part in the 2010 Central Asian Sambo Championships,” the NOC source  said, noting that Uzbek female team was the best among the female wrestlers.

The Third Central Asian Sambo Championships will be held in March 2011 in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.

Sambo is a relatively modern martial art, combat sport and self-defense system developed in the Soviet Union and recognized as an official sport by the USSR All-Union Sports Committee in 1938, presented by Anatoly Kharlampiev.  The word Sambo is an acronym meaning "self-defense without a weapon" in Russian. Sambo has its roots in Japanese judo and traditional folk styles of wrestling of the peoples of Caucasus and Central Asia as well as Romania and Mongolia.