On February 25, the Russian National Championship will start in Verkhnyaya Pyshma

On February 25-28 the main national sambo tournament of the year - Russian Championship - will take place in Verkhnyaya Pyshma at the UMMC Sports Palace. Its winners traditionally get the right to participate in the World Championship, and silver medalists - in Europe Championship.

More than 80 people from the Sverdlovsk region will participate in the Championship of Russia - a record number in the history of the Sverdlovsk sambo. As you may recall, this will be the third National Championship for Verkhnyaya Pyshma. Earlier they were held here in 2006 and 2014. Two more events, in 2003 and 2017, were hosted by Yekaterinburg. Verkhnyaya Pyshma and Yekaterinburg have a clear lead in the number of Russian National Championships held in the recent national history. Of all Russian cities, only St. Petersburg was able to come close.

Today Verkhnyaya Pyshma is rightly considered one of the main sambo development poles in Russia and in the world, primarily due to the success of the athletes of the UMMC Sambo Club. In recent years Verkhnyaya Pyshma sambo wrestlers have won the title of world champions seventeen times and thirteen times the title of European champions, and victories in the national championships and competitions in Russia are counted in the tens. The most titled Ural sambo wrestler today is six-time World Champion Alsim Chernoskulov from Verkhnyaya Pyshma UMMC Sambo Club. Ilya Khlybov, his teammate, now the deputy head coach of the UMMC Sambo Club, has five top world titles. And then there are only athletes from Verkhnyaya Pyshma: Timur Galliamov - two world victories, Vladimir Balykov, Stanislav Skryabin and Vladimir Gladkikh - one victory each, and one more title, the fourth in his career and first under the flag of UMMC won in 2021 by the brilliant master Uali Kurzhev.

In addition, the city has an excellent sports, accommodation and social infrastructure, has convenient logistics and a large team of professionals, which together allow it at the highest level to take the largest national and international competitions, as well as important departmental events.

At the moment, almost 700 people from more than 60 regions of Russia have already applied for the national championship of Russia-2022 in Verkhnyaya Pyshma.

Our athletes were also preparing for their "home" championship at a familiar base near Sysert - a traditional training ground for regional teams on the eve of important tournaments. And the best sambists of the Urals helped their young colleagues, who just recently participated in the Russian youth championship in Kazan, to get in good shape.

Leonid Putintsev, executive director of the Sambo Federation of Sverdlovsk region, will tell more about the upcoming Russian National Championship on the air of "Channel 4" TV company.