Hello my name is Luis Adrianza.
I am Venezuelan and sport sambo practitioner for 15 years. I was on the national team of my country for many years where I participated in Pan American and World Championships.
Sambo in Venezuela started in the 80s when we participated in the Pan American Games, 1983. Venezuela won several gold and silver bronze. Since then, the Venezuelan sambo federation have worked hard and prepared many elite athletes in different weight categories. We now have both Pan American and world medalists, juveniles as an adults.
I cannot thank enough to the ministry of sport whois our main sponsor and takes a very good care of our preparation for the various competitions, both children and adult.
Now we are working on programs to bring sambo in the school and the army. I have given plenty of seminars and hope we can cooperate in the future.
We also organized the international sambo Cup Astakhov, starting in 2004. Originally an idea of master Abel Franco, every year we hold the international tournament, which is now part of the official FIAS global tournaments calendar.
One of my dreams is to see sambo at the Olympics. FIAS puts a lot of efforts for the inclusion of sambo in the Olympics and I am sure one day we will be able to enjoy watching and participating sambo tournaments as part of the highest level sport event on the planet.
In a way sambo has a lot in common with jujitsu, judo techniques, wich are similar but more aggressive and sambo, from my point of view, is the most complete tachiwaza and newaza grappling art. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is very good art and Ihave a lot of respect for it, because of its vast knowledge of newaza. The two are very different, but both very good sports to train and compete in.
My advice to the young practitioners is to practice the sport with maximum responsability. Hard training always pays back. I wish you all success and something very important- SAY NO TO DRUGS!
Thank you!
