De Zoysa ventures into Russian Sambo

De Zoysa is one of the most Senior Judokas in Sri Lanka being the open National Judo Champion from the year 1972 to 1978, was a gold medalist in South East Asia Judo Championship and introduced Women's Judo to Sri Lanka he is a former president of the Sri Lanka Judo Association from 1978, 1979, 2008 and 2009.

De Zoysa is the president of the Jigoro Kano Judo Foundation, Chairman of the Colombo YMCA Judo Organization and the president of the Sambo Federation as well as the president of the Sumo Federation. He says most of his life was Judo. Now he feels it is time to introduce a new martial art to Sri Lanka with the vast knowledge he has gained in the field of Judo.

Sambo is a Judo based martial art comprising sport Sambo and Combat Sambo. Most of the greatest Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighters in the world are from Russian combat sambo. It is the official combat sport of Russia.

What is interesting here is, you Learn one martial art, eg. Judo and begin to be curious whether wrestling, Jiu Jitsu or Kurash or any other could be more effective, but Sambo has all these put together and much more. Now we come to combat sambo.

Here you could compete against any martial artist, whether it is Judo, Japanese Jiu Jitsu, Wrestling, Karate, Taikondo, Wushu, French Boxing savate or any martial art. Because sambo is all of this put to together. I feel this is the best opportunity for the Sri Lankan men and women, girls and boys, armed forces to study this great martial art, to maintain a healthier body and for self defence and to develop self confidence. It is the instinct of every human bring to be curious, evolving, always trying to find out what is the best out of all.

Sri Lanka was invited to participate in the 22nd Asian Sambo Championship in Tashkent, Uzbekistan from the June 5 to 10, 2013. M Weeraratne from Sri Lanka participated in the 74kg weight class in the senior division. He was the National Judo Champion for six years from 1993 onwards and participated in the Asian Judo Championship 1989 in Venusu, China. He was also a National Wrestling Champion in 1985 in the 48kg class. With all this experience, he was able to come up to the fourth level, which was a great feat as we were competing in the Asian International Sambo Tournament for the first time where 28 countries participated. With our achievement, the Asian Sambo Federation has put our federation under consideration to send us an instructor as well as sambo uniforms and mattresses, head gear and boots.

Our Sambo Federation is also invited to attend the Asian and Pan American Sambo Federations and international conference 'Prospects of Global Sambo Development and main universal principles of the IOC for good governance of the Olympic and sport movement,' held in Kuala Lampur-Malaysia from June 21-23, 2013.

All martial arts schools are invited to affiliate with our Sambo Federation so that so that they could participate in our open tournament. Email address: [email protected]