The message reads, in part:
“Created in our country 85 years ago, this unique martial art combines the best practices of national combat sports and helps promote high moral qualities, stamina, staunchness and self-discipline.
It is gratifying that sambo is developing actively, that its geography is expanding and that it is winning more and more devoted followers. Your representative competition is, of course, boosting sambo’s popularity and promoting its ideals and values.
I have no doubt that that this Cup, held in the year of its 85th anniversary, will become a big and truly festive event and will help maintain the creative legacy of Viktor Spiridonov, Vasily Oshchepkov, Anatoly Kharlampiyev and our other outstanding compatriots who stood at the origins of sambo and brought glory to it through their victories and achievements.”