Turkmen samboist wins bronze at World Championship

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TURKMENISTAN – The Turkmen team returned victorious from the 32nd World Sambo Championship which was held in St. Petersburg at the end of November. Nasiba Surkieva won the bronze medal in the below 68-kg weight class. Athletes from 36 countries competed for medals in nine weight categories.

Despite her youth, the 26-year-old Surkieva has succeeded in fully combining judo and sambo. She has already competed in judo at three Olympics. Having failed to take home an Olympic medal, Surkieva seemed out for revenge at the World Championship, defeating Kazakhistan's D. Sadvakassova in her first match-up.

Though she held out until the very end of her bout with Latvia’s Evia Punkita, last year's bronze medallist at the Prague World Championship, she lost the match to the woman who would go on to become the 2008 world champion. In the third place match, however, Surkieva beat Mongolian Munguntuya Bantuu with a submission hold to win the bronze medal.

Surkieva has been practising sambo since 1995 and for the past three years has been perfecting her art with the distinguished Turkmen trainer Omar Mukhametnazarov. She won gold medals at the World Youth Championship in 2001 and the Asian Championships of 2001 and 2008, and a bronze medal at the 2001 Women's World Championship in Krasnoyarsk.