One of the predictable gold medals was Russian sambist Sayan Khertek’s victory in 58 kg category of men’s sport sambo. Reigning world champion won all his bouts including the final one against Georgian sambist, 6 time world champion Vakhtangi Chidrashvili with total victory.

“I didn’t expect that will have total victories in all bouts. From aside it looks like I won easily, but there were difficulties in all the bouts. Every victory is hard to achieve. I was on a diet for the whole month in order to keep the weight in balance., so I am very happy to become a three time world champion”, said Sayan Khertek to the Insidethegames reporter.

Vladimir Leontev repeated his teammate’s success in the 64 kg category. The 37 year old athlete won his career’s first world title. 15 years ago he became European champion and after that never went to the top of the pedestal in world or European championships. And finally in Yerevan Leontev managed to turn back the clock and won the gold medal. It was especially hard in quarterfinals and semifinals, where Leontev defeated Kazakhstan’s Zhandos Beisenbayev and Greece’s Savva Karakizidis.

“Everybody says that 37 is old for the sports, and of course it was hard, but I managed to prepare mentally and win. I changed the weight category after the 2008 European championship, but didn’t succeed in the new weight category. I thought that I was going to quit the sport this year, and decided to return to this weight category and fight for the world title”, said Leontev to Insidethegames. But the victory can motivate the sportsman to change his mind.”It was a difficult year. Now I want to take a rest, and after that I will decide what I will do in the future”.

Uzbekistan won two gold medals in the three weight category of women’s sport sambo. It was Gulsevar Urakova who defeated Margarita Bazhayeva in a narrow battle for the gold medal in the 50 kg weight category. Both athletes had a very difficult path to the final defeating this weight category's leaders. In the final bout Urakova managed to gain one more technical point than her rival and claim the gold medal. 

Her teammate Ibodatkhon Agojonova won the world title in the 59 kg weight category. She stopped Mongolia’s surprise Nomintuya Enkhbaatar in the finals. Mongolian athlete was the author of one of the biggest upsets of the day, when she won her quarterfinal bout against returning world champion Svetlana Uvarova in the quarterfinals, but was unable to do the same against Agojonova. 

The only Russian female athlete who won the gold medal on day one was Elmira Kahramanova. Last year’s beach sambo world champion managed to win the final bout against Romanian Khrysyna Bondar with only one technical point. But it was a day of joy also for the home crowd, as their favorite Varsik Grigoryan claimed the bronze medal with two victories in repechages. As Grigoryan told the journalists he was happy with the bronze medal, but in her homeland she would like to achieve more.

Russian athletes had another gold medal in combat sambo. 79 kg weight athlete Zagid Gaidarov didn’t give any chance to his rivals and won his 4 bouts with total victory. 

Another gold medal in combat sambo went to Cameroon, as their sambo star Seydou Njimouluh defeated in the final bout Russia’s Abdulkhalim Dzhavatkhanov to become two time world champion.

“My path to this victory was even harder than my first world title. This result is a big achievement for my country. We weren’t abel to come here with all athletes, and I hope our government will pay more attention to this sport in Cameroon, and we will be able to bring more medals”, said Njimouluh to Insidethegames.

Tomorrow the athletes will compete in another 7 weight categories: Sport sambo women in 65 and 72, men in 71, 88 and +98 kg, combat sambo in 58 and 64 kg weight categories.