The long distance and lengthy travel time won’t deter Kyrgyzstan from fielding a huge contingent of 57 campaigners to the 11th Asia-Oceania Sambo Championships presented by the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) opening on 23 June at the Ninoy Aquino Stadium within the historic Rizal Memorial Sports Complex. 

“Kyrgyzstan is now sending 57 athletes so it is the biggest team competing in the tournament, with Mongolia now coming in second with over 40 entries,” noted Pilipinas Sambo Federation president Paolo Tancontian during the meet’s interagency meeting held the other day at the PSC Media Center.

A landlocked country located in Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan is 5,526 kilometers west of the country and plane travel takes from 18 to 20 hours to Manila, depending on the layovers, considering that there are no direct flights to the Philippines.

Tancontian said that the huge presence of Kyrgyzstanis in the five-day meet also staged with the support of the National Sports Tourism Inter-Agency Committee (NSP-IAC) underscores the importance of the international sambo showcase to Asia and Oceania. 

“We are expecting about 600 athletes from 29 countries from all over Asia and Oceania to come over and compete in the tournament we are hosting that arguably is second only to our world championships,” he added.

PSC chairman Patrick “Pato” Gregorio, who has been a major advocate of sports tourism as a major economic driver for the country and also heads the NSP-IAC, was pleased with the positive development with the meet barely three weeks away.

“We salute the Pilipinas Sambo Federation and the local organizing committee in going the extra mile to make the forthcoming 11th Asia-Oceania Sambo Championships not only successful but also another boost to our local tourism,” Gregorio said.

PSC commissioner Fritz Gaston, who has oversight over sambo and attended the inter-agency meeting, noted that “everything went quite well and all of the agencies involved in the competition were well-represented.”

Gaston said that staging the competition sanctioned by the International Sambo Federation and by the Sambo Union of Asia and Oceania within the RMSC’s premises was both convenient and strategic for its participants as well as the government sports agency.