Find a place for Sambo

Some outstanding female athletes from Hue at the 2026 National Sambo Championship & Junior Championship.

New, unique, but plays well.

Duong Thi Quynh Nhu, a judo athlete from Hue, won a bronze medal in the Sport Sambo under 80kg category while participating with the Vietnamese Sambo team at the 30th SEA Games in 2019 in the Philippines . This was also the only medal won by the Vietnamese Sambo team at the Games.

Notably, the Vietnamese Sambo team had only been formed less than a month before the competition, and Quynh Nhu and the other athletes had only officially been learning the martial art for less than three weeks.

Imported from the Russian Federation, Sambo – a variant of Judo – has its own unique characteristics, especially its lower attack stance and techniques such as grappling, grabbing, and seizing. However, many of the remaining techniques, such as throws, tosses, throws, locks, breaks, and chokes in Sambo, are similar to wrestling, Judo, and Jujitsu. This allows athletes in these disciplines to quickly adapt.

This partly explains why, despite only having trained in Sambo for a short time, Quynh Nhu quickly achieved success at the SEA Games. Besides Judo, Hue's sports scene also boasts a strong contingent from wrestling and Jujitsu, which could be adapted if they wanted to develop Sambo. Unfortunately, Sambo was not included in the competition program for the 31st, 32nd, and 33rd SEA Games. Vietnam will only organize the Club Championship and the National Championship in 2024, causing a significant delay in the development of this sport in provinces and cities, including Hue.

However, after two years of participating in the club championships and the national championships with remarkable achievements, the Hue Sambo team, with its members from the wrestling discipline, made a name for itself at the 2026 National Sambo Championship & Youth Championship, winning 9 gold medals, 9 silver medals, and 9 bronze medals, ranking first overall, surpassing many strong teams such as the Army, Ho Chi Minh City, and Hung Yen.

More importantly, this achievement shows that Hue's sports scene has a force capable of competing when Sambo is organized at the national level, even though it has not yet been established as a sport and does not have a dedicated coach.

Change your approach.

Currently, Sambo in Vietnam is still in its early stages of development. For provinces and cities, it is a relatively new martial art, meaning that many localities do not have specialized teams and have to use athletes from martial arts with similar technical foundations such as wrestling, Jujitsu, Judo, or even Wushu or Kickboxing.

For sports in Hue, the biggest challenge currently is that Sambo has not yet been established as a separate sport, lacking specialized facilities and equipment. Whenever participating in competitions, the team is always drawn from wrestling.

Another difficulty is that Sambo is not yet included in the competition program at the upcoming National Sports Games. The plan for developing high-performance sports in Hue City for the period 2026-2030 also doesn't mention Sambo, leaving investment in this martial art in a state of limbo. After the recent success, not investing properly would be a waste; but if investment continues, besides the financial aspect, there are also issues of targets and direction to address.

Therefore, building on the overall first place finish at the 2026 National Sambo Championships and Junior Championships, we should change our approach. With the improved quality and strength of athletes in wrestling, judo, and jujitsu, Hue sports has the potential to further expand its Sambo contingent. The 27 medals also demonstrate that investing in and organizing more systematic training can create a new direction for the city's high-performance sports development.

From Quynh Nhu's performance at the 30th SEA Games to achieving first place overall in 2026, it's been a sufficient period for Hue Sambo to transition from experimentation to the formation of clear potential. Previously, the athlete was only just getting acquainted with and gaining experience, but now she has achieved noteworthy results at the national level. The remaining issue is to quickly exploit this potential. Because while Vietnamese Sambo is still in the process of building and developing, if Hue Sambo strengthens its team, trains athletes, establishes a department, and competes regularly, it will be crucial in "catching up," building its position, and potentially becoming a "mine" of medals to exploit.