QUESTION? What is the official sport of Russia

QUESTION: What was the official sport of the USSR?

Josh Henson FIAS President

Technically, there was no "official" sport of the USSR. In terms of popularity, the Olympic sports were highly promoted as part of the larger Soviet propaganda mission to the world and, as a result, the most favoured spectator sports were probably the ones the Soviets dominated, including gymnastics, athletics, ice hockey and wrestling. Soccer football was probably the most widely practiced participant sport in terms of numbers.

Two sports that originated in Russia were gorodki (a kind of bowling with sticks) and Sombo (a composite style of jacket wrestling with submission holds also practised as a form of self-defence without weapons). Because of transliteration variations from the Cyrillic alphabet into the Roman alphabet, Sombo (the correct English spelling) is also spelled Sambo in French and even Cambo by some.

Sombo and Gorodki were considered distinctively Russian and so much a part of the native Soviet sports culture that they were the only sports specifically named in an agreement for sports and cross cultural promotion signed by the Soviet sports authorities with the U.S. President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports in the 1980's, during the height of the Cold War. Sombo was so widely considered the embodiment of the Soviet character and spirit in sports that it was actually included as a cultural event rather than a sport in the Cultural Festival of the World University Games in Buffalo, New York in 1993. Unlike Gorodki, Sombo has spread around the world. Gorodki predates the Soviet Union, but Sombo was actually created during the Soviet era.

The various men who synthesized the basic elements of Sombo essentially began their work around the time the Soviet Union was founded. The recognized "birth date" of Sombo is generally given as November 16, 1939, the day that Sombo was formally recognized as a sport by the central sports authorities of the USSR. In other words, Sombo began just as the Soviet union came into existence and came of age just as the Soviet Union became a world superpower as a result of the Second World War, which shaped much of the collective consciousness of the Soviet Union until its end.

Sombo is sometimes unofficially considered the national sport of the USSR by some, because it was a true child of the Soviet system in many ways: It officially began in the USSR during the Communist reign and was specifically promoted within the Soviet military beginning in the days of Stalin as a means of self defence without weapons (and therefore known to all males who did army conscript service during that period, which is most of the Soviet men during its existence). In addition, Sombo is a composite of the folk styles of wrestling from the various Soviet republics, making it a synthesis of the many subcultures and local sport traditions of the former Soviet Union--a fairly unique status.

It is interesting to note that the last team in any sport to compete in a world championships under the flag of the Soviet Union was the 1989 Soviet Sombo team coached by David Rudman of Moscow. That team won the team title at the World Sombo Championships in Montreal in 1989 on December 31, 1989, at 11:30 PM on the very last day of legal existence. When the red and yellow hammer and cycle banner of the USSR was raised at the medal ceremonies that night, it was the last time it was ever officially raised representing the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which ceased to exist less than an hour later. Some athletes on that team went to sleep one nationality and woke up another. They all left home Soviets and returned home Russians.

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