The Turkmenistan National Sambo Team successfully performed on the first day of the Asia-Oceania Championships, which started in Tashkent. Turkmen athletes added six medals to their team's collection: two silver and four bronze, the publication "Turkmenistan: Golden Age" reports.

The prestigious continental competitions brought together more than 600 athletes from 23 countries in the region. The tournament covers all age categories - from cadets to veterans, and participants compete in the disciplines of sport and combat sambo among men and women, as well as in sambo among visually impaired athletes in the SVI-1 (totally blind) and SVI-2 (visually impaired) classes.

Mukhammetmyrat Babekov won silver medals in sport sambo (weight category up to 58 kg) and Bezirgen Begendzhov in combat sambo (up to 98 kg) for the Turkmen team.

On his way to the final, Babekov confidently fought in the quarterfinal against Mongolian sambo wrestler Munkhbat Genendaram (2:1) and the semifinal against Kyrgyzstan's Kimal Obolbekov (2:1). In the decisive fight, the Turkmen athlete lost to the tournament host Ilkhom Parmonov from Uzbekistan with a score of 3:5.

Begendzhov won a convincing victory over Kyrgyzstan's Bekbolsun Kerimbekov (8:0) in the semifinal, but in the final he was unable to withstand Kazakhstan's Raikhan Madi, losing with a score of 1:4.

Bronze medals for the Turkmen team were brought by the representative of men's sport sambo Sapar Dovletov (up to 64 kg) and the women's part of the team: Aziza Nazarova (up to 50 kg), Zuleikha Khudaiberdiyeva (up to 54 kg) and Merzhen Dzhoraeva (up to 59 kg).

Dovletov started the tournament with a confident victory over Mohammed Albaker Algarrawi (10:0), then in the semi-finals he lost to the future champion Zhandos Beisenbayev from Kazakhstan (0:6), but in the fight for bronze he defeated South Korean sambo wrestler Lee Syngang with a score of 2:0. Nazarova, Khudaiberdiyeva and Dzhoraeva stopped at the semi-final stage, taking third place in their weight categories.