Her success however comes from her background as a judo player. The 18-year-old national judoka has been learning judo for the last eight years and had little trouble dispatching off her Indian opponent during the First South Asian Sambo Championship to win gold on Saturday.[break]
“I don´t know anything about sambo,” said Magar, after winning her gold in the women´s U-68 kg category during the tournament organized by Nepal Sambo Federation for the first time in the country.
“All I was doing was using my judo skills during the match,” she added.
Nepal Sambo Federation President Dhananjaya Shrestha says that sambo is a relatively new game in Nepal but players from any discipline can excel in the game as sambo-- founded in 1937 in Russia--has incorporated the best techniques of almost all the modern combat sports.
“Sambo was established in Nepal only in 2007 but it has the elements of all other martial arts games like judo, kick boxing, taekwondo and wushu,” said Shrestha, who learnt the game in the Russian capital Moscow.
Like Magar, judo players Nabina Lama and Purna Ghising also won gold in their first attempt. Both Lama and Ghising are veteran judo players while Magar´s greatest achievement was winning bronze medal at the age of 15 during the Second Asian Youth Judo Championship 2008 in Yemen.
“We were called at the eleventh hour,” shares Lama.
Nepal´s kick boxing player Ashmila Chhantyal, wushu player Bhagwati Majhi, judokas Mohan Bam and Suprasiddha Tamrakar were also able to leave their mark in their maiden sambo championship, with all of them winning silver medals.
Yet it was the Afghani players who stole the limelight during the two-day event held in Kathmandu. Afghanistan finished first in the tournament with 11 gold medals ahead of the host Nepal, which had to settle for eight golds on Sunday after leading the medal tally with six golds in the first day. India finished third with five golds.
Altogether, 135 athletes from Nepal, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan and Bhutan had participated in the championship. The next edition of the championship will be held in India, according to Bhagirath Lal, president of Indian Sambo Federation.
“Preparations are already underway for the next editions of the games which will be held in November next year in India,” said Lal.
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