Section 1: Introduction
Beach Sambo is the outdoor sand-court variant of Sport Sambo developed and governed by FIAS. Designed to extend Sambo's competitive footprint into beach-sport and multi-sport festival programming (e.g., ANOC World Beach Games), Beach Sambo adapts the Sport Sambo ruleset for sand-surface competition with shortened match length and modified throw-scoring to account for the softer landing surface. See sibling Sport Sambo and Combat Sambo entries for the indoor mat-based variants.
Section 2: Equipment
Uniform is fixed by Article 7.
- Beach sambo jacket in white, with a belt and shorts in red or blue, and a red or blue ankle support — the same for men and women (Art. 7.1)
- Female contestants must wear a swimsuit under the jacket and shorts (Art. 7.1)
- Jacket and belt are made of cotton fabric; shorts are red and blue cotton, running from the belt line to the knee (Art. 7.1)
- Two slits for the belt are made along the waist, 5 cm to the front and back of the side seam. The belt runs through them, wraps twice closely around the body, and ties in front in a knot binding both wrapped parts (Art. 7.1)
- Contestants must be shaved or wear a short beard, keep fingernails short, and tie long hair back (Art. 6.1)
Section 3: Playing Area
- Contest area: 6 × 6 metres, located on the sand (Art. 29)
- A sound signal (gong) loud enough to be heard; where several contest areas run at once, each must sound different from the others (Art. 30.1)
- Calibrated weigh-in scales (Art. 30.2)
- Stopwatches with a stop/start device that holds the minute and second readings until the bout ends (Art. 30.3)
- An electronic or mechanical scoreboard beside the officials' table, and an information board for contestants (Art. 30.4–30.5)
Section 4: Players & Officials
- Two contestants per bout. Age group: adults, 18 years and older (Art. 3)
- Weight categories — four per gender (Art. 4):
Women — 50, 59, 72, over 72 kg
Men — 58, 71, 88, over 88 kg - An athlete may compete in only one weight category, matching the weight shown at the official weigh-in (Art. 5.1, 5.7)
- Weigh-in is held once, on the eve of competition, and lasts 30 minutes; all contestants in a category use the same scales (Art. 5.2)
- Officials: Chief Referee, Chief Referee Assistant and Chief Secretary as Chief Officials; Contest area Chairmen and Referees as Officials (Art. 9.2)
- The host National Sambo Federation provides support staff — uniform control referees, timekeepers, secretaries, announcers, video replay operators, doctors (Art. 9.3)
- Team competitions are contested by mixed teams of four male and four female weight categories; a team with fewer than five athletes may not compete (Art. 1.2–1.3)
Section 5: Rules of Play
Beach sambo bouts are held only in the standing position. There is no groundwork phase, no hold-downs, and no points — a single successful throw ends the bout (Art. 21.1).
- Victory is awarded after a throw when the opponent, as a result of active action, falls on the sand on any part of the body except the feet (Art. 21.1)
- A throw is a technical action that causes the opponent to lose balance and fall on the contest area, touching it with any part of the body except the feet (Art. 21.2)
- A counter-throw is a throw where the defender takes the initiative against an attack, stopping it and altering the direction of the attacker's fall (Art. 21.2)
- An unsuccessful throw is one where the attacker falls into a ground position through their own failed attempt, not through the opponent's active countermove (Art. 21.3)
- An attacking athlete may perform throws with a fall (Art. 21.4)
- Gripping the edges of the opponent's shorts and the ends of the jacket sleeves is permitted in order to apply throws (Art. 21.5)
- Bout duration: 3 minutes for all age, gender and weight categories, in preliminaries and medal matches alike (Art. 23.1)
- Bout time starts on the Referee's first whistle; break time is not counted (Art. 23.2)
- If no technical actions have been applied after 2 minutes, the Referee gives an «activity» evaluation to one athlete. If the bout then ends with still no technical action, the athlete holding that evaluation automatically wins (Art. 23.3)
- The bout ends on the sound signal (gong), not on a repeat whistle (Art. 22.3)
- The break between bouts must be at least 10 minutes (Art. 24)
Section 6: Bout Result
Beach sambo records no running score. A bout is won outright, and Article 25 lists every way that can happen.
Individual competitions — a victory may be attained (Art. 25.2):
- by a successful throw;
- by securing the activity award;
- by the disqualification of one of the athletes;
- by medical contraindications.
Team competitions — the winner is the team with the greater number of participants' victories. If the teams are level, an additional bout decides it, in a weight category drawn immediately by lot. Once one team's victories exceed half the total bouts, the contest stops and the remaining bouts are cancelled (Art. 25.3–25.4).
Competitions are held with elimination of contestants and a single repechage from the finalists; contestants first compete in subgroups, and the draw is conducted by hand at the weigh-in or the General Technical Meeting (Art. 2).
There is no appeal. In beach sambo no protest may be lodged against a decision of the referees and officials; all decisions taken under the «majority of three» rule are final (Art. 28).
Section 7: Violations & Penalties
Article 27 lists the prohibited actions. Each is penalised by immediate disqualification — there is no graduated warning scale:
- punches and kicks;
- locks and strangulations;
- throwing an opponent on his head;
- unsportsmanlike conduct.
If both contestants are eliminated (disqualified), they are given a result of 0:0 and neither receives any individual or team place, or medals (Art. 26).
Section 8: Safety Considerations
The Beach Sambo Competition Rules address athlete safety through the prohibitions and the medical checks rather than a separate safety chapter.
- Strikes, joint locks, strangulations and throwing an opponent on the head are prohibited outright and bring immediate disqualification (Art. 27)
- Every contestant undergoes a medical examination with the doctor before the weigh-in, and a doctor must be present throughout it (Art. 5.4)
- A bout may be ended by victory on medical contraindications (Art. 25.2d)
- The host National Sambo Federation provides doctors among the competition support staff (Art. 9.3)
- Restricting bouts to the standing position removes the ground phase, and with it the hold-downs and submissions used in Sport Sambo (Art. 21.1)
The 2019 rulebook does not specify heat-stress, sand-temperature, hydration or concussion protocols; events run these under FIAS and host-federation medical arrangements rather than under the competition rules.
