France's world champion Laure Fournier asks for Olympic guidance for her sport during the International Athletes' Forum in Lausanne this month ©FIAS

Sambo received guidance over its Olympic future during this month’s International Athletes' Forum organised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Lausanne.

During the session on changing landscape, Laure Fournier, world champion and chair of the International Sambo Federation (FIAS) Athletes' Commission, took the opportunity to ask IOC sports director Kit McConnell a question.

Fournier said: “Sambo is a recently-recognised sport by the IOC so how do we, as athletes, push our sport into the Olympic programme?”

More than 350 athletes from 20 countries attended this month's International Athletes' Forum in Lausanne ©FIAS
More than 350 athletes from 20 countries attended this month's International Athletes' Forum in Lausanne ©FIAS

McConnell responded: “The first thing to do is to continue developing your sport, to make a case for your sport, so that it has a real significance for the host.

“The possibility is there for the National Organising Committee to identify those sports that really fit with their vision of the Games.

“The IOC sets the original programme with 28 sports, then the Organising Committee can choose sports, not already included, that really fit their vision.”

In December, Fournier, winner of the women’s 56 kilograms gold medal at the World Championship in Bucharest a month earlier, hailed as "an amazing achievement" sambo’s provisional recognition by the IOC.

She predicted the recognition "opens a bright future" for the sport.