A total of 27 gold medals will be awarded with men’s and women’s sport sambo and men’s combat sambo all featuring on the programme.

The first day of competition will see the men’s 57 kilogram, 68kg, 82kg and 100kg categories take centre stage along with the women’s 52kg, 60kg, 68kg and 80kg, and combat men's 57kg, 68kg, 82kg and 100kg.

On Saturday (March 26), the schedule features men’s competition at 52kg, 62kg, 74kg, 90kg and over 100kg as well as women’s at 48kg, 56kg, 64kg, 72kg and over 80kg, and combat men's at 52kg, 62kg, 74kg, 90kg and over 100kg.

The Opening Ceremony is due to take place tomorrow, in between the preliminary matches and finals, and medal ceremonies will follow each day’s action.

The 25 nations represented this year are Algeria, Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Cyprus, France, Georgia, Germany, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Moldova, Mongolia, Morocco, Romania, Russia, South Korea, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, the United States and Venezuela.

The tournament is also referred to as the A. Kharlampiev Memorial World Cup in honour of Anatoly A. Kharlampiev - one of the founding fathers of sambo.

Dedicated to the memory of Kharlampiev, it was established in 1980 - the same year in which Moscow hosted the Olympic Games.

The Druzhba Multipurpose Arena, which forms part of the Luzhniki Sports Complex, hosted volleyball preliminaries during the Games and is the regular home venue of Russian women's volleyball club WVC Dynamo Moscow. 

In 1938, when sambo was officially recognised by the USSR All-Union Sports Committee, Kharlampiev became the head of the Sambo Federation.

He wrote a number of books on the theory and practice of sambo training, and strived to establish, develop and improve the martial art.

Sambo was recognised as an international sport in 1966 with much of the credit owed to Kharlampiev.