It was one of the very few events to go ahead on the sambo calendar this month due to the COVID-19 crisis, with more than 2.42 million cases and more than 166,000 deaths now confirmed worldwide.

Although the sporting event still went ahead, there were no spectators at the competition to prevent any possibility of the virus spreading among fans.

According to the National Olympic Committee of Tajikistan, 165 athletes from seven regions of the country took part in the competition in the capital Dushanbe.

Among the winners at the Championship were Komronshokh Ustopyrien, Akmaliddin Karimov and Khurshed Majidov, with the competition used as a way to identify candidates for the national team who will compete internationally once the pandemic is over.

The International Sambo Federation has been encouraging training indoors during the pandemic with their campaign "Play True Play Safe".

Tajikistan to date has no confirmed cases of COVID-19, but reports in Eurasianet have suggested a number of deaths have been diagnosed as pneumonia.