The World Nomad Games with the participation of ethnosportsmen from 70 countries will resume after a break due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Kristina Karamyshina, President of the Union of Kok-Boru and National Sports of the Russian Federation, told TASS. Russia will present the ancient games of kok-boru and audarysh, as well as national archery at this site.
“The decision to resume the so-called ethno-Olympiad, the World Nomad Games, was made at the international ethnosport forum in Baku. The games will be held at the end of September in the Turkish city of Iznik. The games, which were to be held for the fourth time, were canceled twice due to the situation with the coronavirus. It is planned to invite more than 70 countries to the event for competitions in national sports. A memorandum was signed between the government of Kyrgyzstan, where they were held earlier, and the government of Turkey, where they will be held now. In Turkey, the games will be held for the first time in history,” Karamyshina said.
Currently, the list of sports in which athletes will compete is being specified. According to the interlocutor, Russia will present such ancient games as kok-boru (a Turkic game with throwing a goat’s carcass onto an opponent’s site), audarysh (wrestling on horseback) and others. Possibly, Russian ethnosportsmen will also present the Russian tradition of royal dog hunting.
“From our country there will be at least one kok-boru team of 12 people – athletes from Bashkiria and the Altai Republic. The competitions will be spectacular – all athletes will be in national costumes, there will be archers and many wrestlers. Participation in such an event allows us to strengthen international relations through ethnosport, which is now more important than ever. So, for example, it was thanks to these games that we created the Kok-Boru Union,” Karamyshina emphasized.
According to her, the event will be very difficult to prepare, because it is necessary to deliver horses and dogs to Turkey for competitions, the construction of tents for the presentation of the royal dog hunt. This will require financial support from the Ministry of Sports. The World Nomad Games are international sports competitions in ethnic sports. The competition was based on the folk games of the nomads of Central Asia. Previously, three games were held on the territory of Kyrgyzstan.