ASTANA – Nearly 80 Kazakh athletes will compete at the fourth World Nomad Games from Sept. 29 to Oct. 2 in Türkiye’s Iznik, said Sports and Physical Culture Affairs Committee Chair Samat Yergaliyev during a Sept. 26 briefing, reported the Central Communications Service.
Kokpar is one of national games, in which teams on horseback try to advance an object toward a goal. Photo credit: inbusiness.kz
The World Nomad Games present the Turkic world’s shared values and promote the nomadic heritage, Yergaliyev said.
The game program includes nearly 50 sports disciplines. The Kazakh national team will take part in four of them: kokpar (symbiosis of horse racing and wrestling), zhamby atu (archery on horseback, at full gallop), Qazaqsha kures (Kazakh style wrestling), and traditional archery.
The event will also feature – tenge ilu – a competition in which riders must pick up a scrap of material from the ground at full gallop, and audaryspak – a traditional horseback wrestling.
Kyrgyzstan hosted the World Nomad Games in previous years. The national team of Kazakhstan took second place in 2014 and 2018 and third place in 2016 in the overall standings.
