ASTANA – Kazakhstan’s national teams in Kazakh togyzkumalak, African ovari, and Turkish mangala held a final open training session on Aug. 28 at Nazarbayev University’s sports ground ahead of the fifth World Nomad Games, reported the event’s press service.
Turkish mangala. Photo credit: World Nomad Games/Telegram
According to the Kazinform news agency, the teams for these games were formed in three stages, with the main participants selected from athletes who had won regional championships. Preparations for the Mangala competition included training camps in Türkiye, while the final practice was conducted in the Akmola Region. Most team members are coaches in children’s and youth sports schools.
Each category has two participants who will compete in individual classification for men and team classification for women.
The head coach of Kazakhstan’s national team Ainur Zhakapbayeva named togyzkumalak the most difficult game because of its complicated combinations and solutions. Representatives from 54 countries will participate in this category.
Over 300 countries will participate in ovari, and the main rivals here are players from Ghana, Nigeria, and Côte d’Ivoire. Serik Aktayev, a Kazakhstan’s ovari team member, shared that the African game has nearly 800 billion possible moves.
Turkish Mangala differs from togyzkumalak and ovari in using a plastic board and stones. Aktayev also competed in international Mangala competitions, securing second place in the team competition.
Besides these games, the Kazakh team aims to show high results and win gold medals in assyk atu, a board game that was not presented as a separate sports category at the previous World Nomad Games. The athlete’s task is to knock out assyks (sheep knee bones) lined up in a row.
Kazakhstan’s five-time champion in assyk atu Nurkanat Molzhigitov will participate in ordo, a traditional Kyrgyz game played with a larger circle and a big assyk used to knock out other bones. Kazakhstan took third place in this category at the last Nomad Games.
A total of 14 countries will compete in bes assyk, a game for women involving throwing and catching assyks in the air, which requires exceptional coordination and fine motor skills.
