Goat dragging, greasy pole and tuk-tuk polo – Asia’s weirdest sports

The coronavirus has put the kibosh on sport and travel so anyone wanting to tour around Asian watching some of the continent’s lesser known sports is bang out of luck. Unless they have time on their hands and access to the internet, in which case they can experience them all virtually. Everyone surely knows sepak takraw and kabbadi from the Asian Games, while the latter sport also seemed to become part of British schoolchildren’s PE classes in the 1990s. There’s plenty more where they came from – Asian sports not PE classes – so take a tour of the best and in some cases strangest in the region. Sepak takraw, or kick volleyball if you prefer to not use its Indonesian name, is what most Hollywood film directors seem to think actual football looks like – it is essentially just a collection of overhead kicks. That goes on until someone kicks the ball out of the court or misses a volley to keep the game alive. It really should be bigger globally and be in the Olympics ahead of breakdancing and skateboarding. “Kabaddi, kabaddi, kabaddi”. So goes the raider’s chant as he/she makes a foray into the opposition end, proof to the referees that he/she is holding his/her breath. If you don’t know kabaddi, or indeed the sport’s many names across the Indian subcontinent, then think of a game of tag but played in the army. That’s about the size of it, with the very best players going to the pros – yes, there is a professional league. Bo-taoshi is a Japanese sport that looks like it was found on game show Takeshi’s Castle’s cutting floor. Teams try to either topple or defend a pole and clamber all over one another to reach their end. It is 75-a-side and played by cadets at the National Defense Academy to celebrate its anniversary. Plus, it has to be one of the only sports with a ninja – that’s the name of the defender who sits atop the pole. “This is a drag” would probably be the thought of the goat in the Central Asian sport of Buzkashi (also known as kon-boru). At least it would be if the goat was alive. A goat carcass is dragged by two teams on horseback as they attempt to get it into the circular goal to score a point. Locals and tourists flock to games, while former Hollywood favourite and friend of Vladimir Putin, Steven Seagal, has given it the thumbs-up. Horse racing is known as the “sport of kings” for its riches, grandeur and the grace of the horses as they power around the course. Not so with Ban-ei, which has been taking place on Hokkaido island in Japan since 1946 and was granted cultural heritage status in 2004. Dubbed the “world’s slowest horse race”, the horses have to pull heavy sleds over sand hills. The nags are twice the weight of racing horses and viewers have at least twice the wait to see them finish. Another contender from Japan and another that is played out on school sports days, Kibasen means “cavalry fight” and uses humans in place of horses. These “horses” lift another child and they then go about trying to separate the one atop of another team from their headband, bandana or hat. It is not without its dangers and many have called for the sport to be banned. Er enish, or “wrestling on horseback”, is a traditional Kyrgyzstan sport which has found a home at the World Nomad Games. Competitors can score points for holding either their opponent or their opponent’s horse, with the most points coming for unseating your opponent. Centaurs are presumably worth double points. Tuk-tuk polo is a variation of polo, in which players are on tuk-tuks. The game was invented in Sri Lanka, which also hosts the world championships. It was only invented in 2016, which makes you wonder what the Sri Lankans were doing with their tuk-tuks before that. Indonesia has a strong claim for coming up with the more interesting sports available to watch on the internet. Hombo Batu, which takes place on Nias Island, North Sumatra, is right in the mix. The name translates to “stone jumping” and that is exactly what it is. The only change from days gone by is the removal of the potentially deadly spikes from the stones. Wherever you find man and animals mixing, some manner of race cannot be far off. In pacu jawi it is bulls that are told to get moo-ving, two at a time with a jockey holding on for dear life at the back as they splash along the muddy track. Pleasingly for those taking part in Tanah Datar, West Sumatra, everyone is a winner. Chinlon is to sepak takraw what walking football is to the World Cup. You can recognise it as the same thing but they definitely happen at a different pace. Played in Myanmar, chinlon uses a similar woven rattan ball but the aim of the the game is for everyone in the circle to keep it up. “I have climbed to the top of the greasy pole, said British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli in 1886. He could have been talking about the Indonesian game of panjat pinang. The game, which is said to have been introduced by the Dutch, sees competitors clamber up a greasy pole to win prizes. Similar games can be found worldwide, or at least they were until they slipped out of popularity.

Goat dragging, greasy pole and tuk-tuk polo – Asia’s weirdest sports

While sepak takraw and kabbadi have rightly gone mainstream, there are plenty more niche games on the continent ‘The world’s slowest horse race’ and 75-a-side topple-the-pole in Japan vie with Indonesian and Central Asian inventions

While sepak takraw and kabbadi have rightly gone mainstream, there are plenty more niche games on the continent

‘The world’s slowest horse race’ and 75-a-side topple-the-pole in Japan vie with Indonesian and Central Asian inventions