Olympic push for kho kho, India’s ancient tag sport

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NEW DELHI: The ancient sport of kho kho is enjoying a resurgence in India, with organizers of the first international tournament hoping their efforts will earn the sport a place in the Olympics.

Kho Kho, a catch me if you tag game, has been played throughout South Asia for over 2,000 years but only formalized its rules in the early 20th century. It was played as an exhibition sport at the 1936 Olympics. in Berlin but it did not gain enough support to be included in the Summer Games and has since been eclipsed by India. Immense love for cricket

Almost a century later, fans have sought to raise its profile with the inaugural Kho Kho World Cup, featuring teams from 23 countries in the Indian capital of New Delhi. The opening ceremony of the tournament featured song, dance and an Olympic-style team parade, reflecting the ambitions of the organizers and players to take the sport to the world stage.

“My elder sister played sports, but she was not able to fulfill her dreams,” Nasreen Shaikh, 26, a player on the Indian women’s team, told AFP. “We have crossed the first hurdle of playing in the World Cup. The next big step will be entering the Olympics.

Kho Kho is traditionally played outside a rectangular court, which is divided into two halves by a line connecting the two poles at either end of the field. Teams switch between attack and defense, with the former chasing and tagging defensive players down the field.

Only one player can chase at a time and attacking players can only move in one direction around the court, forcing them to tag teammates on the center line to take over the chase.

Whichever team can score the most points wins the match, primarily by tagging defenders faster than the opposing team. The franchise-based Ultimate Kho Kho League, set to launch in 2022, brought the sport off grass fields and onto indoor mats, which also raised its profile with television audiences.

The league has since become the third most-watched non-cricket sports tournament in the world’s most populous country, behind the Pro Kabaddi League — another ancient Indian tag game — and the Indian Super League football competition. has gone

“The turning point was when it changed from clay to mat. It made it a global sport,” Sudhanshu Mittal, president of the Kho Kho Federation of India, told AFP. “Today we are in 55 countries…local players in countries like Germany, Brazil and Kenya are embracing the game because of its speed, agility and minimal equipment required.”

Mittal said he expects the sport to expand to dozens more countries by the end of the year, making it a strong contender for Olympic prominence in the coming decade. This will coincide with India’s audacious bid to host the 2036 Games in the city of Ahmedabad, 100 years after Kho Kho last appeared at the Olympics.

The United States, England and Australia were among the countries that took part in this month’s World Cup in New Delhi, with overseas Indians heavily represented after taking the game to foreign shores.

But Pakistan is clearly missing out on the competition despite the sport’s popularity there – a reflection of the deep rivalry between the nuclear-armed rivals. World Cup organizers declined to comment on the absence, which failed to dampen the sense of optimism at the competition that the sport is set to thrive.

“There has been a big change in the game,” Prateek Waikar, the 32-year-old captain of the Indian men’s team, told AFP. “Cricket has a rich history and they have developed it well by going live on TV and now our game has also gone live,” he said. “In the next five years it will be at another level.”