Hey friends! In case you hadn’t already noticed on Instagram, Facebook, or by my talking about it in some of my other recent posts, I had the incredible fortune to compete earlier this month in the 2016 World Nomad Games representing the United States. It was, to say the least, probably one of the coolest things I’ve ever done in my entire life. As the announcer in the opening ceremony said, “If Ghengis Khan were alive, he would want to be here.”
First though, what on earth are the World Nomad Games? Basically, they’re the Olympics for traditional sports from across the nomadic cultures of Eurasia, many of which have spread to other continents or evolved into very similar forms (countries from Antigua to the Philippines have widely varied versions of Mancala, for instance). Some of the highlights include the horseback sports, including racing, trick riding, and traditional games like the famous kökbörü, which is basically polo with a dead goat carcass instead of a ball and mallets. I talked a little about some of those horseback sports in this post. Other sports include archery and related forms, and then there’s my specialty, the intellectual games (i.e. strategy board games). The first World Nomad Games were held in 2014, and this year they are even bigger, with over 60 countries participating and a budget of about $23 million. You all MUST plan to attend in 2018.
How does a lowly little health teacher from the other end of the country like me get involved in this? A bunch of us actually really wanted to participate as a way to learn a new game, make new friends and meet new people in our communities, and to have the chance to participate in this event. And thankfully, the organizers were kind enough to invite a team of volunteers to participate in the intellectual games representing the USA. We all were so lucky to have had the chance to participate in this amazing event.
We started off on the day we arrived (September 2nd) with the check in, where we got our hotel reservations and credentials. Security was tight just as it would be at any major sporting event internationally, and in fact was much tighter than many events I’ve attended in the US (not in the least because there was a car bombing in Bishkek on Tuesday prior). But as a survivor of a terror attack, I appreciated the effort being made by security both to keep everyone safe, but also to be nice to everyone they are checking – we all noticed and appreciated it!
After dinner, we were issued our uniforms, which consisted of a handsome navy blue polo shirt and a baseball hat, both with an enormous “USA” written across each. There’s also a really cool shoulder detail that aligns nicely with the official logos of the games. We had a lot of fun posing with them, and we were required to wear them for the duration of the competition. I’m not someone who ever usually admits to being American in public, but it was an interesting transition to be immediately so visible, particularly when I was able to chat with spectators in Kyrgyz (which basically made us all rockstars for the duration of the week).
Then, after a quick breakfast the next day in the hotel that is completely filled with competitors in a variety of sports, we headed to a conference room where there was a brief opening ceremony for the intellectual games competitors, followed by our first match.
Now what does intellectual games actually mean? Well, I played a game called toguz korgool, which literally means “nine sheep droppings.” It’s a “mancala-type” game that I explained in detail in another post, but it’s got very simple rules that make it easy to learn but difficult to master.
Well, many of the people who competed with us were hobbyists, but with $2000 for the first place finisher on the line, there were also some of the top players from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Russia. It was a deep field, and the professional players train every week and compete every month in tournaments across Eurasia.
After playing one match on the first day (I lost horribly to the champion of Turkmenistan, who became a good friend over the course of the week), we had lunch and a little time to rest before piling into buses to the hippodrome for the opening ceremonies.
Once we made it to the hippodrome (2 hours later, thanks to traffic and security), we had a few hours to wander and explore the country fair zone, where most athletes were congregating to take photos with fans and with each other. I made it my mission to get a selfie with as many countries as possible, and to speak to as many as possible in their own languages (or at least what I could remember). So, naturally, I went immediately to greet the Iranian and Tajik teams in Farsi and take photos with them. It was wonderful how just about all the participants approached the event from such a spirit of friendship. It’s really why these kinds of events exist in the first place.
Over 60 different countries were participating, including some surprising ones like Indonesia, the Philippines, Antigua and Barbuda, and even Iceland, and I did my best to get selfies with as many as I could before our Team USA photoshoot began. It wasn’t long before the stadium grew dark and the jumbotrons fired up with the television feed in the athlete assembly area for us to watch.
The opening ceremonies, by the way, were UNBELIEVABLE. Horsemen on fire, horsemen standing on top of each other, dancing horses, Steven Segal on horseback in Mongol cosplay, a world record for the most people playing the komuz simultaneously (over 1000 kids trained for months for this), and an incredibly moving display of the history and culture of the nomadic peoples of Central Asia. This was all combined with modern pop performances. We were all blown away – this opening was on par with some of the recent Olympic opening ceremonies, which is an incredible accomplishment when you realize that more people live in a suburb of Rio De Janeiro than in the entirety of Kyrgyzstan.
At one point, Asel Kasmanova came out singing the Kara Jorgo, which by now you all should be masters of. Since we all knew it, we couldn’t help but start dancing, and a circle formed around a few of us as the Kyrgyz team looked on first in bewilderment then excitement, and a few of them came out to join us. A video of my teammate from that moment went viral on Facebook, and people across Kyrgyzstan are still talking about the Americans that knew Kara Jorgo!
Finally, we lined up for the parade of nations. Now, in my time as a figure skater, I never had the opportunity to compete overseas, let alone at the Olympics. So to walk in a parade of nations after watching TWO HOURS of this amazing opening ceremony… let’s just say it was one of the coolest and proudest moments of my life.
If you didn’t get to watch already, here’s the feed, which you ABSOLUTELY should watch. Team USA enters at about 1:57.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqqgMkVRqVA
We made it back to the hotel at about midnight, thoroughly exhausted (I had been on my feet for almost ten hours without interruption at that point). But it was hard to fall asleep after such an amazing ceremony. I hadn’t expected it to, but it fulfilled the Olympic dream that I had for the first time over 16 years ago when I first put on a pair of ice skates.
The next few days went by quickly, and weren’t very exciting from a reader’s perspective. We played 3 matches each day, and each match lasted for about two hours (Toguz Korgool is a slow game). So we didn’t really get to see much of the rest of the competition.
Luckily, our competition was going well for us. After my first loss to the nice young man from Turkmenistan, I won my next two matches against a man from Antigua and a man from Poland. I lost my last match that day to a man from Russia, but on the second day I bounced back with a victory over a man from the Czech Republic (who is also the top-ranked American in Toguz Korgool) and over a different man from Antigua. This string of victories left me sitting as the fifth seed (of 28 competitors) going into the final round. Unfortunately for me, that meant that I was set to play one of the two professional players from Kazakhstan, who dispatched me in less than fifteen minutes in a match where I played so poorly that we were both laughing at each move I made and each stone he captured. Mercifully, he pointed out when he had reached 82 stones, so on paper it actually wasn’t the most embarrassing of my 3 losses (when the game stops at 82, the loser’s score is recorded as 60). That loss was enough to drop me to 10th place overall, one place shy of winning a prize of 10,000 som (over $100). Darn! But, because of Peace Corps rules, we aren’t allowed to accept any kind of prize money, so I would have had to donate it to charity if I had won it (which is also a great outcome, since I don’t actually need the money).
While I didn’t win any money, I did discover a new game that I enjoy and want to keep learning. And, based on the reactions of the referees to my gameplay and result, and the reaction of the Czech-American man, it sounds like I’m going to be invited to represent the US at the next World Championships, so I’ve got a LOT of work and practice to do in the next few months!
One of the other (of the literal hundreds of things I could be writing about) fun stories of the World Nomad Games on Team USA was “The Cowboys,” as we called them (and so did the announcers, literally calling them “Cowboylor” in Kyrgyz). The US Embassy, as part of organizing Team USA for this event, invited a team of 10 cowboys from Jackson, Wyoming to come compete representing the US in kökbörü, that dead goat polo I keep talking about, which is actually one of the coolest and most interesting and enjoyable sports I’ve ever watched. They flew here, were lent horses, and had one practice with the Kyrgyz team to learn the game and the rules before their first match. Now, they lost every single one of their matches, but in every last one of their matches the crowd was cheering for Team USA for effort.
Even the Kazakh team, which obviously was going to DESTROY the cowboys, met with them beforehand to encourage them, and said that they’d play a friendly game with the Americans. This was probably a good thing that the game was toned down, because it still involved people and goats alike getting thrown ten feet through the air by horses. In a particularly memorable moment, one of the cowboys accidentally threw himself into the goal kazan instead of the goat! All in all, the crowd was just appreciative to see that Americans were making an effort to learn their sport, and many of them insisted that Kyrgyzstan must send a coach to train them in Wyoming. I for one, support that wholeheartedly.
I had a chance to visit the jailoo site of the WNG on my last day there, and unfortunately, thanks to my schedule I had to miss most of the other sports, and the closing ceremonies, which included a surprise appearance by, of all bands, Queen (yes, that Queen). Luckily, a LOT of foreign media covered the World Nomad Games, or at least put up a listicle of all of the cool sports that were taking place – just a quick Google search will get you at least 30 photo essays!
But the strongest memories of the week will absolutely be in that conference room, by coincidence the same conference room where I had one of my Peace Corps trainings several months ago, and in the hippodrome. All of the officials and referees were supporting everyone, and the US team was even sort of adopted by the coach of the Swiss team and the coach of the Kazakh team, both of whom (along with the referees) gave us words of encouragement and helped us see where we made mistakes. I wasn’t ready to leave all of my new friends and acquaintances behind, but alas, I had more places to go and more things to see with my parents.
One thing is for sure: I will ABSOLUTELY be back in Kyrgyzstan in September 2018 for the 3rd World Nomad Games, either as a spectator or as a participant. And you should be there too.