A win for sport diplomacy as 4th World Nomad Games conclude in Türkiye

Thousands of athletes from over a hundred countries were hosted in Türkiye between September 29 and October 2 for the 4th World Nomad Games.

The contestants competed in traditional games such as horseback archery, pahlavani and flight shooting among others. 

The organisers said the idea of the event was to put on display the historic nomadic traditions.

Originally envisioned a decade ago in 2012, the first three editions of the nomad games were hosted by Kyrgyzstan in 2014, 2016 and 2018. The widespread Covid-19 pandemic prolonged the staging of the fourth edition.

The Turkish Ministry of Youth and Sports, the World Ethnosport Confederation, Turkish Traditional Sports Federation and the secretariat of the Organisation of Turkic States cooperated as a part of the organising committee for this year’s edition.

Diplomacy through sport

Türkiye was at the centre of another international sporting festival in August, with the Islamic Solidarity Games seeing two weeks of fierce sporting rivalry among over 4,000 athletes from 56 Muslim countries in Konya.

Bilal Erdogan, president of the World Ethnosport Confederation, in an interview to TRT World during the launch presser of the event said “this is a mission for Türkiye”. 

“We are in the middle of everything,” he said. “We need to take this advantage to unite people, to bring people together for various reasons and purposes.”

And sports provided for just a platform to make it happen.

“We want to revive traditional sports and games throughout the world for all cultures and peoples, and we see this as a uniting purpose,” he said.

“By only emphasising your own identity and culture, you can establish conversations based on mutual respect. And Türkiye’s position in that and its diplomatic success over the recent years makes this even better.”

‘A million visitors’

Hakan Kazanci, chairman of the organising committee, told reporters that “the games’ venue was swarmed by (roughly) a million visitors”.

Other than the historic sporting events, the visitors enjoyed concerts and sample local cuisines.

Türkiye will be in contention to host the event again in 10 years, but the next edition is set to take place in Kazakhstan in 2024.

Abdulhadi Turus, deputy chairman of the Preparatory Committee for the games, said the event enriched Türkiye’s “economy and culture”. Turus added that nearly 100,000 foreign visitors were also in attendance during the four days the games were staged.

The event marked its conclusion last evening in the presence of Erdogan and Türkiye’s Minister of Youth and Sports Mehmet Muharrem Kasapoglu

“Türkiye conveyed a message of peace and unity to the entire world, which needs peace as it faces wars, conflicts and environmental crises,” Erdogan said.