What sports do Mongolians play?

[question from Miles]

Mongolians play most of the same sports that we do in the UK. Football is often played (even in the snow!), but perhaps the most popular sport is basketball. Both boys and girls are out on the streets playing basketball.

One sport that Mongolians find difficult to do is swimming. Mongolia doesn’t have access to the sea, and only a couple of the big cities have swimming pools (which are expensive to use). This means that most Mongolians can’t swim!

The three traditional “manly sports” are:

Wrestling

Archery

Horseracing

These are still the main Mongolian sports, and men in the countryside practice them regularly. Women do not play these sports, so keep themselves fit through other sports.

Mongolians expect to do well in the wrestling and shooting events in this year’s Olympics. As Mongolian horses are quite different to the horses that are used in Olympic events, they don’t expect any medals in the horse-related events. Mongolian horses are small and certainly don’t jump!

Do they have any famous sports stars?

Mongolians have been doing very well at Sumo wrestling. Three of the top 5 Sumo wrestlers are Mongolian. This achievement has been quite controversial in Japan – Sumo is a very traditional Japanese sport, so some Japanese people do not like the fact that Mongolians are dominating the sport. However, the Mongolians are very proud of their Sumo wrestlers. There is a big poster of the best Mongolian Sumo wrestler, Hakuhu, on the main square in Ulaanbaatar.