Kurash, bang, wallop: Five unusual Asian Games sports

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Sepak Takraw, wildly popular in South-east Asia, is one sport that is seen as quirky by others. Read more at straitstimes.com.

HANGZHOU – The Asian Games are home to some sports that are a little more quirky than the Olympic staples of athletics, swimming and cycling.

It is an explosive sport in which players acrobatically contort their bodies to launch a lightweight rattan ball over a net using their feet, head or chest with the sort of skill that would make Lionel Messi envious.An ancient form of wrestling from Uzbekistan which historians say dates back thousands of years, kurash was a training technique for soldiers of 14th-century conqueror Timur, whose empire stretched from Persia to central Asia.

The game requires yoga-like breath control as two seven-player teams send a raider into enemy territory to tag an opponent and return to safety – all while chanting “kabaddi, kabaddi” to prove they are not using more than one puff. The ages of competitors at Jakarta ranged from 11 to 81 with the Indonesian tobacco and banking multi-billionaire Michael Bambang Hartono, then a sprightly 78, taking a bronze in the supermixed team event.

 

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