What if I told you that there’s a World Nomad Games on right now in Kazakhstan, featuring sports involving eagles, goats and more? And what if I told you the guest of honor is American actor and martial artist Steven Seagal?
The games have delegations from 40 countries competing in sports such as eagle hunting, bone-throwing, mas-wrestling and kok-boru (a polo variant, where teams of riders on horses battle over a decapitated goat carcass). Here’s more on what’s going on in these second-annual Games, which wrap up Thursday, from Shaun Walker of The Guardian:
The biggest draw and most fiercely contested of the sports is kok-boru, a violent Central Asian form of polo in which two teams battle for control of a decapitated goat carcass. Taking possession of the goat is a tricky manoeuvre in which the rider gallops past the carcass and swoops down to grab a leg and pull it up. There follows an almighty horse melee in which punches are thrown, whips fly and the goat is tugged back and forth, before one horseman emerges in a cloud of dust to gallop towards the goal, shaped like a paddling pool, and dunk the goat in to score.
Kok-boru games are being held at a brand new 10,000-seat hippodrome in Cholpon-Ata on Issyk Kul, a high-altitude lake four hours’ drive from Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Bishkek. The hippodrome was also the site of the opening ceremony, which featured hundreds of whirling nomad women, stunt horsemen galloping across the arena with their clothes on fire, and graphics on a vast screen telling the story of the Kyrgyz nation, which has a long and storied history as a rugged nomadic tribe, before Central Asia was conquered by Tsarist Russia and then absorbed into the Soviet Union.
“If Genghis Khan were alive, he’d want to be here,” the announcer’s voice boomed out as the ceremony got underway.
Here’s video of the ceremony:
https://t.co/uDjizPiU2r The opening ceremony of the World Games of Nomads held with the participation of @sseagalofficial #Kyrgyzstan
— Baurzhan Sadvakassov (@baurmaley) September 7, 2016
And what about Seagal? Well, as shown above in the photo from Viktor Drachev of Tass, he’s a guest of honor, but there’s no particular explanation for it:
…As the ceremony drew to a close, shaven-headed security guards frantically cleared a corridor in the media area of the stadium, and with a burst of dramatic music, Steven Seagal entered the arena atop a horse, clad in the armour of an ancient Kyrgyz warrior. After the excitement of the Kyrgyz riders, he looked somewhat incongruous gingerly trotting along, but the crowd enjoyed it.
Seagal was the guest of honour at the games, with no heads of state attending. The actor has made a bizarre habit of popping up at various events in former Soviet territories of late. Adding to a warm friendship with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, Seagal was spotted in Belarus last month, being fed carrots by the country’s dictatorial president Alexander Lukashenko. It was unclear why he had top billing at the nomad games.
Seagal has been tweeting about how honored he is to be involved with the Games, and he also retweeted something about a meeting he had with the Save The Dream group, which “promotes the core values of sport at a global level”:
Exceptional meeting for #savethedream at the @worldethnogames in #Kyrgyzstan: #Hollywood star @sseagalofficial pic.twitter.com/v7PBEmyIY2
— Save the Dream (@savethedream) September 6, 2016
As long as this leads to a Seagal movie involving kok-boru, I’m all for it.
