Kurdish Wrestling: Şêtû û Güreş
Wrestling is the oldest and most prestigious sport in Kurdish culture – practiced at every Newroz festival, every village wedding, every tribal gathering of importance for as long as Kurdish oral history extends. It is not merely a sport but a social ritual: the wrestling bout in public view is how a young man demonstrates his readiness for adult life, how a clan demonstrates its vitality, and how disputes about precedence between families and villages have been non-violently resolved for centuries.
The Newroz Wrestling Pit: The Heart of the Festival
Every Kurdish Newroz celebration of any significance includes a wrestling competition. The pit (or cleared ground) is the social centre of the festival – the arena where the young men of the community demonstrate their strength and skill in front of the entire assembled population. Families take enormous pride in their wrestlers; victories are remembered for generations; defeats are forgiven but not forgotten.
Kurdish wrestling (called şêtû in Kurmanji, güreş in the Turkish-Kurdish context) is a grappling sport in which the objective is to throw the opponent to the ground – specifically to touch their back to the earth. Unlike Japanese judo or Turkish oil wrestling, Kurdish traditional wrestling does not use specialised clothing to grab; grips are on the body itself. The holds, throws, and trips of Kurdish wrestling form a technical vocabulary that masters pass to students orally and by demonstration.
The social dimension is inseparable from the sport: a champion wrestler is a community figure with specific social obligations – he must be generous, must not use his strength to bully, must accept defeat with dignity and victory without excessive pride. The wrestler who wins but celebrates arrogantly is judged more harshly than the wrestler who loses with grace. The sport is a character test as much as a physical one.
The Kurdish wrestling bout at Newroz – every throw, hold, and trip in this ancient grappling tradition has a name and a lineage stretching back beyond recorded memory
Regional Styles
Kurdish wrestling varies by region in ways that reflect the different physical traditions and cultural influences of each area. In Bakur (Turkish Kurdistan), Kurdish wrestling has been influenced by the Turkish güreş tradition – the same grappling principles but with some convergence in technique. In Başûr (Iraqi Kurdistan), the tradition is more distinct – Soranî wrestling (called pankration locally) has specific holds associated with specific tribal traditions.
In Rojhilat (Iranian Kurdistan), wrestling is practiced within the broader Iranian zurkhane (house of strength) tradition – a ritual athletic discipline that combines weightlifting, club-swinging, and wrestling with spiritual practice and community singing. Kurdish zurkhane practitioners bring a distinctive intensity to the practice; the zurkhane has been an important institution of Kurdish male community life in Iranian Kurdistan for centuries.
Across all regions, the social function is consistent: wrestling is the sport of the public festival, the communal gathering, the occasion when the community performs its own vitality for itself. The private gym, the professional circuit – these are recent additions to an essentially public and social tradition.
Women's Wrestling Traditions
While Kurdish traditional wrestling is predominantly male, there is historical evidence of women's wrestling traditions in specific Kurdish communities – particularly among the Alevi Kurds of Dêrsim, where gender separation in public life was less strict than in Sunni Kurdish communities. Contemporary Kurdish women have also entered the wrestling world at the international competitive level, most notably in freestyle wrestling at the Olympic Games.
The PKK and KCK movements' promotion of gender equality has had visible effects on sports culture in the Rojava region – women's sports including wrestling have been actively promoted as part of the democratic confederalism project's commitment to women's full social participation. Women's wrestling tournaments now feature at festivals in Rojava and at diaspora community events in Europe, representing a significant evolution of a traditionally male-dominated domain.
Kurdish women wrestlers have competed at international level for both Turkey and Iraq, sometimes winning medals that were celebrated by the Kurdish community as specifically Kurdish achievements even when the athlete competed under another national flag – a characteristic feature of stateless national sporting pride.
Kurdish Horsemanship Sovereign of the Mountain
The horse has been central to Kurdish culture for as long as the Kurds have been identifiable as a people – in warfare, in migration, in the display of social status, and in the equestrian sports that transformed military skills into festival performance. The Kurdish tribal chiefs' finest horses were their most prized possessions; the ability to ride was the most fundamental mark of social standing in the pastoral and semi-nomadic Kurdish world.
Cirit: Mounted Javelin
Cirit (from the Arabic jereed, a blunt wooden javelin) is a Turkish-Kurdish equestrian sport in which two mounted teams throw blunt javelins at each other while riding at full gallop. The defending rider must evade the thrown stick while galloping away; the attacking rider must pursue, throw accurately, and be prepared to reverse direction instantly when the defender turns to attack. At full speed, the game looks like a cavalry battle – which is exactly what it is derived from.
Cirit was a standard part of Ottoman military training and a favourite sport of Kurdish tribal leaders who needed both their riders and their horses to be battle-ready. It fell out of practice in the 20th century but has been revived in the Kurdish-majority provinces of eastern Turkey, where it is now performed at festivals and fairs as a cultural heritage demonstration. Turkish-Kurdish cultural organisations compete in cirit tournaments, and the sport has been proposed for UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage status.
At Yarışı: Horse Racing
Horse racing at festivals – particularly at Newroz and at the fairs associated with tribal gatherings – has been a consistent feature of Kurdish festive culture for centuries. These are not organised racing circuits with fixed tracks; they are cross-country or straight-line sprints between the best horses of competing families and clans, with the social dynamics of the wrestling pit applied to equestrian contest. The owner of the winning horse gains the same kind of prestige as the winning wrestler.
The Kurdish mountain horse – a sturdy, sure-footed breed adapted to the difficult terrain of the Zagros and Taurus – is distinct from the flatland racehorses of the Arab world. Speed matters less than endurance and agility on mountain terrain; the best Kurdish horses can navigate rocky passes that would injure flatland breeds. The breeding and care of these horses is itself a specialist knowledge passed within families.
Kurdish horsemanship – the cavalry skills of the mountain peshmerga transformed into the cirit javelin game and the Newroz racing tradition that persist to this day
Kurdish Horse Traditions
- Cirit (mounted javelin) – equestrian sport derived directly from cavalry training, still practiced at festivals in Bakur
- At yarışı (horse racing) – festival racing tradition, prized horses representing family and clan honour
- Kurdish mountain horse – sturdy, sure-footed breed distinct from Arab and Persian flatland horses
- Peshmerga horse tradition – the Kurdish resistance used horses in mountain operations until the 1990s; some peshmerga units maintained horses into the 2000s
- Tribal horse breeding – knowledge of bloodlines and breeding passed within families as valued intellectual property
Play and Folk Games
Kurdish folk games – played at festivals, at gatherings, and in the long idle hours of mountain winters – represent a physical culture below the level of prestige sport: accessible to everyone, requiring no specialised equipment, transmitting the values and reflexes of mountain life in play. Many of these games are vanishing; some have been documented and revived by Kurdish cultural organisations.
Çûb û Çemçe
چووب و چهمچهA stick-and-ball game played across Kurdish communities – two teams, a short stick (çemçe) and a long stick (çûb), and a system of hitting, fielding, and running that resembles a crude ancestor of cricket or stickball. The game requires only two sticks and open ground; it was played in every Kurdish village throughout the 19th and early 20th century. Now largely replaced by football but documented in oral history and folk songs.
Folk Game · Village SportKevirêxistin – Stone Lifting
کهویرێخستنThe Kurdish tradition of strength testing through stone lifting – specific stones in specific villages were designated as test weights; lifting them demonstrated readiness for adult life, eligibility for marriage, and the strength required for agricultural and military tasks. Some of these stones have been preserved as cultural artefacts; the tradition has been documented across both Bakur and Başûr. Related to the Scottish Highland Games tradition of stone-lifting, suggesting an ancient common cultural stratum.
Strength Test · Rite of PassageMountain Running – Raketin
ڕاکەتنCompetitive mountain running – races over rough terrain, often between villages, with the course chosen specifically for its difficulty. The winner was the person who navigated the specific mountain terrain fastest, combining speed with the route-finding knowledge that was essential for peshmerga and pastoral life. Mountain running survives as an informal competition at some Newroz gatherings; it has recently been formalised as a competitive sport in the Kurdistan Region.
Endurance · Mountain TerrainTîrandin – Archery
تیراندنTraditional Kurdish archery – a military skill converted into competitive sport. Archery tournaments at festivals tested the precision shooting that was essential for mountain warfare before firearms. Kurdish archers operated from positions of cover at long range rather than massed formations – the mountain terrain suited individual precision over volley fire. The archery tradition has been revived by some Kurdish cultural organisations as part of the broader effort to document and preserve traditional athletic culture.
Military Heritage · PrecisionMangala
مانگالاA count-and-capture board game played across Kurdish communities – one of the oldest board games in the world, with variations found from West Africa to Southeast Asia. The Kurdish version uses a wooden board with two rows of pits and stones or seeds as pieces; the object is to capture more pieces than your opponent through a series of sowing and capturing moves. Played in tea houses and at gatherings; one of the few traditional Kurdish games that remains in widespread practice.
Board Game · Tea House · AncientGovend – Competitive Dance
گۆڤەندWhile primarily a social and cultural practice, the govend circle dance has a competitive dimension – groups from different villages and regions compete informally for the quality of their performance, the precision of their footwork, and the endurance of their line. At major festivals, the best-known govend groups from different regions perform in succession; the quality of the dance reflects the cultural vitality of the community. The competitive dimension is embedded in performance rather than formalised in rules.
Dance Competition · FestivalThe Peshmerga Body: Those Who Face Death
The word "peshmerga" means "those who face death" in Kurdish – and the physical training required to operate as a peshmerga fighter in the mountains of Iraqi and Turkish Kurdistan represents one of the most demanding athletic traditions in the world. This is not sport in the festival sense; it is the physical culture of survival. But its demands – extreme endurance, mountain agility, navigation by landscape – overlap substantially with what we now call adventure sport and extreme athletics.
Mountain Movement – The Core Skill
The fundamental peshmerga physical skill is mountain movement: the ability to cover difficult mountain terrain quickly, quietly, and for extended periods without logistical support. Peshmerga forces operating in the Kandil range, the Qandil mountains, or the Turkish-Iraqi border region routinely moved at night over terrain that would challenge elite mountaineers in daylight, carrying weapons, ammunition, food, and equipment.
The physical capacity required includes extreme cardiovascular endurance (the mountains regularly exceed 3,000 metres; operations at altitude in cold conditions are normal), the specific muscle conditioning required for prolonged descent on steep terrain (more demanding than ascent), and the navigational knowledge of specific mountain geography that can only be acquired through years of residence and movement in the specific terrain.
This physical culture has now been partially formalised in the military training programmes of both the Kurdistan Region of Iraq's Peshmerga Ministry and the YPG/YPJ forces of Rojava – but its roots are in the informal apprenticeship system of the guerrilla movement, in which young fighters learned mountain movement by following experienced combatants through terrain that taught you or killed you.
From Resistance to Recreation
The same mountains that were the terrain of guerrilla warfare for fifty years are now being developed as recreational and sporting destinations. The Kurdistan Region of Iraq has invested in trekking routes, mountaineering infrastructure, and adventure tourism programmes that convert the peshmerga's traditional terrain into sport. Halgurd Mountain (3,607m), the highest peak in Iraqi Kurdistan, has been climbed by increasing numbers of non-Kurdish mountaineers; Korek Mountain has a ski resort; trail running in the Barzan valley is emerging as an adventure sport.
Kurdish mountaineering clubs have been active since the 1970s in both Turkish and Iraqi Kurdistan – the mountains have always been a site of recreation as well as refuge. The Kurdish Mountaineering Federation of Iraq (established after 2003) has formalised competitive mountaineering and trekking in the Kurdistan Region, and Kurdish mountaineers have made ascents of major Himalayan and Alpine peaks.
The martial arts and fitness culture of the PKK and KCK movements has also influenced civilian athletic culture in Rojava and in diaspora communities – the visual imagery of disciplined, physically trained women fighters has inspired Kurdish women's sports participation in ways that no promotional programme could have achieved.
Kurdish Football: A Nation Without a Federation
Football is the most popular sport in contemporary Kurdistan – played in every city, town, and village, followed with the same intensity as anywhere else in the world. But Kurdish football exists in a strange political condition: the Kurdistan Region of Iraq has its own football federation and national team, but it is not recognised by FIFA or AFC, making it impossible to compete in official international tournaments. Kurdish players have won World Cups and Olympic medals – but for other nations.
Kurdish Football – Key Facts
- Kurdistan Region of Iraq Football Federation (KRIFA) established – members include teams from Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, Duhok, and Kirkuk
- Kurdistan national football team plays unofficial friendlies – not FIFA affiliated, so cannot participate in World Cup qualifying
- Erbil FC competed in the Asian Champions League – the only Kurdish club in Asian continental competition
- Kurdistan Cup – the premier knockout competition in the Kurdistan Region, contested since 2009
- Many Kurdish-origin players have represented Turkey, Iraq, Germany, Sweden, and other national teams at international level
- Diyarbakır's Amedspor – a Kurdish-identity football club in Turkey's lower leagues – has repeatedly faced administrative sanctions for flying Kurdish colours
- The concept of a "Kurdish World Cup" team remains one of the aspirational goals of Kurdish sports nationalism
Football and Kurdish Identity
Football in Kurdistan carries political weight that the game rarely carries in stable nation-states. When Erbil FC entered the Asian Champions League – the only Kurdish club to do so – the matches were understood as representing not just a city but a people's aspiration to be recognised as a football nation. Fans brought Kurdish flags rather than Iraqi ones; the anthem played was Kurdish; the stadium filled with people who understood the game as a proxy for the political question of recognition.
Amedspor – a club from Diyarbakır (Amed) that explicitly identifies as a Kurdish club in Turkey's football pyramid – has repeatedly been sanctioned by the Turkish Football Federation for flying banned Kurdish symbols, for the political statements of its players, and for the political nature of its fan base. The club has nonetheless achieved cult status across the Kurdish diaspora, with fans in Germany, Sweden, and London following its progress through Turkey's regional leagues with the intensity usually reserved for Champions League clubs.
Kurdish football is simultaneously a participation sport – millions of people playing at every level – and a symbolic political arena. The game offers a safe space for expressions of national identity that are illegal or suppressed in the political domain. Scoring a goal while wearing the Kurdish colours in Turkey is a political act dressed as sport; it always has been.
Zaner12 — CC BY-SA 4.0
Kurds on the World Stage
Kurdish athletes have competed at the highest levels of international sport – but almost always under the flags of other nations. The stateless condition that marks Kurdish political history marks Kurdish sport too: Kurdish wrestlers, weightlifters, boxers, and footballers win Olympic medals and World Championships for Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and their diaspora countries. The community claims them as Kurdish; the medals belong to other states.
Riza Kayaalp
ریزا کایاالپWorld and European Greco-Roman wrestling champion (multiple times) competing for Turkey – widely considered one of the greatest Greco-Roman wrestlers in history. Kurdish-Turkish, from the Sivas region. His career spans multiple Olympic cycles; his dominance in the heavyweight category has been absolute for over a decade. Claims to Kurdish heritage contested but asserted by Kurdish sports media.
Greco-Roman Wrestling · TurkeyKurdish Olympic Weightlifters
وهزهکهران کوردی ئۆلیمپیکSeveral Iraqi Kurdish weightlifters have competed at the Olympic Games representing Iraq, including athletes from the Kurdistan Region. The Kurdistan Region has invested in sports academies and training infrastructure since 2003, and Olympic participation by athletes of Kurdish origin is celebrated locally as a specifically Kurdish achievement even when the flag is Iraqi. Names and records remain disputed in available sources.
Weightlifting · Iraqi KurdishMesut Özil (partial)
مهسوت اۆزیلThe German midfielder and World Cup winner (2014) of Turkish descent. Kurdish heritage has been claimed by some diaspora community voices, though this is not documented or publicly acknowledged by Özil himself. His is a contested case of diaspora identity: he was German when Germany won the World Cup and Turkish when he defended Erdogan's government photograph (2018). His inclusion here reflects the diaspora community's search for high-profile representation rather than a verified ethnic claim.
World Cup 2014 · GermanyZabit Magomedsharipov
زابیتThe UFC featherweight contender of Dagestani-Kurdish descent whose Kurdish ancestry has been claimed by Kurdish MMA communities worldwide. Whether the claim is precisely accurate is debated; what is clear is that combat sports – MMA, kickboxing, wrestling – have found a large following in the Kurdish diaspora community, where the tradition of physical toughness and the martial skills of the peshmerga generation have translated naturally into combat sport participation.
MMA · UFC · Combat SportsMikael Lustig
میکائیل لوستیگSwedish professional footballer who played for Celtic FC and the Swedish national team. Kurdish heritage has been claimed by some community sources, though available documentation of his family's Kurdish background is limited. If verified, his success in Scottish and European football would make him one of the most high-profile Swedish-Kurdish athletes of his generation – included here as a claimed diaspora figure pending fuller confirmation.
Sweden · Celtic FC · DiasporaKurdistan National Football Team
تیمی نیشتیمانی فوتبۆلی کوردستانThe Kurdistan national football team plays unofficial international friendlies under the auspices of CONIFA (Confederation of Independent Football Associations) – the organisation for national football teams not affiliated with FIFA. The team draws players from across the Kurdish diaspora and from the Kurdistan Region; matches against other CONIFA members (Abkhazia, Tamil Eelam, Padania) represent the only context in which a unified Kurdish national sporting identity can find formal expression. The team's matches are politically significant events.
CONIFA · National Team · Symbolic"We celebrate when our wrestlers win gold under Turkey's flag, when our footballers lift the World Cup wearing Germany's shirt, when our boxers stand on the podium for Iraq. One day, they will stand for Kurdistan."— Kurdish sports commentator