Sport In Turkey

If a sport can be defined as a game of competitive activity that people engage in for fun, then the national sport of Turkey is easily backgammon. during the warm months the tables outside all the coffee houses and tea houses are crowded with men playing backgamon, usually at ming-boggling speed. Indeed, one of the sharpest audial memories that visitors to Turkey take back with them is the clatter of dice hurtling across bakcgammon boards. In the winter months the game moves indoors, and even the cafes become more backgammon halls than eating places.

If you add physical exertion to the definition, then football is far and away the most popular sport in Turkey, for participant and spectators alike. Almost everywhere that you see children playing you will see a ball at their fee, and in every large citu you will find an impressive football stadium. Moreover, the Turks play foorball to a very high standard: in 1989 the Turkish champions Galtasaray of Istanbul, reached the semifinals of the European Cup, thus making them theoretically one fo the top four teams in Europe.

It is also worth mentioning, at a time when the game everywhere is disfigured by cunical and often brutal fouls, that

Turkish footballers are not only skillful but sportsmanlike.Of the sports peculiar to Turkey, the famous greased wrestling competitions are held in mid-June in Edirne, whle camel wrestling matches take place along the Aegean coast south of Izmir during the months of December and January. The exciting and dangerous sport of icirit is a combination of classical javeling-throwing, medieval jousting, and modern polo, in which men on horseback gallop back and forth hurling wooden javelins at their opponents. Cirit matches are held every Saturday and Sunday from May to October in Konya, and at various times during the summer in Erzurum in the east.

In a country favored with some of the world’s most beautiful coastline, it is only natural that water sports are very popular. Yachts and other sailboats can be hired, with or without crews, at many places along the southern Aegean and Mediterranean, where water-skiing- scuba-diving, snorkeling and, most recently, windsurfing can also be enjoyed from April to November.

Winter sports have never been very big in Turkey, but skiing is rapidly growing in popularity and there are now several good ski resorts. Foremost among them is Uludag, outside Bursa, but there are also fine facilities and excellent conditions at Saklikent in the Beydaglari mountains near Antalya, at the Plandöken ski center near Erzurum, at Kartalkaya near Bolu, about midway between Istanbuland Ankara, and at Erciyes near Kayseri. No doubt many more will spring up in the near future, as the Turks lean that snow can be put to recreational use.