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Cevgan, an ancient equestrian sport with roots in Central Asia, is being kept alive by a small but dedicated sports club in Sivas, a city in central Türkiye.
About eight years ago, a group of volunteers who had been practicing horseback archery came together to revive Cevgan, a game in which mounted players hit a ball with a stick into the opposing team's goal. They have been playing the sport for roughly six years on a field they built near the Pasabahce Recreation Area on the outskirts of central Türkiye, Sivas.
The group, which includes university lecturers and local tradespeople, went on to found the Elit Polo Cevgan Equestrian Sports Club, currently the only Cevgan team in Türkiye, and have since competed in international tournaments, including the 1st Cevgan World Championship in Azerbaijan.
Fatih Kose, a lecturer in the Department of Turkish Language and Literature at Sivas Cumhuriyet University and president of the club, says Cevgan is one of the oldest team sports in the world, tracing its origins to the third century B.C. in the Turkistan region of Central Asia.
"It was once used as military training," Kose told an Anadolu Agency correspondent. "It spread from the Parthians through Iran and eventually reached Byzantium, where it was embraced as a sport of royalty."
Kose explains that the British encountered the game in the 19th century and transformed it into the more structured modern sport now known as polo, which spread widely across the Western world. "This is an ancient game with 2,400 years of history. In 2003, it was registered with UNESCO under Azerbaijan as the Karabakh Equestrian Sport."
The game was played in Anatolia through the Seljuk period but fell out of practice during the Ottoman era, Kose says, partly for political reasons.
"Iran embraced Cevgan more strongly, and there was a desire to draw a cultural dividing line. The Ottomans moved away from it and promoted javelin throwing instead. We see this as a matter of cultural heritage. This game belongs to the broader Turkic world, and we want to reclaim it."
The club has represented Türkiye in two world championships, one European championship, and one Commonwealth of Independent States Games.
"We are the first and only Cevgan team in Türkiye," Kose said. "We are waiting for competitors."
Team captain Bilal Demir, who first took up equestrian sports as a hobby about eight years ago, says the club has come a long way since its informal beginnings.
"We developed Cevgan from scratch, starting as complete amateurs," Demir said. "After competing in the World Championship in Azerbaijan, we went straight to the European championship. Our goal now is to see this sport grow—in Sivas and across Türkiye."
The eight-member team, made up of academics and tradespeople, is determined to take the sport beyond a hobby. "We have made real investments in this," Demir said. "We want other clubs to emerge and for Cevgan to find its place in Türkiye the way polo has in the West."
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