Yağlı Güreş (Turkish Oil Wrestling)
The Turkish national wrestling style fought in olive oil; the Kırkpınar tournament at Edirne has run since the 14th century.
Quick Facts
TurkeyCharacter & Origin
Training
Organisation & Competition
What the style is built from
Editorial rating on a 0–3 scale, based on how much room each area gets in ordinary training.
About Yağlı Güreş (Turkish Oil Wrestling)
Yağlı güreş, oil wrestling, is the Turkish national style of wrestling in which the opponents pour olive oil over one another before the bout, so that every grip slips and the contest turns on strength, technique and endurance. Its central event is the Kırkpınar tournament near Edirne, whose tradition is traced to 1346 and whose annual holding Ottoman sources document from 1362; the Guinness book lists it as the longest continuously running sporting competition in the world. Wrestlers compete in leather trousers, the kispet, reaching below the knee; these were once sewn from buffalo hide and weighed around twelve kilograms, while today calfskin is used and a soaked kispet weighs about two. A wrestler loses when his back touches the ground, or when his opponent lifts him and takes three steps or turns with him; control of the opponent by a grip on the kispet, called paça kazık, is also recognised. Until 1975 bouts had no time limit and could last the better part of a day; the limit is now forty minutes in the top başpehlivan category and thirty in the others, with overtime. The tournament is opened by the cazgır, the announcer, with a prayer and the ceremonial parade peşrev. The season peaks at Edirne in early summer, drawing about a thousand men. The Kırkpınar festival has been on the UNESCO representative list of intangible cultural heritage since 2010.
Similar styles
Selected by overlap in the style profile, not by historical lineage.