The attire, inspired by traditional Mongolian dress, features detailed embroidery, pleated robes and historical Mongolian motifs such as the “Soyombo” symbol in the country’s flag, along with the national colours of red, white and blue. The design also features symbols of this year’s Olympic Games, such as the Olympic torch and the Eiffel Tower. The embroidered vest includes images of mythical creatures, the sun and the moon.

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The female version of the ensemble also features drawstring bags with gold embroidery and long drop style ceremonial earrings in red, white and gold. The male version includes traditional pointed “buryat” hats, “gutal” boots and an embellished belt. The Mongolian National Olympic Committee has confirmed that each outfit took around 20 hours to produce, with tailoring specific to each athlete’s measurements.

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Voices of fashion and sport have been generating a buzz online, with a video by style enthusiast, Ryan Yip stating, “They just won the Olympics before it even started”, gaining over 2 million views. Former athlete, Michael Johnson also praised the uniforms, sharing a post on X saying, “Just go ahead and give them the gold meal now for best uniform!”

The designers behind the uniforms are sister duo Michel and Amazonka Choigaalaa, of the fashion label Michel&Amazonka, based in Mongolia’s capital, Ulaanbaatar. The brand, which sells couture and ready-to-wear clothing, revealed the uniforms through a high-fashion inspired video and photo shoot on social media. This isn’t the first time Michel&Amazonka sit at the helm of Team Mongolia’s uniforms, having created the looks for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

Mongolia has competed in every Olympics since 1964 bar the 1984 Games and have won a total of 30 Olympic medals, 2 of which gold during the Beijing 2008 Games. Now, Mongolia will lead the way in Olympic fashion with the Paris’ Opening Ceremony set for 26 July.

L’article Mongolia’s Paris 2024 outfits create online hype est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.

1. Three manly games

“Naadam” means games in Mongolian, with the full name of the festival being “Eriin Gurvan Naadam”, translating to “three manly games”. They symbolise the three most important skills that nomad fighters needed to have: horse riding, archery and wrestling. And, despite the “manly” name, women are also allowed to participate in the games, except for the wrestling competition, while a fourth game, anklebone shooting, was added a few years ago.

Naadam is an expression of Mongolian people’s proud history, wonderful culture and customs created by themselves.

H.E. Luvsanvandan Bold, Ambassador of Mongolia to Belgium and the EU

1.1. Horse riding

The biggest horse riding competition as part of the Naadam Festival takes place in an open field outside the Mongol capital of Ulaanbaatar. Compared to the more common horse racing, where the track is about 2 km long, Mongolian horse riding is more like a marathon, with tracks varying from 15 km to 30 km long depending on the category.

The riders are children, as young as 5 years old, and usually not older than 13. But the purpose of the races is to test the skills of the horses rather than the those of the jockeys’. The competition is split in categories depending on the age of the horses and, at the end of each run, people gather around and try to touch the winning horse, as its sweat is believed to be lucky.

1.2. Archery

The main archery tournament takes place on the National Archery Field, next to the National Stadium in Ulaanbaatar. For the competitions, targets are formed out of small woven or wooden cylinders called “sur”, laid on the ground in rows of 2 or 3. While the central cylinders are marked in red, they do not bring extra points, however, hitting a sur only scores a point if the shot is strong enough to move the cylinder a certain distance from its initial place.

1.3. Wrestling

The wrestling tournament, held on the National Stadium, usually involves 512 fighters, sometimes 1024, participating in 9 or 10 elimination rounds, respectively. The wrestlers are listed and matched according to their rank from the top down for the 1^st, 2^nd, and 4^th rounds, while for the 3^rd, 5^th, 7^th, 9^th and potentially 10^th rounds, the higher-ranking fighters can choose their opponents.

Dressed in traditional shoulder vests and shorts, the wrestlers are eliminated when any part of their body, except palms and feet, touch the ground. The fights get more competitive after the 5^th round, as only the best wrestlers remain in the competition.

1.4. Anklebone shooting

Anklebone shooting is played in teams of 6 main players and 2 reserves. The players use a bullet bone, made of naturally fallen deer antlers, to shoot at target bones, that can be made of amber, tusk or horn bone. The target bones are placed on a wooden structure called “Zurkhai” that sits 4.7 metres away from the player’s chair, which is custom made for their size and knee height. The bullet bones are shot from a well-polished wooden support that the players hold on their knees.

2. Origins and history

Naadam’s origins date back over 2,000 years ago, when the three games served as war training for the Mongolian tribes. Some Chinese sources place the existence of the festivities in 209 BC, as celebration for the formation of the Hunnu Empire.

The 13^th century “The Secret History of the Mongols”, the oldest surviving literary work in a Mongolian language, and the Stele of Genghis Khan, a stone dating back to the 1200s bearing the first known Mongolian script, also attest to the great conqueror celebrating his rule over the Mongolian tribes with Naadam-like festivities.

In 1921, Naadam was officially declared a national holiday and has been celebrated every year from 11 to 13 July ever since. Genghis Khan’s legacy is still present in the festival, the opening ceremony featuring traditionally dressed horse riders carrying the Nine White Banners. Usually kept in the Government Palace, the banners are made of white horse tail hair and were a peacetime emblem during the rule of the Khans.

In 2010, Naadam was inscribed on UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. “Mongolian Naadam is inseparably connected to the nomadic civilization of the Mongols”, UNESCO says. “Everyone is allowed and encouraged to participate in Naadam, thus nurturing community involvement and togetherness. The three types of sports are directly linked with the lifestyles and living conditions of the Mongols. (…) The rituals and customs of Naadam also accentuate respect for nature and the environment.”

Besides the games, Naadam is a country-wide celebration of traditions and heritage. In the days around the Naadam Festival, Ulaanbaatar, as well as smaller cities across the country, are filled with cultural events, from the Mongolian Deel Festival, an annual celebration of Mongolian clothing, to special exhibits at museums and galleries and concerts.

3. July 2024

From 11 to 15 July 2024, Naadam will commemorate the 103^rd anniversary of the Mongolian Revolution, the 818^th anniversary of the establishment of the Mongol Empire and the 2,233^rd anniversary of the establishment of the Hunnu Empire.

“This year Mongolia and European Union is commemorating the 35^th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic relations. So, I have no doubt that the Naadam festival will offer good attractions for European tourists to experience Mongolian culture and traditions”, H.E. Luvsanvandan Bold, Ambassador of Mongolia to Belgium and the EU, told Travel Tomorrow.

“As an Ambassador of Mongolia in the Kingdom of Belgium and Mission Head to the European Union, I am proud to invite you to the Naadam festival in Mongolia or to the mini-Naadam festival that is organized in early July every year in the city of Antwerp by Mongolians living in Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg.”

L’article What is Naadam and how is it celebrated? est apparu en premier sur Travel Tomorrow.