Yoga now officially a sport in India, to be introduced in national sporting events as well as Olympics
The Central government has offered official recognition to yoga as a competitive sport, preparing the ground for promoting the ancient discipline’s inclusion in national, state and university level championships organised in the country.
The Ministries of Sports and Ayush have worked in collaboration towards making it happen with the aim of spreading awareness about yoga, the benefits it offers and the discipline’s spiritual background among the young.
“Yoga has already been popular enough so the next step was to recognize it as a competitive sport. The ultimate goal is to make it a part of the Olympic Games. To begin with, a pilot national-level traditional yogasana championship has been proposed in February next year, and later in the year there is a plan to conduct a World Yogasana championship that India will host,” sports minister Kiren Rijiju added.
The ministries are also working together to ensure yogasana is recognised as a competitive sport globally.
“We are hopeful that yoga asana (not yoga) will be accepted as a sport and maybe by the time we have the Olympics in 2036 or 2040, this will be an item there,” said P N Ranjit Kumar, Joint Secretary, Ministry of AYUSH months before this official recognition.
India has also recently established the National Yogasana Sport Federation of India (NYSFI) for preservation and development of yoga as a competitive sport.
“Now that Yogasana has been formally declared a sport, its federation, like other national sports federations, will also get financial assistance from the sports ministry for preparing their annual training and calendar that will have an idea on what all they plan to organize during the coming calendar year. We want to produce quality athletes performing yogasanas,” he said.
About 51 medals are being proposed in four events and seven categories for the events to be conducted at sub-junior, junior and senior level for both men and women. The events include traditional yogasana, artistic yogasana, rhythmic yogasana, free flow (group) yogasana, and individual all round championship and team championship.
