Yoga Declared As Competitive Sport In India

In a first, yoga has been formally recognized as a competitive sport by the Sports Ministry, enabling the ancient practice to avail government funding and paving the way for national, state and university level championships to be organzised in the country.

During an event, sports minister Kiren Rijiju and Minister of AYUSH (Ayurveda Yoga and Naturopathy Unani Sidda Homeopathy) Shripad Yesso Naik formally promoted yogasana as a competitive sport.

Apart from formally declaring the ancient discipline as a competitive sport, Rijiju also said that yogasana will be inducted in future Khelo India Games programmes.

"Now that yogasana has been formally declared a competitive sport by the government, it will be made a part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Khelo India initiative that will ensure states will work towards organizing sports events including for yogasana in an organized manner, like it happens for other sports," said Rijiju.

"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," the sports minister added.

Last month, the sports ministry also established a National Yogasana Sport Federation of India (NYSFI) for the preservation and development of yoga as a competitive sport. It will be eligible for financial assistance from the ministry.

An exhaustive document containing rules and regulations and syllabus for the yogasana competitions has been prepared by experts in the field. The technical committee has also made a detailed list of asanas, both compulsory and optional, from traditional yoga literature.

Furthermore, the competitions will have 51 medals for four events and seven categories. They include traditional yogasana, artistic yogasana (single and pair), rhythmic yogasana (pair, free flow/group yogasana), individual all round-championship and team championship.

A pilot championship — National Individual Yogasana Sport Championship — has also been proposed to be organised in February next year, followed by district, state, national and World Championships.

These competitions will be judged through an automated scoring system developed by the two ministries.