Elephant Polo

Since I started this blog about polo, I have found that there are many weird and crazy ways to play this sport. To mention some examples of crazy polo variations we can find Segway polo, or even bicycle polo, variations that I mentioned in earlier posts. On today's post, I’m going to talk about another variation I found, and probably the weirdest one so far: ELEPHANT POLO. This sport was played in India since the beginning of the twentieth century, and is obviously played with elephants instead of horses (Wikipedia). However, it wasn't considered a sport until 1982 when the World Elephant Polo Association was founded. This association controls international elephant polo games and tournaments, because even though this sport was played before the association, it wasn't an organized sport (WEPA).

This sport is very complicated, even more than regular polo. This is because they use the regular size ball, and due to the height of the elephant, they have to use a nine-foot mallet to hit the tiny ball. Also, the field is smaller due to the slower speed of the elephants compared to horses. Each elephant is steered by two "mahouts" (the person who drives the elephant), who have to be extremely careful, because if they fall, even with protection they could suffer severe injuries because of the height of the elephant, not to mention its weight in a possible trampling (Wikipedia). The number of elephants in the pitch varies from four to six, depending on the field size (WEPA).

Alejandra Treviño A01280206

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Sources:

WEPA. "Nepal, Travel, Elephant Polo, Adventure Sports, Chitwan, Tournament, World Association." World Elephant Polo Association. Web. 21 Sept. 2011. .

Wikipedia. "Elephant Polo." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 21 Sept. 2011. .