A Beginning in Dust and Defiance
On a humid afternoon in Osmanabad, Maharashtra, the sound of children running barefoot across a schoolyard breaks the silence. The game is kho-kho—dust rising as players duck, dive, and chase. For years, such playgrounds were considered natural territory for boys. Girls, if they played, were tolerated, not taken seriously. Yet from these very grounds, Sarika Kale rose. She went on to captain India’s women’s kho-kho team to international gold, winning the Arjuna Award in 2020, and proving that indigenous games are no longer the boys’ club they once were.
Her story is not isolated. From the high plains of Mongolia to the sunlit beaches of Thailand, women have pried open doors to sports long defined as male-only. Their journeys are not just about medals but about rewriting what heritage and tradition really mean.
Wrestling with Ancestors in Mongolia
In Mongolia, Bökh wrestling is more than a sport—it is myth, ritual, identity. The Naadam festival, where men wrestle in eagle-winged jackets and embroidered boots, is a national spectacle. For centuries, women were excluded with a simple justification: wrestling was a masculine ritual tied to tribal survival.
But culture is rarely static. Oyungerel Batkhuyag, one of the few Mongolian women who dared to train, began wrestling in rural competitions. “Why should strength only belong to men?” she asked in a local interview. Though barred from the Naadam stage, her presence at smaller tournaments has unsettled tradition. Some cheer her courage; others whisper disapproval. Yet the image of a woman grappling fiercely in the grass is impossible to erase once seen.
It is the same in Senegal, where laamb wrestling dominates the sporting imagination. Here too, women have begun staging exhibition bouts. Crowds roar for them, but critics mutter that “women should not mimic men.” Each throw becomes not just athletic but symbolic—a test of who gets to carry a nation’s cultural torch.
India’s Forgotten Games, and the Women Who Revived Them
India’s indigenous games often live in the shadow of cricket. Yet on small dusty fields, sports like kho-kho and kabaddi pulse with energy. For decades, these were dismissed as rough-and-tumble activities suited only for men. That fiction cracked with women like Sarika Kale and Mamatha Poojary.
Poojary, from a modest family in Karnataka, led India’s women’s kabaddi team to multiple Asian golds. Her raids and tackles redefined the sport, forcing sceptics to admit that ferocity has no gender. “When I first played, people laughed—kabaddi is for boys, they said. But when we won gold for India, nobody laughed anymore,” she recalled in an interview.
Sarika Kale’s kho-kho journey was similar. Under her leadership, India clinched the 2016 South Asian Games and the Third Asian Championship. For her, the bigger victory was visibility. “Our sport is ancient, but our struggle is modern—being seen, being respected,” she once told a Marathi newspaper.
What unites these women is not just athleticism but resilience. They fought on two fronts: against opponents on the field and against scepticism off it. Coaches questioned their stamina. Families worried about “reputation.” Sponsors turned their backs. Yet by simply refusing to stop playing, they kept these traditional games alive.
Aerial Acrobatics: Sepak Takraw in Southeast Asia
Few sports are as breathtaking as Sepak Takraw. Picture athletes leaping into the air, flipping backwards, and smashing a rattan ball across a net—using only their feet, chest, and head. For generations, it was a spectacle of male dexterity at festivals in Thailand and Malaysia.
But the women were watching. Thailand’s Pattharaporn Sungnak became a pioneer, leading her team in the Asian Games. Malaysia soon followed, with women’s regu (team) events attracting global attention. Yet recognition lags. Male players are national celebrities; female teams still scramble for sponsorships.
One Malaysian player remarked: “We can do the same acrobatics, the same kicks, but reporters don’t even bother to learn our names.” It is not a lack of talent, but a lack of respect, that remains their greatest opponent.
Still, their games are mesmerising. At the 2018 Asian Games, Thailand’s women’s team executed rallies that left even seasoned journalists gasping. The crowd could not distinguish the artistry of men’s play from women’s—and that, in itself, was a quiet revolution.
Beyond the Scoreboard: The Inuit and the Pole
In the Arctic, the Inuit Games test survival skills—high kicks, seal hops, knuckle hops. Traditionally, men dominated, as the games were tied to hunting rituals. Yet women increasingly compete, sometimes even outperforming men in endurance-based events. Still, their triumphs remain confined to community radio, never to international headlines.
And in India again, the visually stunning sport of Mallakhamb—a blend of wrestling, yoga, and gymnastics performed on a pole—was once a male preserve. Today, athletes like Rani Laxmi Singh are bending, flipping, and balancing with a grace that fuses dance with athleticism. At international showcases, crowds gasp. But when the story is written, it still begins with: “India’s forgotten men’s sport.”
Why These Stories Matter
What these women share is not just courage—it is persistence in the face of invisibility. Their battles are not fought only on the field but in homes, in training grounds, and in newspapers that fail to print their names.
Every match they play chips away at old stereotypes: that women are too fragile for contact sports, too graceful for combat, too delicate for risk. The truth is otherwise. Female kabaddi players invented new defensive strategies. Women’s sepak takraw teams experimented with rotations unheard of in men’s play. These athletes are not “additions” to tradition—they are innovators, reshaping it.
For sports historians, these stories complicate the neat line often drawn between “heritage” and “progress.” They show that heritage is not something frozen in time; it evolves with those who dare to play it differently. A kho-kho match led by Sarika Kale is not a break from tradition—it is tradition in motion, reimagined for a world that finally allows women to dive headlong into its dust.
The Future: Heritage Rewritten
The road ahead is uneven. Federations still underfund women’s teams. Media coverage remains lopsided. But something irreversible has begun. Every time a girl watches Sarika Kale dive into the dirt, or a Thai teenager mimics Pattharaporn Sungnak’s aerial kick, heritage shifts. Tradition bends. The gates, once locked, no longer hold.
The untold story of female pioneers in male-dominated indigenous sports is not just about inclusion. It is about transformation. These women are not trespassers—they are architects of a larger, more honest legacy. And someday, perhaps, their names will be spoken with the same reverence as the men’s, because history will finally recognise that they belonged on the field all along.