BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Some of the world’s prime women polo gamers compete this week in Argentina in the sport’s first-ever feminine World Cup, the end result of years of rising alternative in a recreation identified for its equestrian attract and high-society sensibilities.
The lady’s polo World Cup obtained underneath manner final Saturday at the Cathedral stadium in the leafy Palermo neighborhood of Buenos Aires, the Argentine capital, and can conclude on April 16 after the week-long match. The competitors options groups from the dwelling nation, the United States, Brazil, England, Italy and Ireland.
“In current years, the progress of women’s polo has been so spectacular,” Clara Cassino, a prime Argentine participant, advised Reuters. “Each yr it grows a lot, extra so for women’s polo than for the males,” she added, in a nod to the addition of women’s tournaments in Argentina and past.
An earlier match often known as the Women’s Polo Open kicked off in Buenos Aires 5 years in the past with its personal participant score system, or handicap, and is held every year concurrent with a males’s match, which dates again greater than a century.
The women’s match is credited with inspiring comparable competitions in current years in Britain and the United States as the recreation has grown in reputation.
Polo, usually dubbed the sport of kings, is believed to be one of the world’s oldest identified staff sports activities, however historically solely open to males.
It was delivered to Argentina’s sprawling plains, or pampas, by British immigrants in the late 1800s, the place it discovered a house alongside the South American nation’s iconic gaucho cowboys.
Today, Argentina is amongst the prime international locations the place polo is performed, in addition to being a significant exporter of horses specifically bred for the sport.
The recreation is performed with groups of 4 horse-mounted gamers who intention to attain factors by hitting a ball by means of purpose posts with lengthy wood mallets at the ends of the 300-yard-long (274-meter) grassy subject.
Modern polo combines high-tech improvements, together with horse cloning, with artisan-made studs, saddles and boots, and now new alternatives for women who wish to play.
In an interview, Azucena Uranga, a 20-year-old member of the Argentine nationwide staff, cheered the probability to compete in the first World Cup.
“It provides us our personal place and an unimaginable alternative, one which perhaps we’ll solely absolutely understand in a number of years,” she stated.
Delfin Uranga, Azucena’s father and the president of Argentina’s polo affiliation, confused that the nation’s worldwide management in the sport is very vital as a result of different nations usually comply with its lead.
“It sends a message to the world,” he stated, “to present women a chance to compete at the similar degree as males.”
(Reporting by Lucila Sigal; Writing by David Alire Garcia; Editing by Leslie Adler)
