Oil wrestling

What it is

Oil wrestling is a grappling sport in which both men grease themselves before the bout begins. Each competitor wears a kıspet, a loose leather garment that stops below the knee, and nothing above the waist. Because the bodies are slippery, ordinary holds are difficult, and the leather trousers become a target. The sport is described as Turkey's national game, and its rules sit close to karakucak, another wrestling style from the same part of the world. The men who take part are called pehlivans.

Origins and history

Old records place wrestling with oiled bodies in several ancient lands. Practices like it are traced to Sumer and Babylon, and to Assyria and Egypt. It was also popular among the ancient Greeks and Romans. During the First Achaemenid conquest of Egypt the custom reached Iran and Anatolia, and communities in Thrace and the Balkans were wrestling this way some 4,500 years ago. Related folk styles live on among Turkic-speaking peoples across Western Eurasia, where they are known as Köraş, Khuresh and Kurash.

The Kırkpınar tournament

Ottoman-era Anatolia had its own freestyle wrestling, karakucak, and wrestlers there wore leather and poured olive oil on their skin; that practice turned into yağlı güreş. Training took place in tekke, houses that were athletic and spiritual at once. The chief gathering is Kırkpınar, at Edirne in Turkish Thrace. Sources date its start to 1346, and Ottoman chronicles and papers show it running every year from 1362. Guinness counts it the oldest sanctioned sporting competition that has never stopped, though it has been cancelled around seventy times and moved to its current site in 1924. Roughly a thousand wrestlers meet there each early summer.

How matches are won

A wrestler is beaten when his opponent puts his back on the ground, which the tradition describes as showing the belly to the stars. Sitting up propped on both hands also loses, as does touching the ground with two elbows or with an elbow and a hand. If the kıspet is pulled down and a man is exposed, he is out. Victory comes from lifting the rival and carrying him three paces, or turning him about. Matches had no fixed length until 1975; now the başpehlivan class is allowed forty minutes and the pehlivan class thirty, with extra time and points if needed. The champion earns the title başpehlivan, and three straight wins bring a golden belt.

Peşrev and the kıspet

Before the wrestling itself comes peşrev, an opening that is warm-up, prayer and theatre in one. The men line up, the previous winner on the right, turn towards the Kıbla, and join hands, right in right and left in left, while a cazgır prays aloud. Those linked hands say that each is more than a brother to the other. The kıspet takes its name from the Arabic kiswa by way of Persian, and follows the modesty rule for Muslim men, covering from the belt to below the knee. Until the 1960s it was buffalo hide and weighed twelve or thirteen kilos; now it is calfskin, around two kilos. Wrestlers oil each other before the bout as a sign of balance and mutual respect.

How Oil wrestling is kept

Pehlivans from many towns gather for a festival. They help one another grease up, then line up for peşrev, the opening ritual that combines prayer with warm-up. The previous year's winner takes the right-hand place in the line. Fights follow, governed by the sport's own rules about how a man can be brought down. When a bout goes the full time without a result, extra minutes and scoring settle it. At the close of the tournament the winner is proclaimed başpehlivan, and prizes are given out, including a golden belt for three wins in a row.

When and where

Kırkpınar falls in early summer and lasts three days at Edirne. The sources date the games from 1346, and Ottoman documents record them running every year from 1362. Wrestlers also compete at other festivals in Turkey at other points in the year. The last man standing at Kırkpınar becomes başpehlivan for that year.

The sport's home is Turkey, where it is the national game, and it is strongest at Edirne in Turkish Thrace. Festivals also run in the Turkish-inhabited parts of Bulgaria, in the Ludogorie and the Rhodopes, and in northern Greece, around Serres in Eastern Macedonia and in the Rhodope Mountains of West Thrace. The Netherlands has competitions overseen by its own power sport federation.

What Oil wrestling means

Oil wrestling carries meanings beyond the result. The peşrev is described as prayer as much as preparation, and the joined hands speak of a brotherhood of a special kind, each man standing in for Ali and Selim, whom the tradition holds to be the founders of Kırkpınar. Oiling a rival is done as a display of balance and mutual respect. In the Ottoman tekke, the mat and the prayer room shared one house, so body and spirit were trained together. A younger wrestler who beats an older one kisses his hand, the familiar Turkish mark of respect for an elder.

Questions people ask about Oil wrestling

See also

World Nomad GamesA two-yearly contest of Central Asian nomadic sports, first staged in Kyrgyzstan in 2014KurashCentral Asian traditional upright folk wrestling using cloth belts or towelsJereedRiders on horseback throw blunt wooden javelins at rivals in this Turkish team sportKırkpınarA three-day Turkish oil wrestling contest near Edirne, held each June since 1360

Good reading and sources

• Oil wrestling on WikipediaEncyclopedia
• More photos on Wikimedia CommonsPhotos and video
• Wikidata recordOpen data

It may contain mistakes. Traditions differ from one family, village and community to the next, and the people who keep them know them best. If something is wrong, tell us. Last refreshed 2026-10-05.