Sports
A small country that keeps winning combat sports
Uzbekistan's sporting identity starts with kurash, a form of upright jacket wrestling practised here for millennia — and it shows in what the country wins at internationally.
Boxing, wrestling, judo
Uzbek boxing has become genuinely dominant. Hasanboy Dusmatov won gold in Rio in 2016 and took the Val Barker Trophy as the tournament's outstanding boxer; Bakhodir Jalolov won super-heavyweight gold in Tokyo and again in Paris. At the Paris 2024 Games Uzbekistan finished with eight gold medals, its strongest Olympic result, with boxing and wrestling carrying most of it. Ulugbek Rashitov did the same in taekwondo, winning gold in Tokyo and Paris.
Beyond the mat
In chess, Rustam Kasimdzhanov became FIDE World Champion in 2004, and Nodirbek Abdusattorov won the World Rapid Championship in 2021 at seventeen — the youngest player ever to do so. In gymnastics, Oksana Chusovitina competed at eight Olympic Games between 1992 and 2020, a longevity record no other gymnast has matched. And in football, the men's national team qualified for the FIFA World Cup for the first time in the country's history, reaching the 2026 tournament.
Highlights
- Kurash, upright jacket wrestling, is the traditional Uzbek combat sport and now has its own international federation
- Uzbekistan won eight golds at the Paris 2024 Olympics, its best ever result
- Oksana Chusovitina competed at eight Olympic Games — no gymnast has matched it
- Nodirbek Abdusattorov became World Rapid Chess Champion at seventeen, the youngest ever