What is Jereed?
No countrymen can live without their traditional sports same is the case with Turkey. You can see that this country has many traditional games which are played all around Turkey, but Jereed or Turkish Javelin is one of the most popular Turkish traditional games. This is a game that has been played since 11th century. So you can also say this game as a Turkish ancestors sport. This is an outdoor sport which is played in shape of teams. The team players will sit on the back of horses and they have to throw the blunt wooden javelin towards the opponent team members to get the points.
Horses are an important part of Turkish history and the every Turk love to have a horse. So when the idea of this game came then the obvious choice of animal is the horses. Now days you can see that the stick size that is used as javelin is reduced to 70-100 cm and 2-3 cm in diameters, which is very less size as compare to history of the sport. This is done only because to minimize the risk of injuries. This game become most popular and touches its peak in 19th century. In 1826 the sport was banned by Mahmud II because of the injuries and risks attached. But then after long time the ban was uplift but the game does not get the popularity as it enjoyed before. Now days this game is played mostly in provinces and Erzincan, Artvin and Kars are the provinces where it is being played. You can also see that the 9 provinces in Turkey have 50 Jereed clubs which organized different Jereed tournaments throughout the year.