WThe Azerbaijan Golf Challenge Open was a golf tournament on the Challenge Tour. It was first played in August 2014 at the National Azerbaijan Golf Club in Quba, Azerbaijan. It was the first professional golf tournament in Azerbaijan.
WChovgan, Chowgan or Chogan, is a sporting team game with horses that originated in ancient Iran (Persia). It was considered an aristocratic game and held in a separate field, on specially trained horses. The game was widespread among the Asian peoples. It is played in Iran, Republic of Azerbaijan and among Tajiks and Uzbeks. It was later adopted in the Western World, known today as polo.
WThe Ministry of Youth and Sports of Azerbaijan Republic is a governmental agency within the Cabinet of Azerbaijan in charge of regulating activities related to sports and youth development in Azerbaijan Republic. The ministry is headed by Farid Gayibov.
WAzerbaijan first participated at the Olympic Games as an independent nation in 1996, and has sent athletes to compete in every Games since then. Previously, Azerbaijani athletes competed as part of the Soviet Union at the Olympics from 1952 to 1988, and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan was part of the Unified Team in 1992. Azerbaijani athletes have won a total of 42 medals at the Summer Olympic Games. The nation has not won any medals at the Winter Olympic Games. The National Olympic Committee of the Azerbaijani Republic was created in 1992 and recognized by the International Olympic Committee in 1993.
WParagliding in Azerbaijan is quite young and even though Azerbaijan has a rich sporting heritage, little was known about the sport of paragliding and air sport, generally, at the begging of the century. Early in the sports development some ex-parachute jumpers and short term foreign visitors were trying to develop the sport, but with no real success. As of 2015, the community consisted of about 20 pilots, members of the sporting clubs RockStone, Gilavar, Climb Club, CanFly. Pilots are required to follow Fédération Aéronautique Internationale main safety requirements and ethics.
WAzerbaijan made its Paralympic Games début at the 1996 Summer Paralympics in Atlanta, with a two-man delegation to compete in track and field and powerlifting. It has taken part in every subsequent edition of the Summer Paralympics, but has never participated in the Winter Paralympics.
WPahlevani and zourkhaneh rituals is the name inscribed by UNESCO for varzesh-e pahlavāni or varzesh-e bāstāni, a traditional system of athletics and a form of martial arts originally used to train warriors in Iran (Persia), and first appearing under this name and form in the Safavid era, with similarities to systems in adjacent lands under other names. Outside Iran, zoorkhanehs can now also be found in Azerbaijan, and Afghanistan, and were introduced into Iraq in the mid-19th century by the Iranian immigrants, where they seem to have existed until the 1980s before disappearing. It combines martial arts, calisthenics, strength training and music. Recognized by UNESCO as the world's longest-running form of such training, it contains elements of pre-Islamic and post-Islamic Persian culture with the spirituality of Persian Shia Islam and Sufism. Practiced in a domed structure called the zurkhāneh, training sessions consist mainly of ritual gymnastic movements and climax with the core of combat practice, a form of submission-grappling called koshti pahlavāni.