THAILAND: The Thailand 2008 King's Cup Elephant Polo Tournament kicks off in Chiang Rai province

Record ID: 185031

  • Title: THAILAND: The Thailand 2008 King's Cup Elephant Polo Tournament kicks off in Chiang Rai province
  • Date: 6th April 2008
  • Summary: SOUNDBITE (English) 3NELLIES TEAM FOUNDER, CLAIRE MCNICHOLL SAYING: "We are an all girls team, but the girls often play with the guys team. We are not physically strong but we hope to be more, maybe agile"
  • Embargoed: 21st April 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Thailand
  • Country: Thailand
  • Topics: Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky,Sports
  • Reuters ID: LVADUJY2PI43XEIPAKZGN45TUUSD
  • Story Text: The Thailand 2008 King's cup Elephant Polo Tournament kicked off on Monday (March 31) in the northern-most region of the country known as the Golden Triangle.
    The day started off senior mahouts paying homage to the elephants with a ritual of the Khmer's Suay tribe, one of the oldest elephant catcher tribe's.
    The ritualwith a holy water blessing for the 28 elephants.
    Twelve teams with 44 players participated in this year's event and it is the third time the game has been played in Northern Thailand instead of the seaside resort of Hua Hin in the south.
    The first match in the field over the Mekong river brought together the so called "dream teams", Audemars Piguet and Chivas Life.
    The Audemars Piguet team is famous in Thailand because it's founding member Christopher Stafford brought Elephant Polo to the country in 2001.
    The World Elephant Polo Tournament plays annually in Nepal but the Thai tournament is played on a relatively small circuit.
    "When I started we only had two teams, and now we have twelve teams here. In Sri Lanka, we have ten teams, and in Nepal we have ten teams. So we are getting bigger and bigger all the time around the world," said Co-Founder of world Elephant Polo Association, James Manclark.
    In Thailand, the King's Cup Elephant Polo Tournament was first launched in Hua Hin in 2001 and in 2006, the tournament moved to the Golden Triangle.
    Due to the size of elephants, each team has only three players and they ride on their elephants through a marked pitch 100 by 60 metres using a standard sized polo ball.
    The rules are simple and similar to regular polo. A mahout helps steer the jumbo for every player and no more than two elephants from a team can cover half a pitch at a time. There is no gender division in the sport.
    "We are an all girls team, but the girls often play with the guys team. We are not physically strong but we hope to be more, maybe agile,"
    said 3nellies Team founder, Claire Mcnicholl.
    The benefits from the event will be donated to organisations dealing in elephant welfare in Thailand.
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