Topic: 2025-Safeguarding and Promoting Traditional Sports and Games
Country: Argentina
Delegate Name: Lena Landau
Traditional Sports and games are a vital part of our identity and carry national and cultural heritage. Those traditional sports and games (TSG) are each unique and essential to our communities. Like for many others, modernization and globalization are raising threats to our TSG and therefore a threat to a rich and impactful part of our country’s culture. The Argentine Republic is dedicated to work on possible solutions and to participate in programs for the support and preservation of TSG.
With the development of technology and advancing globalization, the interest in TSG has steadily decreased over the years. We are sad to report a loss of interest in our traditional sports. As a country with a lot of traditions and culture, Argentina values TSG as a part of our national identity and cultural heritage. Sport like pato (juego del pato), a game played on horseback that combines elements from polo and basketball, jineteada gaucha or doma gaucha, a traditional rodeo where the rider tries to stay on an untamed horse for a number of seconds, or Tejo, a traditional throwing sport using gunpowder to explode on impact, are important to our communities and are slowly replaced by globalized sports, such as football or basketball, due to international media and governmental dominated funding. TSG are traditionally played on rural ground, making them harder to participate in cities and urban areas. In the past we tried advertising and encouraging TSG by national policies, starting with the Official Recognition of Pato 1953, declaring Pato as Argentina’s national sport, or by standardizing the Pato rules in the 1930s. We also participated in UNESCO’s initiatives for safeguarding TSG and supported policy guidelines and international platforms promoting cultural and sporting heritage.
Argentina recognizes the increasing challenges in the promotion and safeguarding of TSG and would like to support proposed solutions, such as increased global and national funding for education, advertisement, cooperation and media promotion. Furthermore we would like to urge all nations to take action in preserving those significant and important parts of heritage and identity.
