Istanbul to host 4-day Ethnosport Cultural Festival

The Ethnosport Cultural Festival will kick off in Istanbul's Ataturk Airport on Thursday.

Organized by the World Ethnosport Confederation, the festival will be held for the fourth time this year with 16 nations participating, including guest country Argentina.

The festival will be held in Istanbul's Ataturk Airport on Oct. 3-6.

Nearly 1,000 athletes will compete in the festival in 12 traditional sports -- including archery, oil wrestling, belt wrestling, mounted javelin throwing, mancala and horseback archery.

The oil wrestling festivities alone will last for four days with a total of 300 contenders.

The fourth Ethnosport Cultural Festival is also presenting a dazzling array of traditional cuisines from across the globe for festival-goers to savor.

The event features the cuisines of 16 countries from all around the world.

Bilal Erdoğan, the head of World Ethnosport Confederation, also invited everyone to attend the festival.

"Our goal is to provide an opportunity for our people to ride horses, shoot arrows and wrestle," Erdogan told Anadolu Agency on Wednesday.

Apart from sports, children would also be able to take part in 40 traditional children's games, Erdogan said.

There will also be 60 handicraft workshops, he added.