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Sport in Uzbekistan
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Over the centuries, Uzbekistan has had a tradition of fostering equestrians and wrestlers (palvins). Some of the sports that originate in the country are the kurash, which is a type of upright wrestling. Other types of wrestling are belbogli kurash, turon, and boyqurgan all having the same origins. Other popular sports in Uzbekistan are football, basketball, boxing, wrestling, and judo.

Contents

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  1Football
  
• 
  2Basketball
  
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  3Baseball
  
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  4Ice Hockey
  
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  5Rugby union
  
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  6Handball
  
• 
  7Water polo
  
• 
  8Olympics
  
• 
  9Notable athletes
  
• 
  10References
  
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  11External links
  

Football[edit]
Main article: Football in Uzbekistan
Football is the most popular sport in Uzbekistan. Uzbekistan's premier football league is the Uzbek League, which features 14 teams since 2010, before 16. The current champions are Lokomotiv Tashkent, and the team with the most championships is FC Pakhtakor Tashkent with eight. The current Player of the Year (2017) is Marat Bikmaev.
The most successful football clubs in Uzbekistan are FC Bunyodkor, FC Pakhtakor and FC Nasaf. In 2011 FC Nasaf won AFC Cup and became the first Uzbekistan team to win the international club cup. Uzbek clubs participate in the annual CIS Cup.
Uzbekistan U-16 won AFC U-16 Championship in 2012. In 2018 Uzbekistan U-23 became the champions in AFC U-23 Championship hosted by China. Uzbekistan national team's best achievement at the Asian Cup was a fourth-place finish at the 2011 AFC Asian Cup.
Ravshan Irmatov was named The Best Referee in Asia in four consecutive years (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2014). At Globe Soccer Awards in 2015 he was rewarded as Best Referee of The Year.^[1][2]
The Bunyodkor Stadium has a capacity of 34,000, and is mostly used for football matches.
Basketball[edit]
See also: Uzbekistan national basketball team and Uzbekistan women's national basketball team
Uzbekistan used to be part of the powerful Soviet Union national basketball team. After the dissolution of the team, Uzbekistan founded its own team which was moderately successful between the mid-90s and mid-2000s.