[1] There are hundreds of national belt wrestling styles, but contemporary most widespread and internationally competed are Alysh and Kurash, developed by the previously nomadic Turkic peoples of Central Asia.
Although the sport has been practiced for millennia, and local championships were held in various places of the world, it was until 2001 when Bayaman Erkinbayev started its international version, and it was called "Alysh".
[2] One of the oldest recorded illustrations of wrestling is a bronze statuette, dated to around 2600 BC, found in 1938 at Khafaji, near Baghdad and now stored in the National Museum of Iraq.
[5] The newly created official platform by UNESCO Advisory Committee on TSG is the International Council of Traditional Sports and Games has already awarded the membership to IATWS and IBWA.
Belt Wrestling has been included in the First World Traditional Sports and Games Festival to be held in Astana- Kazakhstan 2021.
These Games will be the first of their kind whilst giving a boost to tourism, local traditions, and culture of its Host Country.
As the name suggests, the central component of the sport is a simple device, such as a belt, an ordinary towel, or girdle.
An important fact is that the International Belt Wrestling Federation considerably lessened the number of injuries received by contestants since the introduction of the new rules.
The sport is developing rapidly and has become so prominent that President Putin of Russia attended the 6th World Championships in Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan, from 9 to 13 October 2007.
In America and Oceania the popularity of belt wrestling is no less than that in Iran, Turkey, Germany, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Ukraine, Russia, Lithuania, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Togo, and Spain - countries which have already been the hosts of international competitions.
The IBWA is an organization that serves as an international platform under the leadership of its President Khalil Ahmed Khan for the popularizing and developing traditional wrestling/belt wrestling throughout the world irrespective of race and political followings.
The Association takes part in the exchanging of know-how, knowledge, information, and data, referring to the traditional wrestling/belt wrestling which, in turn, contributes to its development and popularization on local, national, regional and international levels.
All IBWA events are with the line of the IOC vision which include seven components: sport – belt wrestling competition, culture – folklore youth festival and competition on local traditional wrestling style, science – scientific conference on developing and promotion of traditional sport and game, environment – tree planting action "Plant-for-the-Planet" or beach cleaning action "Creation" with art exhibition, sport for development and peace – training seminars between border conflict/post-war countries under the slogan "Play for Peace", healthy lifestyle promotion - Olympic mile "Fun Run", youth – youth leadership forum " New generation of leadership".
SM Bali was elected as President, Aman Kumar Sharma Vice President and Tarsem Sharma elected as Secretary-General of Amateur Belt Wrestling Federation of India The first edition of the championships in 2002 saw competition in the openweight, therefore only two events were contested (men and women.)