About the Sport The main part of this book deals with the technique of a proper polo swing. For the sake of completeness and for a broad survey on this sport, we would like to mention some important facts about polo.
The Definition of Polo and the Polo Swing Polo is an equestrian sport; its object is to score goals or to prevent them against one’s own team. The polo swing is simply defined as hitting a ball with a mallet.
The History Polo is said to be one of the oldest team sports in the world. The roots of this fascinating sport stretch back to old Persia. First described in about 600 BC, this fast game swiftly spread over the whole Asian continent. In colonial times, the British adopted polo in India and in 1871 it was finally brought to England. There it was given a comprehensive system of rules and regulations (the ruling body was formulated in 1889 from the Hurlingham Polo Committee), which presentday European rules are based on. Many people do not know that polo was an Olympic sport on five occasions and was a real crowd-puller at the Olympic Games in Germany in 1936. There are currently attempts to re-establish polo as an Olympic sport. As evidenced by historical records, sports like cricket, golf, hockey and others are said to directly originate from polo or have evolved from its variations. The common theme of these variations is the horse, ball and mallet. All further parameters as to the number of the players, size of the field, tolerable height of the horses, form of the mallet and material of the ball vary from variation to variation.
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