A Thousand Wrestlers and Two Tons of Olive Oil
Every summer near Edirne, men strip to leather breeches, drench themselves in olive oil and grapple until one pins the other. Kirkpinar, held for over six centuries, is the world’s oldest continuous sporting event — and a reminder that olive oil is woven into culture far beyond the kitchen.
In a grassy arena outside Edirne, in Turkey’s European north-west, thousands gather each summer to watch men fight while covered head to toe in olive oil. The sport is yağlı güreş — ‘oiled wrestling’ — and its championship, Kirkpinar, has been staged since roughly 1362, which makes it very plausibly the oldest continuously held sporting competition on earth. In 2010 UNESCO listed it as intangible cultural heritage. For an olive site, it is the perfect reminder that this fruit’s oil has always been more than a cooking fat.
How the sport works
The wrestlers, called pehlivan, wear thick hand-stitched leather trousers called kıspet and nothing else but a coating of oil. They pour it over their own arms and legs, then oil each other’s backs — a ritual of respect before the bout. The oil makes every hold slippery and unreliable, so the sport rewards not brute force but grip, technique, stamina and cunning. Matches can be long and gruelling under the summer sun, and grips are legally taken inside the opponent’s kıspet, since there is nowhere else slippery skin can be held. A single festival can burn through a startling quantity of oil across its many bouts.
Why olive oil, and does the grade matter?
Here is the honest, unromantic answer to the question every olive lover asks: no, they are not sloshing prized extra virgin over the wrestlers. The oil used at Kirkpinar is ordinary, inexpensive olive oil bought in bulk for the purpose — its job is to be slippery, not delicious. Using top-grade extra virgin would be an absurd waste, and the trade knows it. This is olive oil as material rather than food, the same way it once oiled lamps, skin, athletes and machinery across the ancient Mediterranean. The wrestling simply keeps one of those old uses gloriously alive.
Oil beyond the plate
Kirkpinar sits inside a much older story. In antiquity, athletes across the Greek and Roman world oiled their bodies before exercise and scraped the oil, sweat and dust off afterwards with a curved tool called a strigil. Olive oil lit lamps, dressed wounds, anointed kings and priests, softened skin and leather, and powered a whole economy long before it became a gourmet ingredient. When you watch two oiled pehlivan strain in the Thracian heat, you are watching a living fragment of that world — the olive as culture, ritual and sport, not just something you drizzle on a salad.
| Event | Kirkpinar oil-wrestling festival |
|---|---|
| Where | Edirne, Turkish Thrace |
| Since | Roughly 1362 |
| Sport | Yağlı güreş (‘oiled wrestling’) |
| Wrestlers | Pehlivan, in leather kıspet |
| Oil used | Ordinary bulk olive oil, not premium |
| Recognition | UNESCO intangible heritage, 2010 |
The takeaways
- Kirkpinar is very plausibly the oldest continuous sporting event in the world.
- The oil is cheap bulk oil, chosen to be slippery — no one wastes extra virgin on it.
- It preserves an ancient non-food use of olive oil, like the athletes of antiquity.
- It is a reminder that the olive is culture and ritual, not only cuisine.
Kirkpinar oil wrestling: common questions
What is Kirkpinar?
Turkey’s national oil-wrestling championship, held near Edirne since roughly 1362 and listed by UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage in 2010. It is very plausibly the world’s oldest continuous sporting event.
Why do the wrestlers cover themselves in olive oil?
The oil makes every grip slippery and unreliable, so the sport rewards technique, stamina and cunning over brute strength. Oiling each other is also a ritual of respect before the bout.
Do they use extra virgin olive oil?
No. It is ordinary, inexpensive olive oil bought in bulk — its job is to be slippery, not tasty. Using premium extra virgin would be a pointless waste.
What is a pehlivan?
The Turkish word for the wrestlers, who compete in thick hand-stitched leather trousers called kıspet, oiled from head to foot.
What does oil wrestling have to do with olive history?
It preserves one of the olive’s ancient non-food uses. In antiquity athletes oiled their bodies to exercise, and olive oil also lit lamps, dressed skin and anointed the powerful long before it was a gourmet food.
Every olive lover asks the same thing watching Kirkpinar: is that good oil they’re wasting? No — it is cheap bulk oil bought by the drum, chosen to be slippery, not delicious, and anyone in the trade would laugh at the idea of drenching wrestlers in prized extra virgin. That is the real lesson here. Olive oil was a material long before it was a gourmet ingredient — it oiled athletes, lamps, skin and leather across the ancient Mediterranean. The wrestling keeps one of those old jobs alive, and it is worth remembering the fruit was culture before it was cuisine.
Drawn from background on the Kirkpinar festival and Turkish oil wrestling, including its UNESCO heritage listing.