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Yahoo! My Yahoo! Mail More Yahoo! Services Account Options New User? Sign Up Sign In Help Yahoo! Search web search Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Weekend Edition World Nepal's gentle giants do battle on the polo field AFP - Sunday, December 5 Send IM Story Print Nepal's gentle giants do battle on the polo field MEGHAULY AIRSTRIP, Nepal (AFP) - – On a remote jungle airfield in southern Nepal, the tension is rising as the finals of one of the world's most eccentric sporting events goes into extra time at a nailbiting five-all. Within minutes, a giant elephant rumbles towards one end of the field and a cheer goes up from the crowd as a tiny white ball shoots between the goalposts, winning the game for the team from Switzerland. This is elephant polo, a game that was dreamt up almost 30 years ago over drinks at a Swiss ski resort and now attracts adventure-seekers from all over the world to Nepal, where the world championships are held every year. The game, loosely based on horse polo, involves two teams of four players sitting astride elephants driven by mahouts, or trainers, who drive them on using oral commands and pressure from their feet. Players carry sticks up to 96 inches (2.5 metres) long to hit the ball towards the opposing goal, with each game comprising two 10-minute chukkas. The umpire sits on the biggest elephant, a huge, long-tusked bull, giving him a bird's-eye view of the game. The sport attracts players of all ages and nationalities, with this year's world championships won by a team led by 71-year-old Scotsman James Manclark, a keen horse polo player who invented the elephant version. He came up with the idea in St Moritz over a drink with Jim Edwards, a pioneer of eco-tourism in Nepal who ran a resort called Tiger Tops deep inside the jungle that used elephants to take guests on safari. Shortly after their encounter, Manclark sent his friend a telegram that read simply: "Arriving April 1 with long sticks. Have elephants ready." "He didn't know whether I was being serious or not. But I arrived, with the sticks and two small footballs, ready to play," Manclark told AFP on the sidelines of the 29th world tournament, which ended on Saturday. The experiment got off to a bad start when the elephants decided it was more fun to stamp on the footballs and burst them than to chase them around the pitch. Fortunately, regular polo balls proved more successful, and elephant polo was born. The World Cup, organised by Tiger Tops, is held every year at a grass airstrip on the edge of Nepal's Chitwan national park, 90 kilometres (56 miles) southwest of Kathmandu. Dan Bahadur Tamang, who has worked with the resort's elephants since 1969, said it wasn't hard to train them to play polo. "They love it. When you watch the game you can see how fast they run towards the ball," he says. "They really know what they're doing now, and they are very clever. They can be taught up to 1,000 oral commands." The elephants are fed at the end of each match and treated to molasses sandwiches to keep their strength up. A team of workers is kept busy throughout each match scurrying onto the pitch to scoop up dung. The game can be surprisingly quick, with the smaller, more nimble elephants deployed in attack and the larger ones playing defence, using their bulk to block the goal. And it is taken very seriously by some players. Umpire Yadav Bantawa reports teams using the larger elephants to block his view of illegal moves such as hooking an opponent's stick to prevent him from hitting the ball. Others take part for fun -- this year's championship featured the Afghaniphants, a team of expatriate workers in Kabul who had never played elephant polo before and were raising money for charity. Like horse polo, this is an expensive sport -- the entry fee alone runs into thousands of dollars -- and the world championship attracts a wealthy and glamorous crowd. This year, Miss Nepal was joined in the audience by former crown prince Paras, who flew in with a large entourage on his private helicopter to watch a few chukkas. But local people also flock to attend the spectacle, most of them supporting the team put together every year by the park warden and his staff, who work with elephants every day on their patrols and are often among the top performers. "We are so lucky to have a world championship on our doorstep," local farmer Kul Narayan Shrestha told AFP. "It's a really fun day out." 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