Traditional Sports. Tibet's traditional sports are the product of the region's particular natural environment and the people's customs. Sporting events and entertainments, some competitions, some performances, were connected with the seasons and festivals of the Tibetan calendar. Today some of these traditional sports have been standardized and included in modern competitive sports. Principal traditional sports include the following:
　　-Horse Racing. Horse races are held every year in the northem grasslands and in some other farming and herding areas. The ordinarily dressed participants, mainly young pe-ople and adults, race bareback over a ten-kilometer course.
　　-Horsemanship. Skills on horseback are celebrated here, such as mounted marksmanship or snatching a hada silk ceremonial scarf from the ground at tull gallop. The participants dress in fancy clothing from an earlier era inclu-ding big red hats and ride gaily decorated horses festooned with copper bells.
-Polo. This ancient sport, wherein riders maneuver a ball around a course with the aid of a mallet, can trace its history to at least the early 8th century when Tang Dynasty Emperor Zhongzong commanded his palace polo team to join in a competition with a squad accompanying Tibetan envoys to Chang'an, the Tang capital.
　　-Archery. This sport, derived from ancient hunting and military practices, is today most popular in the Mainling, Medog and Zayn area of southeastern Tibet. One Tibetan form of the art is somewhat unusual. The archer shoots an arrow, its clubbed arrowhead pierced with wind channels, high in the air. The air rushing through the channels creates a high-pitched sound, the so-called "whistling arrow."
　　-Wrestling. Two combatants dressed in robes secured with broad belts grasp each other about the waist, each see-king to throw the other to the ground. The feet may not be used, only the hands and the strength of the upper body.
　　-Two-Man Tng-of-War. In this version of tug-of-war two ends of a rope are tied together to form a great loop. Each of the two competitors harnesses himself to the rope, passing it between his legs and up over his shoulder, then, facing in opposite directions, the two struggle forward on their hands and knees, each trying to pull his adversary over a centre line.
　　-Yak Race. Yak races are a special favorite of the Ti-betans. Every year during the eighth month comes the On-gkor (Bumper Harvest) Festival. The people dress in their best finery and sing and dance to celebrate the harvest. And, not incidentally, they match their skills in yak racing. The yaks' massive heads are adorned with red flowers, their backs caparisoned with ornamented saddles. The yak jockeys' whiphands fly as they urge their mounts still faster t6wards the finish line.
　　Climbing and Exploration. Beginning in the 1 980s, the regional mountaineering teams scaled Qowoyag, Noi-jinkargsang and Namjabarwa mountains. Ethnic Tibetan members of the Chinese National Mountaineering Team con-quered 13 peaks, more than 110 climbers reaching the very summit, more than 90 climbers ascending above 8,000 met-ers on more than 140 occasions and more than 200 climbers exceeding 7,600 meters. During the course of these climbs more than 40 master mountaineers emerged, including 10 State-level masters. The Chinese national team, the Tibetan regional team and a Japanese mountaineering team joined together to scale the mighty peaks of Naimona'nyi, Zhangzi and Lhabu Gyikang.
　　In May 1988, a 12-man team composed of Chinese, Ja-panese and Nepalese mountaineers and journalists scaled Mount Qomolangmo from the south or north slope, traver-sing the world's highest peak for the first time in history.
　　Sports Facilities. Today there are more than 1,000 spor-ts facilities of various types in Tibet. The modern multiple-purpose gymnasium in Lhasa's northern suburbs can hold 4,000 spectators for basketball, volleyball, table-tennis, bad-minton, gymnastics, wushu martial arts, weightlifiing and wrestling.