Sport and youth policy

In 1992 the law “On Physical Culture and Sport” was adopted and a new edition of it was approved in 2015; in 2018 the state management of sport was reorganised. Since 2000 three-stage sports games have been held for universities (“Universiada”), colleges (“Barkamol avlod”) and schools (“Umid nihollari”). Uzbekistan’s National Olympic Committee was recognised by the International Olympic Committee in September 1993, and in 1996 the country’s athletes took part in the Atlanta Summer Olympics for the first time as an independent state. In 1998 the International Kurash Association was formed in Tashkent and Uzbek kurash began to spread as an international sport; at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics Uzbekistan won four gold medals, and at the 2024 Paris Olympics it recorded its best result so far, eight gold medals according to the IOC table. In football the national team won at the 1994 Asian Games, the under-23 team became Asian champion in 2018, and the men’s national team qualified for the World Cup for the first time, the 2026 tournament.