Teqball increases its multi-sports games presence

Teqball’s rise from obscure, infant sport to one of the fastest growing international sports in the world has occurred at a whiplash pace. Now, the sport is making its presence felt on the multi-sports games scene, where the sport is gradually becoming a fixture at events that often serve as waypoints on the road towards the Olympic Games.

Last week, Around the Rings highlighted the teqball community’s ambitions towards Olympic inclusion, and further growth of the sport during the Santa Monica, California leg of the USA Teqball Tour. While Olympic inclusion may still exist as a somewhat distant stretch goal for the burgeoning sport, the International Teqball Federation (FITEQ) continues work to grow the sport internationally.

Outside of the Olympic Games, there are many other prestigious and lesser known multi-sport competitions. These competitions often bring together nations in celebration of political ties, regional connections, linguistic relations, religious solidarity, or even individual professions.

In recent years, FITEQ has begun to forge relationships with the various bodies organizing these multi-sports competitions. Teqball has already featured as a demonstration sport at the first ever African Beach Games, and more recently at the first edition of the Junior Pan American Games in Cali, Colombia.

This recent string of multi-sports games appearances has been accompanied by a flurry of announcements regarding future inclusions of teqball at various multi-sport competitions. Last year the sport was included on the official sports program for the 2023 European Games by the European Olympic Committees (EOC).

Teqball co-founder Gábor Borsányi, FITEQ President and Chairman Viktor Huszár and FITEQ Vice President György Gattyán all marked the occasion as a “special day for the teqball family.”

It has also been included as a medal sport at the 2023 Asian Beach Games, and as a demonstration sport at the 2023 Asian Indoor and Martial Arts Games.

FITEQ recently revealed the addition of the sport as demonstration sport at the 2022 Mediterranean Games scheduled to be held in Oran, Algeria between late June and early July 2022.

As part of that announcement, FITEQ General Secretary Marius Vizer Jr. commented, “this is a great moment for our sport and we are delighted to feature in this historic event. Teqball has grown rapidly in the Mediterranean region in recent years and some of the world’s leading players are from countries that compete in the Mediterranean Games.”

He added, “we are confident that teqball’s dynamic and youth-focused approach will enable us to bring a new audience to the Games. Meanwhile, being part of this prestigious event will play an important role in our continued development of the sport in the region.”

The growth of teqball has been both highlighted and expanded by FITEQ’s recent push for inclusion in various multi-sports games. The degree to which the sport has grown in terms of participation and popularity has even shocked the founders of the sport.

Huszár admitted to Around the Rings, “we never imagined that this would happen to teqball. That once you will see on Santa Monica beach, and once you’ll be in the European Games, or maybe one day in the Olympics, but that’s something which probably is [a] typical dream becoming true.”

He concluded, “for us, it’s so unreal that we don’t even understand sometimes how is it really happening that the biggest superstars of the world are playing with teqball, but also the same time we are walking on the beaches of LA, or Israel, or wherever and then you just see people enjoying something [that] we created for ourselves in the garden.”