48 Tajik athletes, including nine women, are participating in the 2021 Islamic Solidarity Games that are being held from August 9-18 in Konya, Turkey under the aegis of Islamic Solidarity Sports Federation (ISSF).
According to the National Olympic Committee (NOC) of Tajikistan, our athletes are participating in eight sports, including athletics, taekwondo (WTF), table tennis, karate judo, freestyle wrestling, Greco-Roman wrestling, and archery.
The 2021 Islamic Solidarity Games is 5th edition of the event. Formerly scheduled to take place from August 20-29, 2021, the event was postponed to be held from September 10-19, 2021 in July 2020 by the ISSF because the original dates were coinciding with the 2020 Summer Olympics, which were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In May 2021, the ISSF postponed the event to August 2022 citing the COVID-19 pandemic situation in the participating countries.
The Islamic Solidarity Games is a multinational, multi-sport event involving the elite athletes of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) who compete in a variety of sports. The Solidarity Games were initially created to strengthen Islamic camaraderie and reinforce the values of Islam, primarily to the youth. The Islamic Solidarity Sports Federation (ISSF) is responsible for the direction and control of the Islamic Solidarity Games. The ISSF strives to improve Islamic solidarity, promote Islamic identity in sports and help reduce discrimination toward Muslims.
The original idea for the Solidarity Games comes from Prince Faisal bin Fahd bin Abdulaziz, during the Third Islamic Summit in 1981. The first Solidarity Games were held in 2005 in Saudi Arabia. In 2005, the games were male-only with 7,000 athletes from fifty-four countries competing in thirteen different sports. Females are now allowed to participate in the games but compete on different days than men. Non-Muslim citizens in the member countries are also allowed to take part in the Games.
