Female archers are not only raising eyebrows— they’re raising hopes that all of Mongolia's Olympic style games will be open to women once again.
“It's believed that Genghis Khan used the games to cultivate able warriors when he founded the Mongol Empire in 1206. Many of the warriors in his army were women. In the late 13th century, Khutulun, a Mongolian princess warrior and great-great granddaughter of Khan, reigned as the undefeated wrestling champ of the kingdom.
"Khutulun was unusual, but not unique," historian Jack Weatherford writes in his essay The Wrestler Princess. "Mongol women rode horses as skillfully as men, often carried a bow and wore a quiver, and they repeatedly appeared in early reports as fighting alongside men."
In Mongolian culture, "as soon as there's a woman who is clever, who is a good leader, she is also a good archer," says Oyungerel Tsedevdamba, former Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism. The Mongolian queen Mandukhai, who is credited with reuniting warring factions of Mongols in the 15th century, is depicted in literature and legend as inseparable from her bow and arrow.”
