Bhutan recently made its debut in the inaugural Kho Kho World Cup, held at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium in New Delhi, India. The tournament, which ran from 13th to 19th January 2025 featured 23 nations competing in both men’s and women’s categories, making it a fiercely contested event.
Bhutan secured its spot in the competition after a remarkable fifth place finish at the Fourth Asian Kho Kho Championship in 2023 which was held in Tamulpur, Assam, India.

Kho Kho, is played in a rectangular field with two poles at either end. Two teams compete among themselves where nine players from each team is active out of 12 players. One team acts as chasers sitting in a straight line facing in the opposite direction, while one player from the chasers run to tag the defending team(runners). The runners need to avoid being tagged by the chasers within the rectangular boundary. The team with the most tags wins.
Kho Kho was first introduced in Bhutan in 2019 with collaboration between Kho Kho Federation of India and Bhutan Olympic Committee. The founding members are Jigme Dorji, Dinesh Chettri, Panchaman, Pema Dorji, and Til Bdr Subba.
The founding members said, “We wanted to give our youth a platform to showcase their talent and to promote physical fitness, also to enhance the social cohesion and provide a platform for international sporting engagement.”
After 4 years, Bhutan marked its spot for the World Cup by securing the fifth place in Asian Kho Kho Championship in 2023 where most of the athletes were students.
During the World Cup, 30 Desuups (15 male and 15 female) represented the country. The team had been training continuously for over two months with guidance from the Head Coach Anup Chakraborty.
Both teams gave an incredible performance for first few matches. Kunzang Choden was nominated as the Best Player and Karma Lhamo was given the Best Attacker award after their victory against Germany.
The men’s team also displayed remarkable prowess. However, both teams fell short of reaching the quarterfinals, with the women’s team losing 112-6 to Bangladesh and 65-19 to Sri Lanka, while the men’s team faced defeats of 98-8 against Nepal and 71-34 against India.