India is looking to bring medals into meditation. Yoga’s roots trace back thousands of years, and now its motherland wants to make it part of another ancient tradition: the Olympics. India is among the prospective hosts for the 2036 Summer Games. As part of its push to host its first Olympic s, the world’s most populous country has started turning yoga into a competition. The competitive version of yoga is called “yogasana,” where athletes hold extreme postures for long periods of time. Participants perform yoga during the 2nd Asian Yogasana Sports Championship at Indira Gandhi Stadium, near ITO, on April 26, 2025, in New Delhi, India. A participant performs during the second National Yogasana Sports Championship in Ahmedabad on March 31, 2022. India hosted the first ever World Yogasana Championship in June and dominated en route to 114 medals, 102 of which were gold. The event drew 522 athletes from 79 countries with 31 nations collecting at least one medal. Narendra Modi, the prime minister of India and longtime “yogi,” endorsed the sport ahead of the world championship, saying “Yogasana will secure its spot on the international stage, whether in the Olympics or other multi-sports events.” The Olympics have opened their doors to new sports at recent Games. The 2020 Tokyo Games were the first to feature skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing, the 2024 Paris Games introduced breaking and the 2026 Milan Cortina Games debuted ski mountaineering. The trend will continue in Los Angeles in two years, as flag football will appear on the Olympic program for the first time. 2028 Los Angeles Olympics May 20, 2025 NFL will allow players to compete in flag football at 2028 Los Angeles Olympics 2024 Paris Olympics Aug 6, 2024 These Olympians made history by medaling in new events in Paris 2024 Paris Olympics Sep 4, 2024 Raygun ‘sorry' for Olympic breaking backlash but defends viral Paris performance A sport needs at least 50 affiliated national federations from at least three continents to meet the International Olympic Committee’s criteria to become an Olympic sport. The IOC told NBC News that it is currently focused on the 2032 Brisbane Olympics. The 2032 Olympic program is expected to be finalized in 2026. A new proposed system would require an Olympics’ core program to be confirmed seven years in advance of those Games, putting yoga on the clock for 2029. “Fair play, sportsmanship, I feel like the values of sports equate pretty well to the values of yoga itself,” Sam Cruickshank, president of the Great Britain Yoga Sports Federation, told NBC News. While some want to bring yoga into the world’s biggest sporting event, other enthusiasts say it contradicts the true essence of the practice. “Competitive yoga doesn’t make sense,” Jeff Levy, who teaches at Ishta Yoga in New York City, told NBC News. “It’s sort of like stressful relaxation.” Ishta Yoga co-owner Mona Anand agreed and said at its core, yoga is not about comparison. “This is feeding that, that you have to be flexible and competitive. And you do not,” she said. ...read more read less