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The most prominent (developed) and most popular sports in your country

vatroslav_cro

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I can see that a lot of us, who visit this forum, are the fans of some sports. So I thought about how it would be to find out what sport disciplines are the most popular and most spread in your home countries? Which ones are your favourites to watch and follow? The strongest leagues? You can say also your favourite athletes (of course, male or female ones):D.

I am expecting your replies!:)
 

CPV4931

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Germany
Re: The most prominent (developed) and most popular sport(s) in your country

Most popular sport disciplines in Germany (in my opinion):
- Soccer (of course...)
- Formula 1 (because of Vettel/Schuhmacher)
- Boxing (The Klitschkos)
- Athletics
- Tennis (in former times Boris Becker, Steffi Graf and Michael Stich, now Phillip Kohlschreiber, Andrea Petkovic, Sabine Lisicki and Angelique Kerber)

and in Winter:
- Alpine Sking (Maria Riesch)
- Biathlon (f.e. Magdalena Neuner, even if she finnished her career)
- Ski Jumping (in former times Dieter Thoma, Sven Hannawald and Martin Schmitt, nowadays Richard Freitag and Severin Freund)

I like to watch Soccer, Darts (ok, the Germans aren´t very succesful there^^), Formula 1, Ski Jumping and several other sports.
 

Little

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Re: The most prominent (developed) and most popular sport(s) in your country

Obvoiousely, the most followed sport in Italy is soccer... I LOVE it, but for italians it looks it exists only it... -.-
Formula 1 is very followed too, and the discipline where play Valentino Rossi, Max Biaggi, etcc. (I don't know its name in english), also if I don't follow them, because they're boring for me.
Also volleyball and basketball are quite followed... and cyclism, too. Thanks to our players like Flavia Pennetta, Francesca Schiavone, Sara Errani and Roberta vinci also tennis has a good fan-base.

Anyway, i like all these sports, except formula1 and that of Rossi, biaggi, etc.

Oh, another very important thing... soccer is the most followed, but... male soccer. Female soccer is ignored, because all consider soccer a sport for men. IOTAP

I like to watch several other sports.
Me too.
 

as78

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Latvia
Re: The most prominent (developed) and most popular sport(s) in your country

The most popular sport in :lv: Latvia is ice hockey. Almost everyone is crazy about club "Dinamo Riga", which plays in KHL. But in May it is the national team at the IIHF World Championships.

Of course, there are other popular team sports - football (soccer) and basketball. Basketball's popularity has declined in recent years because of scandal in the national team a few years ago.

Due to the recent success at the World Cup and medals at the Olympics one of the top sports is the beach volleyball. It is also popular among the fans.
BMX cycling is also developed sport with two-time Olympic champion Māris Štrombergs. Also, certain athletics disciplines such as javelin throw.

A few years ago there was tennis boom because of Ernests Gulbis's success. It is still popular, but not so…

There are also quite popular winter sports - biathlon, bobsleigh, luge, skeleton. The last 3 are developed due to the artificial track in Sigulda. It is not surprising that in recent years Martins Dukurs (World champion and World Cup winner in skeleton) was recognized as the athlete of the year.
Unfortunately, the popularity of biathlon could be reduced, because after Ilmārs Bricis ended his career there are no more elite Latvian biathletes. The remaining are mediocre. :(

Personally, I mostly follow football (soccer) and winter sports. I cheer for our national soccer team, but not on any specific domestic club. I follow national team competitions, Eurocups, from the domestic leagues – mostly German Bundesliga and the Italian Serie A. Other Latvians more follow the English Premier League.
From foreign teams my main favorite is Borussia Dortmund. xcheer
I'm not a fan of HSV, but as Latvian striker Artjoms Rudņevs plays now there, and I follow it too.

But I think biathlon is the most favorite sport for me. If I'm not at home at World cup or the Championship event time, I always try to watch the recording.
I am sad for the career end of Helena Ekholm. She is my favorite biathlete. I also cheer for Darya Domracheva, Kaisa Mäkäräinen, Tora Berger... From male athletes - Andreas Birnbacher, Jakov Fak, Fourcade brothers, Carl Johan Bergman and many others...

I follow also many other sports. :D
 

QwaarJet

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Re: The most prominent (developed) and most popular sport(s) in your country

Football is the only sport that really matters in Scotland. Rugby has a strong following as well.

In terms of what I enjoy watching, I love Football, Snooker and Formula 1 more than any.
 

Milos-BC

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Serbia
Re: The most prominent (developed) and most popular sport(s) in your country

In :rs: many sports are popular (mainly team sports though). In fact, until recently we were called "a land of sports" :D As we had great successes in all popular sports.

Soccer is the most popular sport as well as tennis. Basketball used to be the most popular sport before, but now it is a bit less popular (although still in the top 3). Serbia used to be a "hyper-force" in basketball. We are also the most successful nation in the history of this sport. Most NBA players came from Serbia, we have the most golden medals, etc etc........but now we are not great like we used to be, and that is why the popularity of basketball fell.

Water polo is also quite popular and we are very succesful here as well. Handball is "so-so" and volleyball is also fairly popular.

The other sports are not that popular.





As for me personally, I adore soccer and basketball the most, although I follow tennis, water polo, handball and volleyball as well. I wanted to become a coach of basketball, as I was playing it very seriously for a good period of time, and I was training in one small local club, and my coach said that I have a great predispotion for a professional career. Then came the injury, and I stopped playing. My dream was to become a player of Partizan, and it never came true :(

Little said:
Oh, another very important thing... soccer is the most followed, but... male soccer. Female soccer is ignored, because all consider soccer a sport for men

This is very true, but I guess this is the case in all countries sadly.

I know many girls who follow soccer, and interestingly, many of them were playing it actively in...any form :D

I don't know if this is your case (that you have been playing it too), but it is always awesome to see girl fans of soccer! :)

Imo, no sport is restricted to a single gender.
 

aletem

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Canada
Re: The most prominent (developed) and most popular sport(s) in your country

I'll make a comparison between :mk: and :ca: :lol:

:mk:
- I would say handball is the most popular. Why? It is a pretty big sport over there and in both the men and the women category. It is the only sport where the women enjoy so much popularity. :lol: :D In case you didn't knew Kometal was the Champions League winner in 2002 (womens category) and has been twice more in the final (also has been quite many times in the 1/4-finals.. it used to be a common participant in the CL). The women were also 7th in the World Cup in Germany 1997, and have been many times in the top10. The men's handball is obviously popular as well. Macedonia was 5th on the last European Championship, couple of months ago actually. The hall in Skopje is always full for the national teams and believe me it is hard and almost impossible to win there. :mrgreen:
- Soccer is kinda equally popular (maybe more, but because handball is popular in both categories, it's fair to be ranked #1). Everyone cheers for somebody in Premier, Italian Calcio, Primera, Bundesliga, etc. The new people in the federation brought promises and hopes to the fans, so slowly but surely the national team is getting more attention. :)
- Basketball is also there in the popularity. Macedonia was recently 4th on the EURO championship, ahead of big countries such as Lithuania, Greece, Serbia, Italy, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Germany, Turkey, Israel. The club championship is followed intensely. :lol: Fights among fans spark sometimes outside the field (surprising for me, since this is basketball) and can happen once a year. :confused: Also, Macedonia hasn't lost an official home match in 10 years.
- Waterpolo is getting popular, as the national team has been in the European Championships recently and the biggest success was an 8th place I think
- Volleyball is sorta popular. Used to be more popular before (when there were teams participating in CEV cup and reaching even the 1/4-final)


- Tennis is popular in both Macedonia and Canada. In Macedonia people bet on it, have favourites (whether it is Djokovic, Nadal, Federer, Sharapova, Ivanovic, Cilic, Tsonga, Williams or Tipsarevic). Canadians have the Rogers Cup and now we have Milos Raonic who is in the top20 on the ATP list I believe???

:ca:
- Ice hockey is like a religion here! :lol: Canada is pretty superior in Ice hockey. There are couple of teams from Canada in the NHL. It is an expensive sport here to play, but regardless, so many talented players from Canada play for teams in NHL. One Canadian with Macedonian origin :eek: was the top scorer just last season in the NHL. Both the guys and the girls are very good at it this sport.
- American football is also being followed (NFL). Especially for the final game (there is always so much pizza, chicken wings, beer and more beer for that game :lol:), where many people gather to watch it on TV.
- Soccer is on the rise of being pretty popular. The women's team just earned a bronze on the Olympics (would have been gold, if the referees didn't help the States to win that game :twisted:). Also, the easy group that Canada has for the qualifiers for Brazil, makes people more into this sport. BMO field was pretty packed for the last home match that Canada won against Panama with 1:0. CL games are being broadcasted here and also qualification games as well. The interest is bigger than it was lets say 7-8 years ago.
- Baseball is also pretty popular here. The Blue jays are from Toronto.
- Curling is also popular.
- Event-vise, I would say the Olympics (both winter and summer). They are being followed and there was quite a coverage for it.
- Basketball is not that popular, even though the Raptors are still there (they exist :lol:). Canada used to be much better in this sport, but not much now, surprisingly.
 

Little

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Re: The most prominent (developed) and most popular sport(s) in your country

This is very true, but I guess this is the case in all countries sadly.

I know many girls who follow soccer, and interestingly, many of them were playing it actively in...any form

I don't know if this is your case (that you have been playing it too), but it is always awesome to see girl fans of soccer!

Imo, no sport is restricted to a single gender.

In the Usa, it's considered a sport for women. XD
What do you mean for "any form"? I don't play football, but I'd like to play it... but a woman that plays it isn't seen good and anyway I'd need other women for playing, but I don't find them... at school it happens that men always play football and women volleyball... also if I like volley, I'm awful in it! XD So, I play ping pong. XD

Btw, I like female soccer more than male soccer... the last one is more a business. ùù
 

Milos-BC

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Serbia
Re: The most prominent (developed) and most popular sport(s) in your country

I'll make a comparison between :mk: and :ca: :lol:

:mk:


- Basketball is also there in the popularity. Macedonia was recently 4th on the EURO championship, ahead of big countries such as Lithuania, Greece, Serbia, Italy, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Germany, Turkey, Israel. The club championship is followed intensely. :lol: Fights among fans spark sometimes outside the field (surprising for me, since this is basketball) and can happen once a year. :confused: Also, Macedonia hasn't lost an official home match in 10 years.

You now have one team in the regional basketball ABA League as well :D (MZT Skopje). If MZT Skopje gets a good ranking in this season, then it will open space for some of your other teams as well :D

There should be a league like this in soccer as well. With ex-yu teams competing between each other + anyone else who wants to join (last year it was Maccabi Tel Aviv who was brought by the ones responsible for the competition to break Partizan's domination in this league :lol: :p This year it is BC Solonok from :hu:). It is now one of the strongest leagues in Europe.

This season will be especially interesting. Cedevita is probably the biggest favorite to win the title, as they have the biggest budget (I mean they signed Mickael Gelabale from the :fr: national team.......enough said. And Boza Maljkovic is their coach) and they are creating a powerful roster. Partizan is also one of the biggest contenders for the title as the most successful club in the Balkans along with Panathenaikos and Olympiacos. Although, I have to note that Crvena Zvezda Beograd Diva (they are FMP basically, they don't exist anymore in this sport, as our legendary coach Dusko Vujosevic shut them down :p) also has quite a strong roster this year. Igor Rakorcevic returned to the club and they brought some quite good players like Braun, Almond, our ex-player Rasko Katic also moved there, etc......it will be a very interesting competition.

Local national competitions basically don't exist anymore for countries that have clubs participating in this league, as this is where one should look for qualification to the Euroleague group stage. Serbian Super League is now basically only revial. It can happen that Partizan will automatically be one of the finalists of the play off in the Serbian league and that the others will fight their way to battle with us for the top :lol: That is what our officials are considering currently, as Partizan is way above other :rs: teams in basketball, and it is almost impossible not to get into the finals the regular way :lol:


In the Usa, it's considered a sport for women. XD
What do you mean for "any form"? I don't play football, but I'd like to play it... but a woman that plays it isn't seen good and anyway I'd need other women for playing, but I don't find them... at school it happens that men always play football and women volleyball... also if I like volley, I'm awful in it! XD So, I play ping pong. XD

Btw, I like female soccer more than male soccer... the last one is more a business. ùù

By "any form" I meant playing it on both professional and recreational level. I know some females who are training soccer in several clubs, and they are quite good at it. I am sure you can find these in Milano for yourself as well. Of course, if you are interested :D

I also played ping-pong (table tennis) a lot when I was still in elementary but also in high-school :D I was quite good at it (my father was also a great table tennis player), but I was nowhere near as good as I was in basketball that I trained in a local club. Who knows what would've happened if I didn't get the injury that stopped me from training........as I said, I had a potential for a professional career, and my dream was to sign a contract with Partizan :( That never happened sadly, but life goes on....

Every sport is a business. There is more money in soccer (much more actually) than in any other sport so that is why soccer is a bigger business than any other, but all of them are businesses. One of the reasons why :rs: teams in soccer are not on the level of Italian ones, for example, is also because there is no law of privatization in our sport, and the owner of the two biggest clubs in :rs: (Partizan and Crvena Zvezda) is the state itself. As long as there is a system that lets "people from the shadow" pull off the money from the clubs into their pockets, we will never be teams that will compete for something high. A group stage of Europa League and the Champions League is a very big success for us, and everything above that is "bingo".
 

vatroslav_cro

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Re: The most prominent (developed) and most popular sport(s) in your country

OK now I will say something about :hr: :

Football, handball, water-polo are currently the most appreciated and followed sports here.
Football - I don't have to explain anything I suppose:) croatian team is ranked 9 th on FIFA ranking list in the world, tbh I don't think that FIFA list is the main criterion of how much is some team successful, there are more other elements....but if nothing else, football players are the most expensive players in Croatia....I mean, they earn the most (as everywhere, I suppose)....

Handball....we are very strong in handball in Europe and in the world. Some players were proclaimed as the best players in the world (Igor Vori, Ivano Balic etc.)....there is also a strong handball league in Croatia (male and female league). Female handball started to raise up recently, even a female team played in 1/4 final of the Olympic games in London, and it was a big success. Men's team reached the bronze medal.

Water-polo
....I think that it is the sport that has the biggest progress (golden olympic medal from London says everything:)). Ratko Rudic (selector) is a MASTER! Great man and a visionary:).



Here is also tennis (Marin Cilic, currently the 13 th best player in the world).

Athletics
is a special story. In the last few years it became very interesting and attractive, thanks to Blanka Vlasic (high jump, double world champion and a Diamond league winner). Unfortunately, she had some infection in January so she was forced to miss this year, but she declared that she will try to recover this winter so I hope we could watch her brilliant jumps next year:) Then, here is Sandra Perkovic (female discus throw, double european champion, Diamond league winner and a golden medallist from London). We are very proud of these two girls because they really turned croatian athletics to a very important sport event and now the stadiums are always full during the meetings.

In winter sports we also have something to say:)....first of all, I think about Ivica Kostelic, alpine skier, who reached many great medals from the world cups and Olympic games (2002, 2006, 2010). He is older brother of Janica Kostelic, who isn't active since 2007. Then, here is Natko Zrncic Dim. Female team is not so strong anymore, unfortunately.
 

CPV4931

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Re: The most prominent (developed) and most popular sport(s) in your country

Klitschkos? :?

Wladimir + Vitali Klitschko are very popular in Germany - their fights are watched by 10-20 millions of people
 

nofuxCZ

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Czech Republic / Biflovatia
Re: The most prominent (developed) and most popular sport(s) in your country

:cz:
Here it's similar to the other European countries.
The two leading sports are of course Football and Ice hockey. We've seen a better days of Czech football and it doesn't look it's going to change unfortunately. Football is quite under-funded here (not to mention all those corruption scandals) and it shows in our performance.
Ice hockey is a different story, our national team is one of the best in the world. We won 12 medals at the world championships in the last 18 years (6 of them were gold - that makes us the most winning team in the last 20 years :p), we also won 1 olympic gold and bronze. I always look forward to the world championships, it's the best time of the year here. The atmosphere is awesome, people of all ages storm the pubs, bars, cafés, restaurants and the streets, watching the games, cheering loud, drinking beer. Ah, it's awesome :D

Other popular sports:
Floorball - such a shame this sport is popular only here and in the nordic countries.
Tennis - Petra Kvitová (ranked 5th), Tomáš Berdych (6th), Lucie Hradecká (5th in doubles), Andrea Hlaváčková (6th in doubles), Radek Štěpánek (9th in doubles) etc etc :D
Basketball and Voleyball are also popular.
And winter sports are very popular as well - almost everybody goes skiing in the winter ;)
We also have some success in athletics (Javelin throw especially - Barbora Špotáková, Vítězslav Veselý) and water sports (Canoeing, rowing).

Statistics - the biggest sports here by the number of registered active players/athletes:
Football 512 000
Floorball 59 000
Tennis 58 000
Ice Hockey 55 000
Golf 50 000
Voleyball 49 000
Skiing 37 000
Basketball 31 000
 
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