National Sports of Countries

[Wumo 3,035]

Most Danes would say football is our national sport. It's the most played sport. Many, including myself, would probably say handball. It's said that handball was invented here in Denmark and many young people play this in the winter or if they don't want to play football. These are tier 1 sports in Denmark.

 

Gymnastics is widely exercised among children in Denmark. Children mostly learn skills and techniques from artistics gymnastics and combine it with music. It's not really rhythmic gymnastics, more like basic jumps from articstic gymnastics combined with music. 

 

Swimming also has a big tradition in Denmark. Many children learn to swim from an early age and some continue on a more competitive level. 

 

Badminton is the big racket sport in Denmark. Many great results from Danish badminton players has made thie sport popular. Tennis would probably be bigger if it wasn't for all the rain we get...

 

Denmark is a cycling nation, but few people is part of a club and pursue a professional career. 

 

We have also incorporated many of the traditional sports from the British Empire back in the late 1800's and some are still widely exercised, like sailing and rowing. Cricket has disappeared, but we still have a national team. 

 

A niche sport like speedway is relatively big in Denmark, but not on the same level as in Poland. 

 

For winter sports, curling is probably considered our national winter sport. Though, most danes prefer to ski during the winter, either alpine or cross-country, when they are on vacation in Norway, Sweden or the Alps. 

 

Some sports that are growing in Denmark are floorball, basketball, american football and ice hockey. The last three are due to more focus on NBA, NFL and NHL. 

 

 

Edited August 7, 2019 by wumo26

[Monzanator 5,112]

One Polish journalist once told a story he bought a sporting newspaper in Denmark and it was like 8 pages of handball before anything else. He thought it was a handball special magazine but no, it was all-purpose sporting magazine but handball took all the front pages

[Griff88 2,021]

47 minutes ago, Shravan Kumar said:

Field hockey in India.

 

At the time of Hockey being named as national sport India was utterly dominant. India had won 6 consecutive ?in Olympic from 1928-56.

 

The most popular sport in India in terms of viewership is Cricket.

 

Kabaddi is the most popular native sport.

Badminton is another popular native sport.

There are also many regional sports in every region whose popularity is restricted to that region only.

Does it also include ball badminton?

[Olympian1010 8,297]

Alright, we’ll this was a fun little discussion to wake up to this morning. Based off the comments I think we should create another list (National Sports As Nominated By Totallympians). So if you could only choose one sport as your countries national sport what would it be? Some words of advice, try to choose something mildly popular or something that would need cultural protection to survive, choose something with historical or cultural importance in your country, choose something that’s at least developed at the national level, choose something unique.

[heywoodu 16,460]

45 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

Alright, we’ll this was a fun little discussion to wake up to this morning. Based off the comments I think we should create another list (National Sports As Nominated By Totallympians). So if you could only choose one sport as your countries national sport what would it be? Some words of advice, try to choose something mildly popular or something that would need cultural protection to survive, choose something with historical or cultural importance in your country, choose something that’s at least developed at the national level, choose something unique.

Well in that case speed skating would be the best choice. 

[heywoodu 16,460]

1 hour ago, Monzanator said:

 

Cricket & badminton don't have a global following but they're popular in some of the most populous parts of the world (Southeast Asia) while being totally absent in Europe or the continental Americas hence their market numbers are skewed. I mean nobody really plays badminton in Europe other than Denmark and some one-offs like Carolina Marin

Yes.

[thiago_simoes 1,458]

43 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

So if you could only choose one sport as your countries national sport what would it be?

Football in Brazil is number one. A no brainer, actually.

 

Volleyball has become very popular in the last 30 years, to the point it's our second sport. No question about it either.

Our third most popular sport would be very hard to pick. Strong candidates for the third spot would be futsal, beach soccer, beach volleyball, judo, swimming, surfing, basketball, cycling, boxing, table tennis, skateboarding, handball or athletics. It might be incredible for some, but there is also a big number of girls who practice rhythmic gymnastics (some schools in big cities offer rhythmic gymnastics programs, but almost all of them are amateur at best), but of course it's not even in the top 10 (still, it's miles ahead of wrestling or weightlifting, two virtually unknown sports in Brazil).

Besides, we have capoeira (a mix or martial arts, dance and gymnastics created by African slaves) and footvolley (a mixture of football and volleyball played on the beach).

[hoversaBR 864]

I always have the doubt if Capoeira is really a sport. 

 

I should also cite Futevôlei (a mix of football and beach volleyball, of course, our two most popular sports would anyone have the idea of mixing them up)

[LDOG 2,477]

As stated in the first post Pato is the official national sport. It's like Polo but with players passing a big ball and trying to score by throwing it through a ring (think something like Quidditch from Harry Potter but with horses instead of magical broomsticks). 

 

However, this sport is not popular at all, I'd say 99% of the people in Argentina don't know it even exists.

 

Only football is really popular. Then a bunch of sports all with more or less equal following but insignificant compared to football. They vary in popularity according to current success. 

 

[Ustatsch 14]

For Switzerland Schwingen is always called the national sport by the media. It does get some coverage in newspapers and in the national television. Every three years there's the most important tournament to crown the "Schwingerkönig", who gets an alive bull as a price. The next one is just in a couple of weeks and 350'000 spectators are expected.