Sports
The Afghanistan national football team has been competing in international football since 1941 and currently has a world ranking of 179. The national team plays its home games at the Ghazi Stadium in Kabul, while football in Afghanistan is governed by the Afghanistan Football Federation. The national team has never competed or qualified for the World Cup. The country also has a national team in the sport of futsal, a 5-a-side variation of football. Some of the other popular sports in Afghanistan include cricket, volleyball, basketball, taekwondo, boxing, wrestling, weightlifting, and bodybuilding.
Cricket, which is a newly introduced sport in Afghanistan fuelled by the success of the Afghan national cricket team is growing in popularity. It has risen from the lower levels of international cricket to qualifying for the 2010 Twenty20 World Cup. More recently the under-19 team has qualified for the 2012 ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup. The Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) is the official governing body of the sport and is headquartered in Kabul. The Ghazi Amanullah Khan International Cricket Stadium serves as the nation's main cricket stadium, followed by the Kabul National Cricket Stadium. Several other stadiums are under construction. Cricket is played between teams from different provinces, mostly by the Pashtuns on both sides of the Durand Line.
Buzkashi is a traditional sport, mainly among the northern Afghans. It is similar to polo, played by horsemen in two teams, each trying to grab and hold a goat carcass. Afghan Hounds (a type of running dog) originated in Afghanistan and was originally used in the sport of hunting.
Read more about this topic: Afghanistan, Culture
Other articles related to "sports, sport":
... Olympia is the home of the Oly Rollers, the local women's flat track roller derby league whose travel team (the Cosa Nostra Donnas) became the 2009 national champions of the Women's Flat Track Derby Association (WFTDA) by winning the national "Declaration of Derby" tournament in Philadelphia, PA on November 15, 2009 ... Olympia is also home to some of the Pacific Northwest's greatest running talents such as the Guerilla Running Racing Club. ...
... Rock Bridge High offers a variety of sports ... Fall sports include Cross Country, Football, Girls Golf, Boys Soccer, Softball, Boys Swimming/Diving, Girls Tennis, and Volleyball ... Winter sports include Basketball and Wrestling ...
... The aim of stand-up grappling varies according to the martial arts or combat sports in question ... In combat sports, stand-up grappling usually revolves around successful takedowns and throws ... In some sports such as glima, the fight is over once one of the opponents has fallen down ...
... Football is the most widely-followed sport in Bucharest, with the city having numerous club teams, some of them being known throughout Europe Steaua ... There are sport clubs for ice hockey, rugby union, basketball, handball, water polo and volleyball ... at the Polyvalent Hall, which is also used for other indoor sports such as volleyball and handball ...
... The University of Manchester operates sports clubs via the Athletics Union while student societies are operated by the Students' Union ... The sports societies vary widely in their level and scope ... Many more popular sports operate several university teams and departmental teams which compete in leagues against other teams within the university ...
Famous quotes containing the word sports:
“Even from their infancy we frame them to the sports of love: their instruction, behaviour, attire, grace, learning and all their words aimeth only at love, respects only affection. Their nurses and their keepers imprint no other thing in them.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)
“In the past, it seemed to make sense for a sportswriter on sabbatical from the playpen to attend the quadrennial hawgkilling when Presidential candidates are chosen, to observe and report upon politicians at play. After all, national conventions are games of a sort, and sports offers few spectacles richer in low comedy.”
—Walter Wellesley (Red)
“Short of a wholesale reform of college athletics—a complete breakdown of the whole system that is now focused on money and power—the women’s programs are just as doomed as the men’s are to move further and further away from the academic mission of their colleges.... We have to decide if that’s the kind of success for women’s sports that we want.”
—Christine H. B. Grant, U.S. university athletic director. As quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education, p. A42 (May 12, 1993)