Austrian Art - Sports

Sports

Main article: Sport in Austria

Common sports in Austria are football (soccer), skiing, and ice hockey. Since Austria straddles the Alps, it is a prime location for skiing. Austria is the leading nation in the Alpine Skiing World Cup (consistently winning the largest number of points of all countries) and also strong in many other winter sports such as ski jumping. Austria's national ice hockey team ranks 13th in the world.

Austria (particularly Vienna) also has an old tradition in football, even though, since World War II, the sport has more or less been in decline in the country. The Austrian Championship (originally only limited to Vienna, as there were no professional teams elsewhere), has been held since 1912. The Austrian Cup has been held since 1913. The Austria national football team has qualified for the FIFA World Cup seven times, but did not qualify for a European Championship, until the 2008 tournament when it qualified as co-hosts with Switzerland. The governing body for football in Austria is the Austrian Football Association.

The first official world chess champion, Wilhelm Steinitz was from the Austrian Empire.

Also, Vienna is well known for the Spanish Riding school, where skilled riders ride Lipizzaner horses in difficult poses and dances.

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Famous quotes containing the word sports:

    “I looked so much like a guy you couldn’t tell if I was a boy or a girl. I had no hair, I wore guys’ clothes, I walked like a guy ... [ellipsis in source] I didn’t do anything right except sports. I was a social dropout, but sports was a way I could be acceptable to other kids and to my family.”
    —Karen Logan (b. 1949)

    “Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,
    Thy sports are fled and all thy charms withdrawn;
    Amidst thy bowers the tyrant’s hand is seen,
    And desolation saddens all thy green;
    One only master grasps the whole domain,
    And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain;”
    —Oliver Goldsmith (1730?–1774)

    “Reading about ethics is about as likely to improve one’s behavior as reading about sports is to make one into an athlete.”
    —Mason Cooley (b. 1927)