Sport
Geelong is home to the Geelong Football Club Australian Football League team, the second oldest AFL club and one of the oldest in the world. For many years it was the only VFL/AFL club to exist outside of the greater Melbourne metropolitan area. It continues to participate in the national competition, based at Kardinia Park stadium and Etihad Stadium in Melbourne, and also fields a reserves side in the Victorian Football League. The club won the 2007 grand final against Port Adelaide by 119 points, the biggest grand final winning margin in history and the first Geelong premiership victory for 44 years. The club also won the 2009 and 2011 AFL grand finals held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. There are also three independent football leagues running in the area, the Geelong Football League, the Geelong & District Football League, and the Bellarine Football League.
Geelong has a horse racing club, the Geelong Racing Club, which schedules around 22 race meetings a year including the Geelong Cup meeting in October. The Geelong Cup was first run in 1872, and is considered one of the most reliable guides to the result of the Melbourne Cup. It also has a picnic horse racing club, Geelong St Patricks Racing Club, which holds its one race meeting a year in February.
Geelong Harness Racing Club conducts regular meetings at its racetrack at Corio, and the Geelong Greyhound Racing Club holds regular meetings.
The Geelong Baseball Centre in Waurn Ponds is home of the Geelong Baycats. The Baycats are the only provincial team in Baseball Victoria's Division One competition and were the 2005/2006 State Champions. The Geelong Baseball Centre has hosted a number of National Championship, the 2002 Women's World Championships and was home to the Chiba Lotte Marines for spring training in 2005 and 2006.
The Arena stadium in North Geelong is the home of the Geelong Supercats basketball team, and was also used during the 2006 Commonwealth Games for basketball matches.
The Eastern Beach foreshore and nearby Eastern Gardens regularly host internationally televised triathlons, and annual sports car and racing car events such as the Geelong Speed Trials.
Corio Bay is also host to many sailing and yachting events. Geelong also has many golf courses, sporting and recreation ovals and playing fields, as well as facilities for water skiing, rowing, fishing, hiking, and greyhound and harness racing. Geelong Athletics holds athletic competitions during both the summer and winter months including high profile events such as Victorian and sometimes national and international track and field meets.
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Famous quotes containing the word sport:
“Rabelais, for instance, is intolerable; one chapter is better than a volume,—it may be sport to him, but it is death to us. A mere humorist, indeed, is a most unhappy man; and his readers are most unhappy also.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain,
Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain,
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting summer’s lingering blooms delayed,
Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
Seats of my youth, when every sport could please,
How often have I loitered o’er the green,
Where humble happiness endeared each scene.”
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730?–1774)
“How long, then, Catiline, while you abuse our patience? How long is this madness of yours to make sport of us?”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 B.C.)