Sports
The Austrian ice-hockey record-champion EC KAC is one of the best known sports clubs in Austria. The "Eishockey Club Klagenfurter Athletiksport Club" has won the Austrian Championship 29 times and its fans come from all over Carinthia. The Premier League Football club SK Austria Kärnten is based in Klagenfurt. Klagenfurt hosts the Start/Finish of the Austrian Ironman Contest, 3.8 km swim 180 km bike 42 km run, part of the WTC Ironman series, which culminates in the Hawaii World Championships.
The World (European) Rowing Championships were held on the Wörthersee in 1969.
One of the FIVB's Beach Volleyball Grand Slams takes place in Klagenfurt every July and is almost always one of Austria's biggest celebrations during the year. Beach volleyball is popular in Austria even though the country is landlocked. Austrian players Clemens Doppler, Florian Gosch and Alexander Horst, who are perennial European powerhouses take part every year. The 2009 champions of this tournament were the 2008 Beijing gold medal team from the USA, Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers.
Klagenfurt also hosted three games during the UEFA Euro 2008 Championships in the recently built Hypo-Arena. Klagenfurt was also a contender for the 2006 Winter Olympics and is home to an American Football team, the Carinthian Black Lions, competing in the First League of the Austrian Football League. The Black Lions attract fans from all over Carinthia, playing home games in both Klagenfurt and Villach.
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Famous quotes containing the word sports:
“...I didn’t come to this with any particular cachet. I was just a person who grew up in the United States. And when I looked around at the people who were sportscasters, I thought they were just people who grew up in the United States, too. So I thought, Why can’t a woman do it? I just assumed everyone else would think it was a swell idea.”
—Gayle Gardner, U.S. sports reporter. As quoted in Sports Illustrated, p. 85 (June 17, 1991)