Sports
The most played and popular sport in Yerevan is football. Yerevan has many football clubs with five in the 2012 season of the Armenian Premier League: FC Ararat Yerevan, FC Banants, FC Mika, FC Pyunik, Ulisses FC
Yerevan has five association football stadiums: Banants Stadium, Mika Stadium, Republican Stadium and Hrazdan Stadium, and Nairi Stadium, with Hrazdan being the largest one.
The largest indoor arena in the city and the whole country is the Karen Demirchyan Sports and Concerts Complex, mostly used for hockey matches, figure skating shows and concerts. Dinamo, Kilikia and Mika sport halls are home to basketball, volleyball, handball and footsal domestic and international matches.
Armenia has always excelled in chess with its players being very often among the highest ranked and decorated. The headquarters of the Armenian Chess Federation; the Yerevan Chess House, is located in the Kentron of Yerevan. The city is home to a large number of chess clubs. In 1996, despite a severe economic crisis, Yerevan hosted the 32nd Chess Olympiad. In 2006, the four members from Yerevan of the Armenian chess team won the 37th Chess Olympiad in Turin and repeated the feat at the 38th Chess Olympiad in Dresden. Armenian won the chess Olympiad for the 3rd time in 2012 in Istanbul. The Yerevan-born leader of the chess national team; Levon Aronian, is one of the top chess players in the world.
Yerevan Velodrome; one of the newest sport structures in the city, is an international-standard outdoor track cycling venue opened in 2011. The city is also home to an equestrian complex named after Hovik Hayrapetyan, Orange Tennis courts and Ararat Golf Club.
Read more about this topic: Yerevan
Famous quotes containing the word sports:
“Falling in love is the right adventure for those who dislike sports and travel.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“There be some sports are painful, and their labor
Delight in them sets off. Some kinds of baseness
Are nobly undergone, and most poor matters
Point to rich ends.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“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)