Sports
Football is the most popular sport in Mali. Mali's national team became more prominent, after hosting the 2002 African Cup of Nations. Most towns have regular games; the most popular national teams are Djoliba, Stad, and Real. Informal games are often played by youths, using a bundle of rags as a ball. The country has produced several notable players for the French team, including Salif Keita and Jean Tigana. Basketball is another major sport; the Mali women's national basketball team is the only African basketball team that competed at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Traditional wrestling (la lutte) is also somewhat common, though its popularity has declined in recent years. The game wari, a mancala variant, is a common pastime.
Read more about this topic: Culture Of Mali
Famous quotes containing the word sports:
“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)
“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)
“Come, my Celia, let us prove
While we may the sports of love;
Time will not be ours forever,
He at length our good will sever.”
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637)