Sports
The Suriname Olympic Committee is the national governing body for sports in Suriname. The SOC was established in 1959, and now has 17 members. That includes athletics, badminton, basketball, boxing, chess, cycling, judo, karate, shooting, soccer, swimming, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, triathlon, volleyball, and wrestling.
Other somewhat popular sports in Suriname are baseball, softball, beach soccer, beach volleyball, boating, bodybuilding & powerlifting, bridge, cricket, draughts, fishing, golf, horseback riding, snooker & billiards, squash, motorsports, and rallying with the annual Savannah rally of the Surinaamse Auto Rallye Klub (SARK).
One of the most popular sports in Suriname is football. Some of the greatest football players to represent the Netherlands, such as Fabian de Freitas, Frank Rijkaard, Ruud Gullit, Patrick Kluivert, Edgar Davids, Clarence Seedorf, Aron Winter, Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, Stanley Menzo, Henk Fräser, Ryan Babel, Ken Monkou, Edson Braafheid, Boy Waterman, Regi Blinker, Fabian Wilnis, and Eljero Elia are of Surinamese descent. Davids in particular has written his passionate pride in his Surinamese heritage and his love of attending football matches there. There are a number of local heroes in other sports as well, like Primraj Binda, best known as the athlete who dominated the local 10 km (6.2 mi) for nearly a decade, Steven Vismale and Letitia Vriesde. Another notable track athlete from Suriname was Tommy Asinga.
Swimmer Anthony Nesty is the only Olympic medalist for Suriname. He won gold in the 100 meter butterfly at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul and he won bronze in the same discipline at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. Originally from Trinidad and Tobago, he now lives in Gainesville, Florida, and is the coach of the University of Florida, mainly a coaching distance swimmers.
Multiple K-1 champion and legend, Ernesto Hoost, was born in Suriname. Rayen Simson, another legendary multiple world champion kickboxer, was also born in Suriname. Remy Bonjasky also a multiple K-1 champion is also from Surinamese descent. MMA and kickboxing champions Melvin Manhoef and Gilbert Yvel were born in Suriname or from Surinamese descent. Retired female kickboxer Ilonka Elmont, was also born in Suriname. Another notable up and comer kickboxer and K-1 fighter, Tyrone Spong, was born in Suriname. Ginty Vrede, a former Muay Thai Heavyweight Champion who died in 2008 (aged 22), was born in Suriname.
Read more about this topic: Culture Of Suriname
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)
“Even from their infancy we frame them to the sports of love: their instruction, behaviour, attire, grace, learning and all their words aimeth only at love, respects only affection. Their nurses and their keepers imprint no other thing in them.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)