Sport
The Tahitian national sport is Va'a. In English, this paddle sport is also known as outrigger canoe. The Tahitians consistently achieve record-breaking and top times as world champion in this sport.
Major sports in Tahiti include rugby union and soccer and the island has fielded a national basketball team, which is a member of FIBA Oceania. Another sport is surfing, with famous surfers such as Malik Joyeux.
Rugby union in Tahiti is governed by the Fédération Tahitienne de Rugby de Polynésie Française which was formed in 1989. The Tahiti national rugby union team has been active since 1971 but have only played 12 games since then.
Football in Tahiti is administered by the Fédération Tahitienne de Football and was founded in 1938. The Tahiti Division Fédérale is the top division on the island and the Tahiti Championnat Enterprise is the second tier. Some of the major clubs are AS Manu-Ura, who play in Stade Hamuta, AS Pirae, who play in the Stade Pater Te Hono Nui and AS Tefana, who play in the Stade Louis Ganivet. Lesser clubs include Matavai and Tubuia.
The Tahiti Cup is the islands' premier football knockout tournament and has been played for since 1938. The winner of the Tahiti Cup goes on to play the winner of the Tahiti Division Fédérale in the Tahiti Coupe des Champions.
Tahiti won the football 2012 OFC Nations Cup becoming the first team other than Australia and New Zealand to win the competition.
In 2010, Tahiti was chosen as the host of the 2013 FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup, to be held in the September.
In 2011, Tahiti was accepted into as a member of the Asia-Pacific Rugby League Federation. Tahiti join as new members along with India, Philippines, Tokelau and American Samoa in a meeting of the federation in Auckland over December 5–6. This is a sign of the growing popularity of Rugby League in the Pacific Islands.
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Famous quotes containing the word sport:
“For generations, a wide range of shooting in Northern Ireland has provided all sections of the population with a pastime which ... has occupied a great deal of leisure time. Unlike many other countries, the outstanding characteristic of the sport has been that it was not confined to any one class.”
—Northern Irish Tourist Board. quoted in New Statesman (London, Aug. 29, 1969)
“I wish glib and indiscriminate critics of industrialists had some conception of the problems that have to be met by factory management.... General condemnation of employers is a favorite indoor sport of the uninformed intelligentsia who assume the role of lance- bearers for labor.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.
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—George Orwell (1903–1950)