Sport and Leisure
A traditional sport played in Tuvalu is kilikiti, which is similar to cricket. A popular sport specific to Tuvalu is ano, which is played with 2 round balls of 12 cm diameter.
Common sports such as football, volleyball and rugby union are also played in the country as recreational activities. Tuvalu has sports organisations for badminton, basketball, football, rugby union, tennis, table tennis, volleyball and weightlifting. A major sporting event is the "Independence Day Sports Festival" held annually on 1 October. The most important sports event within the country is arguably the Tuvalu Games, which are held yearly since 2008. In 2011 Nukufetau won the most medals.
Football in Tuvalu is played at club and national team level. The Tuvalu national football team trains at the Tuvalu Sports Ground in Funafuti and competes in the Pacific Games and South Pacific Games. The Tuvalu National Football Association is an associate member of the Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) and is seeking membership in FIFA. In 2011 the Dutchman Foppe de Haan was the manager and coach of the Tuvalu national football team. Under his control during the Pacific Games in 2011, Tuvalu finished in fourth position in Group A and gained more points than ever during an international tournament. A number of national records were broken, making the tournament a major success to Tuvaluans.
Tuvalu first participated in the Pacific Games in 1978 and in the Commonwealth Games in 1998, when a weightlifter attended the games held at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Two table tennis players attended the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England; Tuvalu entered competitors in shooting, table tennis and weightlifting at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia; and three athletes participated in the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India, entering the discus, shot put and weightlifting events. Tuvaluan athletes also participated in the men's and women's 100 meter sprints at the 2009 World Athletic Championships and 2011 World Athletic Championships. At the 2011 Pacific Games held in New Caledonia, Tuvaluan weightlifters won two silver medals and one bronze medal.
The Tuvalu Amateur Sport Association was recognised as the Tuvalu National Olympic Committee in July 2007. Tuvalu entered the Olympic Games for the first time at the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, China, with a weightlifter and two athletes in the men's and women's 100 meter sprints. A team with athletes in the same events represented Tuvalu at the 2012 Summer Olympics.
See also: Football in Tuvalu, Rugby union in Tuvalu, Tuvalu at the Commonwealth Games, Tuvalu at the 2008 Summer Olympics, and Tuvalu at the 2012 Summer OlympicsFamous quotes containing the words sport and, sport and/or leisure:
“Sport and death are the two great socializing factors in Ireland ...”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)
“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–?)
“... in the fierce competition of modern society the only class left in the country possessing leisure is that of women supported in easy circumstances by husband or father, and it is to this class we must look for the maintenance of cultivated and refined tastes, for that value and pursuit of knowledge and of art for their own sakes which can alone save society from degenerating into a huge machine for making money, and gratifying the love of sensual luxury.”
—Mrs. H. O. Ward (1824–1899)