Sport activities in Great Britain and the USA

The British have a reputation for being mad about sports. In fact they like watching sports more than playing them. The British are spectators and the most popular spectator sports are cricket and football.

Many of the world’s famous sports began in England, including cricket, football, lawn tennis and rugby.

Football is the most popular game. The game of football was first played in Britain, and later people in other countries began to play it. There are many amateur soccer players in Britain who play the game on Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Amateur clubs often play against professionals. Almost every school has its football team and every boy in Britain knows a lot about the game. Some of England's football teams are world famous, the most famous being Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool.

Another popular British sport is rugby. Horseracing, the sport of Kings is a very popular sport in the UK. Table tennis was invented in England in 1880 and is still very popular. In the nineteenth century, students at Oxford and Cambridge were huge fans of rowing and nowadays there are many rowing competitions.

In the UK boxing is popular, both amateur and professional. Swimming is also a popular pastime and enjoyed by people of all ages.

The UK is closely associated with motorsport. Many teams and drivers in Formula One are based in the UK, and the country has won more drivers' and constructors' titles than any other.

The modern game of tennis was originated in Birmingham, England in the 1860s and then spread around the world. The world's oldest tennis tournament, the Wimbledon championships, first occurred in 1877, and today the event takes place over two weeks in late June and early July.

If speaking about sport in the United States of America, we should mention first that two most popular participant sports in the world today are of American origin — basketball and volleyball. Today both basketball and volleyball are played everywhere by men and women of all ages. They are especially popular as school sports.

Hockey, baseball, football, and basketball are the “four major sports.” There are many other sports and sports activities in America which attract millions of active participants. Among them are golf, swimming, tennis, marathons (track and field), bowling, archery, skiing, skating, squash and badminton, rowing and sailing, weight-lifting, boxing and wrestling.

There are some national sport associations of sportsmen. For example, the National Basketball Association (NBA) contains 29 teams from major Canadian and US cities, the National Football League (NFL) consists of 33 professional teams located in major cities across the USA or the National Hockey League (NHL) which has 30 teams in major cities across the USA and Canada.

The United States hosted both Summer and Winter Olympic Games and has hosted more Games than any other country – eight times, four times each for the Summer and Winter Games:

Hunting and fishing are very popular in the U.S., especially in rural areas. Other popular outdoors activities in the country include hiking, mountain climbing, paintball and kayaking. In winter, many Americans go to mountainous areas for skiing and snowboarding. Cycling and road bicycle racing have increased in popularity.