Sports And Recreation In Greece
- Greece's national sport is football (soccer), and basketball has increased in popularity since the 1980s.
- The national basketball team won the European championship in 1987, and the national football team qualified for its first World Cup finals in 1994 and won the European Championship in 2004.
- Gymnastics is an ancient sport in Greece, as is athletics (track and field).
- Competitive running and jumping events date to 776 BCE, when the first Olympic Games were held, and Athens was host to the first modern Olympics in 1896.
- Over a century later, the Summer Games were again mounted in Athens, in 2004, refocusing attention on Greece's impact on the world of sport.
Since the 1980s, basketball has gained in popularity in Greece, and it is now widely considered their national sport.
The 1987 European Basketball Championship was won by the national basketball team, whereas the 1994 World Cup (football) was won by the national football team, who qualified for the first time for the World Cup Finals in the year 2004. Other popular hobbies include hiking, climbing, and skiing, as well as hunting, all of which are popular nationwide.
The sport of gymnastics has been around in Greece for thousands of years (track and field). Olympic Games have been around for as long as 776 BCE, when the first Olympic Games were held in Athens, and Athens will be the host city for the 2012 Olympics. Greece is once again spotlighted in the world of sports as the host of the 2004 Summer Games.
