Russia is a sports country, no matter who says it. They love sports here, they try to popularize (albeit slowly), they instill youth in it.
Offhand, any Russian will call football, hockey and basketball the most popular in the country, but this is not the whole list.
We made a rating of 10 the most popular sports in Russiaremembering at the same time the success of Russian athletes.
10. Chess
This logical game combines sport, art (chess compositions) and science, and most importantly its dignity - it is available. Chess does not require building halls and buying expensive equipment: a standard 64-cell board and the desire to learn are enough.
Our chess players are considered one of the strongest in the world, and even those who can’t play themselves know their names. Garry Kasparov, Mikhail Botvinnik, Boris Spassky, Anatoly Karpov, Vladimir Kramnik - each of them won more than one medal.
Interesting fact: The FIDE Chess Organization, which is part of the International Olympic Committee, is involved in tournaments, but chess has never been included in the program of the Olympic Games.
9. Tennis
Both large and table tennis in Russia are very popular.
The difference between the two is that tennis is more often watched on TV, while “little” is played more often. This is due to the fact that there are tables and rackets in many yards (since Soviet times), but fields and equipment for a large one are harder and more expensive to find.
Be that as it may, in both sports our country is represented by excellent athletes: Maria Sharapova, Marat Safin, Karen Khachanov, Daniil Medvedev and many others. It is solely thanks to them that Russia is known at Wimbledon and Roland Garros.
As for table tennis, here “ours” have more modest successes, although Polina Mikhailova, Alexander Shibaev, Kirill Skachkov and Yana Noskova are trying to compete with others at world championships.
8. Figure skating
We started skating back in the days of Peter I, who brought them from his trips to Europe and came up with to fix them on shoes.
This fun turned into a full-fledged sport in 1865, when the country's first public skating rink was opened on Sadovaya Street, where the first world championship was held in 1896.
Russian skaters occupied high places in competitions under the USSR, then they passed slightly in the zero (the consequences are severe for the country of the 90s), and now they are again returning to the elite.
Evgeni Plushenko, Ilya Kulik, Julia Lipnitskaya, Tatyana Navka - they are all from different disciplines, but you can be proud of each of the athletes. Lipnitskaya, for example, at the home Olympics in Sochi, became the first Russian woman to win gold, and even earlier she was able to become the youngest European champion in history.
7. Boxing
Classic boxing has much in common with fist fighting, which has been popular in Russia since ancient times. The first sports section appeared in our country at the end of the 19th century, and famous French and English champions were invited to study with youth.
After the October Revolution, the government began to promote the development of boxing, which led to a sharp increase in the number of athletes.
Since then, the development vector has not changed, because it is in the ring that Russian athletes show excellent results. Povetkin, Valuev, Kostya Tszyu, Denis Lebedev - these guys “dropped” the world champions, taking away their belts.
In the last 10-15 years, women's boxing has begun to gain popularity, which is receiving more and more attention in Russia.
6. Cross-country skiing
The first skiing championship was held here in 1910, and 11 years later women were allowed to participate in it. After a short break due to World War I, the tournament was resumed and is still being held.
Speaking about skiing, one cannot fail to mention biathlon, also very popular in Russia. 15 of our male athletes won Olympic medals, and the most titled is Alexei Chepikov, on whose account 6 medals (of which two gold). He won the first one as a member of the Soviet Union team in 1988, and the last he brought to Russia in 2006.
16 biathletes became the Olympic winners among women from Russia, most of all the award of Albina Akhatova - 5.
5. Athletics
Athletics is one of the most basic, oldest (history begins BC) and the most popular sports included in the program of the Olympic Games.
It includes walking, running, throwing shells and jumping. In Russia, athletics as a full-fledged sport appeared in 1888, and already in 1908 the country's first championship was held.
Immigrants from Russia have repeatedly become the best in major competitions: Elena Isinbayeva (gold of the World Championships and the Olympic Games in pole vaulting), Yuri Borzakovsky (runner, won the World Cup, European Championships and Olympic gold), Andrey Silnov (Olympic champion in high jumps) and many others.
Yuri Sedykh, for example, in 1986 set a hammer throw record (86.74 meters), which no one has beaten so far. It is noteworthy that Natalya Lisovskaya, the wife of Yuri, in 1987 set a record for the shot put (22.63 meters), which no one had taken. Thus, it turns out that this couple holds 2 of the 7 oldest athletics records.
4. Basketball
Modern Russian basketball mainly lives on memories of the glorious achievements of the Soviet era. The legendary match between the national teams of the USSR and the USA still excites the minds of fans, especially after the events of that confrontation formed the basis of the film “Upward Movement”.
Nevertheless, existing players from Russia are also popular, at least some: Andrey Kirilenko, Alexey Shvets, Sergey Karasev, Sergey Monya and others.
3. Volleyball
He appeared in Russia in the 20s of the last century, quickly gained popularity and became an integral part of the Soviet sports days. In 1992, after the collapse of the Union, the Russian Volleyball Federation was formed, and the women's and men's teams first entered the world stage.
Men managed to take the gold of the 1999 World Cup and World League 2002but women have better results. On their account 4 victories at the European Championship, victory at the World Cup 1997, as well as prizes at the World Cup.
Right now, our athletes are playing in the League of Nations, but the game is not going well: they finished the third week of the competition with terrible results - 8 defeats in 9 matches.
2. Hockey
Despite the fact that hockey is inferior to football in popularity, our hockey team is much stronger.
Talented players do not stay long in the domestic championship - they are quickly picked up by top clubs from abroad.
Alexander Ovechkin, Pavel Datsyuk, Eugene Malkin - these are just a few names, widely known throughout the world due to their amazing game in the NHL.
1. Football
Russian football is the quintessence of pain, pride and unjustified expectations. Apart from the last mundial, on which our footballers performed a small miracle, and knocked the Spaniards out of the tournament "in their native land", they decided to scold, but not enough.
Only a few manage to leave for the top championship and gain a foothold there: Andrei Arshavin and Pavel Pogrebnyak are bright Russian legionnaires of the past, and Denis Cheryshev and Artyom Dziuba, who should move to the Premier League this summer, should be singled out. We hope that our striker will succeed.