International Day of Sport for Development and Peace today. As you explore sport around the world, one of our favourite pub quiz questions is “What is the SECOND biggest sport in a country?” That’s because, working in the sports industry as I have been, you quickly learn that there is one major sport in the world that has lots of completely different styles, but only one name – “Football”. Soccer, American Football (NFL), Aussie Rules. Completely different games, but one shared name and all dominant in their countries. So number two is intriguing as well as diverse.
- Formula 1 – 17 countries (eg. Germany, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Japan, Singapore)
- Basketball – 11 countries (eg. Greece, Turkey, Argentina, China, USA)
- Ice Hockey – 8 countries (eg. Sweden, Hungary, Russia, Slovakia)
- Rugby – 4 countries (eg. UK, France, Ireland, South Africa)
What is particularly intriguing are the second biggest sports that are relatively unique to that country. A few of my favourite examples…
- New Zealand – Netball
- Thailand – Kick Boxing
- Mexico – Boxing
- Iran – Table Tennis
- Egypt – Squash
- Pakistan – Field Hockey
- Denmark – Handball
All that said, Football isn’t top of the heap absolutely everywhere. Here are a sample of countries where a sport other than Football is number one…
- Canada – Ice Hockey
- Croatia – Tennis
- Cuba – Baseball
- India – Cricket
- Latvia – Basketball
- New Zealand – Rugby
- Pakistan – Cricket
- Taiwan – Basketball
The Maldives is no different with Football being the most popular. And it’s #2 sport, at least among the resort workers, the #2 sport is Volleyball (same as Brazil). And in the Maldives, there are all types of volleyball. Most resort staff field serious teams that play other resorts with regularity on some quite sophisticated courts. Maldivians play court volleyball, beach volleyball…and of course water volleyball. And the resort where it is most prevalent is Club Med Kani. Kani’s main pool seems to always have some sort of major group activity going on and volleyball is one of the popular ones.
Ace service!
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