Fishing is the
biggest participant sports in the world.
Soccer is the most
attended or watched sport in the world.
Boxing became a
legal sport in 1901.
More than 100
million people hold hunting licences.
Jean Genevieve
Garnerin was the first female parachutists, jumping from a hot air balloon in
1799.
In 1975 Junko Tabei
from Japan became the first woman to reach the top of Everest.
The record for the
most Olympic medals ever won is held by Soviet gymnast Larissa Latynina.
Competing in three Olympics, between 1956 and 1964, she won 18 medals.
The record for the
most major league Bbaseball career innings is held by Cy Young, with 7,356
innings.
The first instance
of global electronic communications took place in 1871 when news of the Derby
winner was telegraphed from London to Calcutta in under 5 minutes.
In 1898, one of the
first programmes to be broadcasted on radio was a yacht race that took place in
British waters.
Sports command the
biggest television audiences, led by the summer Olympics, World Cup soccer and
Formula One racing.
Gymnasiums were
introduced in 900BC and Greek athletes practised in the nude to the
accompaniment of music. They also performed naked at the Olympic Games.
The very first
Olympic race, held in 776 BC, was won by Corubus, a chef.
The first modern
Olympic Games were held in Athens, Greece in 1896. There were 311 male but no
female competitors.
Michael Schumacher
is the highest paid sportsman, ahead of Tiger Woods and Arnold Palmer. (Not
including sponsorship endorsements.)
Martina Hingis is
the highest paid sportswomen.
The high jump
method of jumping head first and landing on the back is called the Fosbury Flop.
The Major League
Baseball teams use about 850,000 balls per season.
About 42,000 tennis
balls are used in the plus-minus 650 matches in the Wimbledon Championship.
A baseball ball has
exactly 108 stitches, a cricket ball has between 65 and 70 stiches.
A soccer ball is
made up of 32 leather panels, held together by 642 stitches.
Basketball and
rugby balls are made from synthetic material. Earlier, pigs' bladders were used
as rugby balls.
The baseball home
plate is 17 inches wide.
Golf the only sport
played on the moon - on 6 February 1971 Alan Shepard hit a golf ball.
Bill Klem served
the most seasons as major league umpire - 37 years, starting in 1905. He also
officated 18 World Series.
The oldest
continuous trophy in sports is the America's Cup. It started in 1851, with
Americans winning for a straight 132 years until Australia took the Cup in 1983.
Volleyball was
invented by William George Morgan of Holyoke, Massachusetts in 1895.
Ferenc Szisz from
Romania, driving a Renault, won the first Formula One Grand Prix held at Le
Mans, France in 1906