Sport in Poland Alicja Kopf

Sport in Poland. In Poland there are lot of sport disciplines, both amateur and professional. The most popular ones are: soccer, volleyball, basketball, speedway, boxing and handball. Nordic walking is also popular as well as ski jumping and cross- country skiing, tennis and Formula 1 because of successes of Polish sportsmen.

Volleyball in Poland is a popular team sport discipline. The Men's national team is ranked 3rd and the Women's team is ranked 13th in the FIVB World Rankings. Both teams have a lot of successes in international competitions.

Table tennis, is a sport in which two or four players hit a lightweight ball back and forth using table tennis rackets. The game takes place on a hard table divided by a net. Except for the initial serve, players must allow a ball to be played towards them and bounced only once on their side of the table. Points are scored when a player fails to return the ball within the rules. Play is fast and demands quick reactions. Spinning the ball alters its trajectory and limits an opponent's options, giving the hitter a great advantage. When doing so the hitter has a good chance of scoring if the spin is successful.

Basketball is one of Polish most popular sports. In the 1960s, the national team belonged to the worlds elite as it won silver at the 1963 European Basketball Championship and bronze at the 1965 and 1967 event. At the 1967 FIBA World Championship, Poland was among the world's five elite basketball teams. At the 1964 and 1968 Summer Olympics, the Orły ("Eagles," as the team is often nicknamed) finished 6th. Since 2000, basketball in Poland has been home to several NBA players, including Marcin Gortat, Maciej Lampe and Cezary Trybański. The country hosted the 2009 European Basketball Championship.

Ski jumping is a sport in which skiers go down a take-off ramp, jump and attempt to land as far as possible down the hill below. In addition to the length of the jump, judges give points for style. The skis used for ski jumping are wide and long (260 to 275 centimetres (100 to 108 in)). Ski jumping is predominantly a winter sport, performed on snow, and is part of the Winter Olympic Games, but can also be performed in summer on artificial surfaces – porcelain or frost rail track on the inrun, plastic on the landing hill.

The Poland national ice hockey team is the national ice hockey team of Poland, and a member of the International Ice Hockey Federation. They are ranked 21st in the world in the IIHF World Rankings, but prior to the 1980s they were ranked as high as 6th internationally. They are one of only 8 countries never to have played below the Division I (former B Pool) level. The Polish Ice Hockey Federation is the governing body that oversees ice hockey in Poland. The Polish Hockey Superleague is the premier ice hockey league in Poland. Poland has managed to produce some NHL calibre talent including Mariusz Czerkawski with the New York Islanders, Peter Sidorkiewicz for both the Hartford Whalers and the Ottawa Senators, and Krzysztof Oliwa for the New Jersey Devils where he won a Stanley Cup in