Russian sports

The most popular sport in Russia is Association Football (soccer). According to Yandex search analysis results rating of the most popular sports among Russians: "Football topped the list of the most popular sports in Russia" with 5 to 10 million requests. Ice hockey came in second with handball, basketball, boxing, auto racing, volleyball, athletics, tennis and chess rounding out the top ten rankings. Other popular sports include bandy, biathlon, figure skating, weightlifting, gymnastics, wrestling, martial arts, rugby union, and skiing.

Soviet and later Russian athletes never went below third place in the world (never below second until the most recent Olympics), in number and gold medals collected at the Summer Olympics, since the Olympic Games in Helsinki in 1952 and continuing today.

Football (also known as soccer) is the number one sport in the country. A high proportion of men are interested in it to a certain extent (and many children play it regularly) and women also join men when it comes to the national team. The Russian league has a fairly high degree of competitiveness. Many notable talented foreign players have been and are playing in the Russian league as well as local talented players worthy of a spot in the starting eleven of the best clubs.

Russia was awarded the FIFA World Cup 2018 on December 2, 2010. Russia will host the tournament for the first time.

Beach soccer is a popular sport in Russia since its International Growth in the late 1990s and with the establishment of the FIFA Beach Soccer World Cup by the national teams of the member associations of FIFA. Russia is amongst the most successful and dominant country of the sport, along with Brazil, Spain and Portugal.

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Wikipedia