Sport in Latvia

Sports in Latvia include association football, ice hockey, basketball, athletics, rugby, tennis, cycling, and others. Association football is historically the most popular of the Latvian sports and is closely followed by hockey. Some of Latvia’s most notable athletes include hockey player Sandis Ozoliņš, football player Māris Verpakovskis, olympic javelin thrower Jānis Lūsis, two-time Olympic BMX champion Maris Strombergs, and basketball player Kristaps Porziņģis.

Association football was the most popular sport in Latvia during the first period of independence (1918–1940).

The Latvian national team participated in the final stage of the 2004 European Football Championship. The leading scorer for the Latvian national football team is Māris Verpakovskis. A sports marketing study conducted by international company Mediacom has concluded that football is Latvia’s most popular sport – a title it has now held for three consecutive years. The annual study takes into consideration 65 sports activities in Latvia, calculating their popularity by taking into account the amount of active and passive participants in each sport at both a social and competitive level, as well as tracking the amount of coverage each sport receives in the media and attendance at events.

Ice hockey is the most popular sport in Latvia. Its professional league is the Latvian Hockey Higher League, held since 1931. In Latvia there are also several amateur hockey leagues. Ice hockey has been played in Latvia since the 1920s. Latvia is a member of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), its national team has participated in several World Championships and the 1936 Winter Olympic Games. After Latvia was occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940, its membership in the IIHF was interrupted. Latvians had a significant role in establishing ice hockey in the Soviet Union. Latvia's Dinamo Rīga team was one of eleven teams which played in the first Soviet championship tournament in the winter of 1946/1947. The Latvian Harijs Mellups was the goaltender for the Soviet Union National team in its first international game in 1948.

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