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Find out more about EU countries: their government and society, use of the euro, membership of border-free travel area.

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What are criteria to define a sport as “national ?

The national sport of a country tends to be one that is linked with the culture of that country. Most European countries have the national sport of football (soccer) and America's national sport is baseball. This is not the most played sport in that country, for example the most played sport in England is football, but cricket is actually our national sport.

A Country can have more than one, for example USA have baseball and American football.Some countries have official, legal national sports. Others simply have unofficial sports that people say are the national sport. For both groups, I would say the criteria are a combination of these factors:

The sport should have been invented in the country. Example: lacrosse in Canada.

The sport should be extremely popular. Example: kabaddi in Bangladesh.

If it's not popular, the sport should be "important" in some cultural way and therefore worthy of conservation, reenactment, and reverence. Example: Charreada in Mexico.

When possible, the sport should convey something meaningful about the country, ideally in a kick-ass way. Example: Varzesh-e Bastani in Iran.

For unofficial sports, current popularity would be a bigger factor than for official sports.
https://sports.stackexchange.com/questions/3686/what-are-criteria-to-define-a-sport-as-national-sport

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The European Games is an international multi-sport event in the Olympic tradition contested by athletes from European nations. The Games were envisioned and are to be governed by the European Olympic Committees (EOC), which announced their launch at its 41st General Assembly in Rome, on 8 December 2012.

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A photo gallery featuring pictures of all types of sports. Includes photographs of aerial sports, ball sports, equestrian sports, ice sports, indoor sports, outdoor sports, racquet sports, recreational sports, snow sports, spectator sports, and water sports.

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BASKETBALL

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Greece at the FIBA EuroBasket 2017 - FIBA.basketball

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The most popular sport in Italy is soccer. The national team of Italy has won the most prestigious World Cup four times in 1934, 1938, 1982 and 2006 respectively.

Italian football team is the current titleholder. The Italian national soccer team is popularly known by the name of Azzurri for their blue shirts. It is considered to be the second-most successful national football team in the world. Apart from this most of major Italian clubs get the opportunity to compete at a high level of soccer competitions.

Apart from soccer, water polo is another popular and one of the old Italy sport. The playground used for this game, is a rectangular swimming pool having 18mt breadth. The water should be deep enough. Every team contains 7 players. Among them 1 is goalkeeper, 3 players remain in the defensive position and there are 3 in forward. Players wear blue and black bonnets while the goalkeeper wears a red cap. This sport of water polo lasts for 28 minutes. The players of this sport should be physically strong. Along with it a skilled technical ability is needed.

Winter sports in Italy are also among the other most watched and enjoyed games. Italy is quite famous for its Winter Olympics. Skiing is probably one of the leisure interests of Italians. On Mount Etna Skiing is found. In 2006 Piemonte of Italy hosted the Winter Olympics.

The other recognized sports in Italy include Rugby, Cycling, Basketball, Running Auto racing etc. In recent times the team of rugby consists of 15 players. An oval shaped ball is used for this game. In Italy sports is also quite popular among disabled persons. The sports in Italy carry a great therapeutic value for the disabled Italians. Many physically challenged people are seen to be participating in the sports in Italy.

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Wrestling is our national sport

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Our national sport is football, because most people like it and watch it

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Cinzia Marino
The most popular sport in Italy

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Boxing is our national sport too

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Basketball
http://www.eurobasket.com/Lithuania/basketball.asp

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Greece at the FIBA EuroBasket 2017 - FIBA.basketball

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Football is our national sport. It is played everywhere and most people enjoy watching and playing it.

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Our national sport is football, ski jumping. volleyball