Sport in Germany

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Allianz Arena in Munich, venue for the 2006 FIFA World Cup opening game
Berlin Marathon

German culture
and their society. In 2006 about 28 million people were members of the more than 87.000
German Olympic Sports Federation
.

History

Friedrich Ludwig Jahn

Friedrich Ludwig Jahn known as Turnvater Jahn (father of gymnastics) was born in 1778 and worked as an assistant teacher in Berlin. At Berlin's Hasenheide Friedrich Ludwig Jahn opened the first German gymnastics field ('Turnplatz'), or open-air gymnasium, in spring 1811. His activities were particularly pointed at the youth, with whom he went to the gym field in free afternoons. The German gymnastics, understood by Jahn as a whole of the physical exercises.

Jahn developed well-known gymnastic equipment, invented also new apparatuses. Jahn invented the parallel bars, rings, high bar, the pommel horse and the vault horse. Particularly by his main writing "Die Deutsche Turnkunst" (1816) the apparatus gymnastics developed to an independent kind of sport, and so the gym activities were not only limited to simple physical exercises, which he quoted as following: "Going, running, jumping, throwing, carrying are free exercises, everywhere applicable, as free as fresh air."

Jahn´s

sports clubs.[1]

With the national gymnastics festivals in Coburg in 1860, in Berlin in 1861 and in Leipzig in 1863, the memory of Jahn's ideas returned into the people's consciousness. The inscription at the gable of his house "Frisch, Fromm, Fröhlich, Frei", translated as 'fresh, pious, cheerful, free", which originated in Jahn's time, became the basic idea of the German gymnastics movement.

In 1934, the Nazi government founded the

Nationalsozialistischer Reichsbund für Leibesübungen
, as the official sports governing body of the Third Reich. All other German sport associations gradually lost their freedom and were coopted into it. The organization was disbanded in 1945 by the American military government.

Olympics

Olympiastadion Berlin

In the

all-time Olympic Games medal count through 2006 Germany ranks fifth, East Germany seventh and West Germany
twenty-first. If all the medals are combined Germany ranks third. If only winter olympic medals count, from all German states (East, West, united team and united Germany), it is the nation with the most medals.

Germany has hosted the

Partenkirchen
.

Germany claimed the most, if not, gold medals and the most total medals during the 1992, 1998, 2002 and 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin. East Germany claimed the most gold medals at 1984 Winter Olympics.

Main sports

Association football

The Germany national team after winning the FIFA World Cup for the fourth time in 2014. The national sport of Germany is soccer.

Soccer is the most popular sport in Germany.[2]
With a total of 26,000 clubs and 178,000 teams the German soccer sport is financed by means of state funding and state contributions, voluntary service, private sponsors and membership fees.

Germany's top level soccer league, known as the Bundesliga, has the highest average attendances of any soccer league in the world; among all professional sports leagues, its average attendance is second only to American football's NFL. As of the 2019–20 season, the Bundesliga is placed third in UEFA rankings, which are based on the performance of clubs in the UEFA Champions League and the UEFA Europa League.[3]

Soccer in Germany is (like in most European countries) the number one attended and practiced sport. Besides the national league, the FIFA World Cup and UEFA European Championship have much attention among its population.

Bayern Munich (German: Bayern München) is the most successful German soccer club, with 30 national championships, 20 National Cups and 6 European Champions titles (three European Cups and three Champions Leagues) to its credit, as well as several other international titles. Like many other German soccer clubs, Bayern Munich is a multi-sport club.

Franz Beckenbauer's Jersey in 1977

The

Germany national soccer team is one of the traditional powers of international soccer. It won the FIFA World Cup in 1954, 1974, 1990 and 2014 and the UEFA European Championship in 1972 and 1980 as West Germany hosted the UEFA Euro 1988 and in 1996 as Germany. The country will also host the upcoming UEFA Euro 2024. They also won the FIFA Confederations Cup in 2017. Miroslav Klose is the leading goal scorer for the national team with 71 goals, but his fame is perhaps eclipsed by that of Franz Beckenbauer who is one of the few men in the world who have won the World Cup both as a coach and a player. Germany also hosted the World Cup in 1974 and 2006, finishing third in 2006 after losing a close semi-final contest to eventual cup winners Italy
.

The women's national team is also a world power, with its wins of the FIFA Women's World Cup in 2003 and 2007, making Germany the only nation to win both the men's and women's World Cup and European titles.[4]

Handball

Handball is one of the most popular team sports and historically evolved in Germany.

Germany together with

1936 Berlin Olympics
. The first international match recorded was played on 3 September 1925 between Germany and Austria.

Handball is widely regarded to be the second most popular team sport in Germany and when a study conducted by Repucom asked people which sport besides football they preferred a total of 33% voted handball, while basketball came in second with 25% of the votes, ice hockey got 24%, and volleyball got 11%. It is also the second-most played team sport in Germany with approximately 750,000 active registered players around the country as of 2016.

The German men's national team have won the IHF World Men's Handball Championship three times, the very first world cup in 1938, the West Germany team won it in 1978 and the united German team won it at home in 2007. They also have been crowned European champions twice first in 2004 and then in the 2016 rendition of the tournament. In the Olympic Games their efforts have resulted in one gold medal (1936), two silver medals (1984 and 2004) and one Bronze medal (2016).

The German

Füchse Berlin. Uwe Gensheimer
is a popular German handball player.

The sport attracts large television viewership; around 16 million TV viewers watched as Germany beat Poland in the 2007 World Cup as well as 13 million during the 2016 European Cup final. During the

Bjerringbro-Silkeborg
.

Ice hockey

Eisbären Berlin

Ice hockey is one of Germany's most popular sports, although considering its importance and spectator popularity in the nation it is ranked far behind football. There are many leagues but the top one is the 14 team

. The men's national team is currently ranked 8th in the world.

In 2010,

Veltins-Arena. Germany finished the tournament in fourth place, the nation's best finish since 1953. German goaltender Dennis Endras was named the tournament's top goaltender by the IIHF directors and the top goaltender and most valuable player by the media.[5]

Basketball

Dirk Nowitzki

Together with football, ice hockey and handball, basketball in Germany is among the most popular spectator sports.[citation needed]. The Basketball Bundesliga is the highest level league of professional club basketball in Germany.

One of the most popular non-football athletes to come out of Germany is

Finals MVP
doing so.

The

European Championship of 1993 at home in Germany, the silver medal in the 2005 European Championships, the bronze medal in the 2002 FIBA World Championship and the gold medal in the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup
.

Motorsport

F1
career.

Germany is one of the leading motorsports countries in the world. While countless race winning cars have come from Germany, only

Monza in 1961, giving the championship to his Ferrari teammate Phil Hill
.

Schumacher is tied with Lewis Hamilton for the most Formula One Drivers championships with 7. In 2003, Schumacher set a new record for driver's championships when he surpassed Juan Manuel Fangio's total of 5 championships, a record that had stood for 46 years since 1957. He was also the highest paid athlete in sports history, with an annual salary of some U.S. $70 million from the Ferrari team, and an estimated $25–30 million more coming from endorsements. In 2005, he became the world's first billionaire athlete, according to Eurobusiness magazine. He is regarded as one of the greatest drivers of all time; when he first retired at the end of the 2006 season, he held 7 championships and every significant F1 record. He returned to F1 in 2010, celebrated his completion of 20 years in F1 in August 2011, and retired for a second time at the end of the 2012 season.

Sebastian Vettel

In 2010, Vettel became the youngest driver ever to win the world championship, he also successfully defended the title in 2011, 2012 and 2013. Before winning his first F1 drivers' championship, Vettel had already been the youngest ever to drive at a Grand Prix meeting, earn F1 world championship points, start from pole position in an F1 race, and finish as runner-up for the drivers' championship.

In 2016, Nico Rosberg became the third German driver to win the Formula One World Championship.

The

marques of cars are allowed to compete in the series. Currently only Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz compete, but Opel and Alfa Romeo
have a history in the sport. The races are held mainly in Germany, but some races occur elsewhere in Europe. The races draw monster crowds and television ratings and many celebrities have attended race days.

Situated in Germany is the

24 Hours Nürburgring
endurance race, one of the biggest motorsports events in the world with over 200 participating teams and over 800 drivers, many of them touring car legends and veterans, among hundreds of thousands of live spectators camping along the race track.

In sports car racing, Stefan Bellof and Hans-Joachim Stuck won the World Sportscar Championship in 1984 and 1985, whilst more recently André Lotterer, Timo Bernhard and Marc Lieb won the World Endurance Championship in 2012, 2015 and 2016 respectively.

The

Guia Race in 1996, as well as the German, French and British Touring Car titles, before winning the Le Mans 24 Hours five times and the 12 Hours of Sebring
four times.

Winter sports

Magdalena Neuner, biathlete

Germany is one of the most successful winter sport nations. Its dominance in sledding disciplines can be attributed to it being the only country in the world to have four bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton tracks. These tracks are located in Altenberg, Königssee, Oberhof, and Winterberg.

Germany has long been dominant in the sport of

Winter Olympics than any other nation except Switzerland. However, if medal wins by East Germany and West Germany from 1949 through 1990 are combined, Germany's medal count is nearly double that of Switzerland. At the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, André Lange
piloted both the two-man and four-man sleds to gold, sweeping the men's bobsledding events.

In

. Since the 1964 Olympic Games Germany has won 87 of 153 medals. German athletes even won 38 of 51 Olympic gold medals (75%).

In

.

Biathlon has become one of the most popular winter sports in Germany in recent years,[6] and enjoys some of the highest TV ratings in Germany for any sport aside from association football.[7] Germany has won 59 Olympic medals in biathlon, more than any other nation, and is the joint most successful nation in terms of Olympic golds won, with Germany and Russia having won 20 golds each. Some of Germany's most successful biathletes include Frank-Peter Roetsch, Michael Greis, Sven Fischer, Ricco Groß and Frank Luck among the men and Uschi Disl, Andrea Henkel, Kati Wilhelm, Magdalena Neuner and Laura Dahlmeier among the women.

Katarina Witt in 1982

Tobias Angerer has enjoyed success in cross-country skiing, winning consecutive overall FIS Cross-Country World Cups in 2005/06 and 2006/07. Other notable cross-country skiers include Peter Schlickenrieder, Axel Teichmann and Jens Filbrich.

Along with biathlon, ski jumping is the most popular winter sport in Germany, with TV broadcasts regularly attracting five million viewers,[8] and the country has produced a number of top jumpers. Jens Weißflog is Germany's most successful ski jumper and was one of the top competitors in the world from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. Other notable athletes include Hans-Georg Aschenbach, Sven Hannawald, Martin Schmitt and Severin Freund. Two of the four rounds of the prestigious Four Hills Tournament are held on German hills, at Oberstdorf and Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

German athletes have been competitive in Nordic combined. Title-winning competitors include Georg Thoma, Ulrich Wehling, Hermann Weinbuch, Ronny Ackermann and Eric Frenzel.

Germany has enjoyed great success in alpine skiing, although the most successful German alpine skiers have tended to be female. One notable male alpine skier was Markus Wasmeier. Felix Neureuther is Germany's most successful male skier in terms of World Cup race wins with 13.[9] Rosi Mittermaier, Katja Seizinger and Maria Höfl-Riesch have won multiple world-level titles on the women's circuit.

In

short track speed skating has been harder to come by, however Tyson Heung did win the overall ISU Short Track Speed Skating World Cup in 2006/07
.

Germany has a heritage in

.

Germany has been a regular competitor in Olympic

Eisstockschiessen
or ice stock sport, is played in southern Germany.

While a minor sport in the country, Germany national bandy team has qualified for Division A of the 2017 Bandy World Championship. In terms of licensed athletes, bandy is the second biggest winter sport in the world.[10]

Tennis

Steffi Graf

The two most successful German tennis players of all time are Steffi Graf and Boris Becker.

Becker became the youngest champion in the history of the men's singles at Wimbledon, won six-time Grand Slam singles titles and an Olympic gold medal together with Michael Stich.

Graf won 22 Grand Slam singles titles, second among male and female players. In 1988, she became the first and only tennis player (male or female) to achieve the Calendar Year Golden Slam by winning all four Grand Slam singles titles and the Olympic gold medal in the same calendar year.

The

ATP Tour World Championships and Grand Slam Cup were played in Germany from 1990 to 1999. Meanwhile, the Women's German Open was a Tier I tournament from 1988 to 2008, and the Women's Stuttgart Open
is a WTA Tier II / Premier tournament since 1990.

Cycling

road sprinters since his breakthrough in the late 2000s, while fellow sprinters Marcel Kittel and John Degenkolb have also enjoyed major success from the early 2010s. In the three-year period from 2014 to 2016, Germany took more stage wins than any other nation in the Tour de France.[11] Germany also topped the medal table at the 2016 UCI Road World Championships.[12] In 2017 Germany hosted the start of the Tour de France for the fourth time, and for the first time since the race started in West Berlin in 1987, with the first two stages starting in Düsseldorf.[11]

American football

The history of American football in Germany began in 1977, when the Frankfurter Löwen were formed as the first club to play the game in Germany. The German Football League (GFL) is the elite league for American football in Germany and was formed in 1979 and is among the best leagues in Europe. Playing rules are based on those of the American NCAA. In 1999, the league switched its name from American-Football-Bundesliga to German Football League.[13] [14] European league of football was officially created in November 2020, and kicked off its inaugural season in June 2021.[15] The majority of teams in this league are based in Germany.

Bandy

Bandy was played in Germany in the early 20th century, but the players and audience then turned to football and ice hockey instead. The sport was reintroduced in the 21st century, with the German Bandy Federation being founded in 2013. A national championship has been played every winter since 2014/15.

Beach volleyball

Germany featured a men's national team in beach volleyball that competed at the 2018–2020 CEV Beach Volleyball Continental Cup.[16]

Chess

World Chess Champion
for 27 years.

Card games

Bavarian pattern, Type Munich
Unter of Acorns

Germany's national card game is Skat, played by an estimated 20 to 25 million Germans – more than play football – according to the German Skat Association.[17] David Parlett describes it as "a national institution".[18] Another leading game is Doppelkopf, the most popular traditional four-player game in the north and west of Germany which is regulated by the German Doppelkopf Association and has 69 affiliated clubs.[19] In Bavaria, the "supreme discipline" of Bavarian card games and the "mother of all trump games" is Schafkopf, played by an estimated 2½ million people in south Germany.[20] Apart from international games like

Mau Mau, possibly the ancestor of Crazy Eights
.

In addition to games played with the

Württemberg pattern
.

Boxing

Max Schmeling in 1938

Boxing is among the most watched TV sports in Germany with both male and female fights enjoying regular spots on national television. Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko are among the two most popular boxers in Germany. German television network RTL has listed the Klitschko brothers as their most important asset next to football.[21] In recent years Germany has become a hub for boxing, the Vegas of Europe, and many international fighters travel to fight out of the country.[5][22][23] Henry Maske is a successful recent German box champion.

heavyweight champion of the world between 1930 and 1932. His two fights with Joe Louis
in the late 1930s transcended boxing, and became worldwide social events because of their national associations. He was ranked 55 on Ring Magazine's list of 100 greatest punchers of all time.

Golf

Martin Kaymer at the BMW Open

As recently as

Mercedes-Benz Championship and the BMW International Open. However, since 2010, the only European Tour event in Germany has been the BMW International Open. The Players Championship was scrapped after 2007; the Mercedes-Benz Championship was not held in 2008, resumed in 2009, and dropped again in 2010. In 2015, the European Open
was revived as a German tournament.

The Solheim Cup, the women's counterpart to the Ryder Cup, was hosted by Germany in 2015.

Two-time

The Senior Open Championship in 2010, 2014, and 2017). Langer is also the only golfer to have won all five of the current senior majors. Martin Kaymer became the second German to win a major championship by winning the 2010 PGA Championship in Wisconsin
, and in 2011 rose to World No. 1. In 2014 he also won the U.S. Open Championship at Pinehurst No. 2, North Carolina.

Lacrosse

Lacrosse has been played in Germany since 1992, with roughly 5,000 players registered in the German Lacrosse Association (DLAXV - Deutscher Lacrosse-Verband e.V.). It is growing fast, with youth hotbeds being at the SC 1880 Frankfurt and the Berliner Hockey Club.

Germany has sent national teams to the Under-19 World Lacrosse Championships.[24]

Rugby union

The first German rugby team was formed at

European Nations Cup
.

Rugby league

European Shield
, winning the competition in 2006 and 2011.

Water sports

powerboating water aerobics and yachting are popular in Germany, especially with large annual events such as Kiel Week or Hanse Sail in Rostock
.

See also

References

  1. ^ https://www.ndr.de/geschichte/Aeltester-Sportverein-HT16-feiert-200-Jahre,jubilaeumht100.html
  2. ^ "German football: Tor! Tor! Tor!". The Economist. 2013-05-25. Retrieved 2013-10-07.
  3. ^ "Weiterleitung auf Korrekte Seite".
  4. ^ Germany set the record straight. FIFA. Retrieved 21 June 2015.
  5. ^ a b "Archived copy" (PDF). IIHF. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2018-01-31. Retrieved 2017-12-30.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  6. Csmonitor.com
    . Retrieved 24 March 2013.
  7. ^ Becker, Lars (28 November 2017). "Thanks to Laura Dahlmeier & Co: Biathlon World Cup Excites Millions – and Sponsors". Internationale Fachmesse für Sportartikel und Sportmode. Retrieved 22 January 2019.
  8. ^ Becker, Thomas (12 May 2018). "Michael Greis: "I'm As Ambitious As Ever"". Internationale Fachmesse für Sportartikel und Sportmode. Retrieved 21 January 2019.
  9. france24.com
    . 16 March 2019. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  10. ^ Bandy destined for the Olympic Winter Games!
  11. ^ a b "2017 Tour de France - Düsseldorf - New start for Germany". Tour de France. Retrieved 18 October 2016.
  12. ^ "Germany tops 2016 UCI Road World Championships medal table". cyclingnews.com. 16 October 2016. Retrieved 18 October 2016.
  13. ^ Geschichte (in German) AFVD website, accessed: 29 December 2010
  14. ^ "Pro football returns to Europe: European League of Football kicks off in 2021". AmericanFootballInternational.com. November 4, 2020. Retrieved November 4, 2020.
  15. ^ "Neues Hamburger Footballteam spielt im Stadion Hoheluft" (in German). Hamburger Abendblatt. 17 February 2021. Retrieved 17 February 2021.
  16. FIVB
    . 22 June 2021. Retrieved 7 August 2021.
  17. ^ Skat: Ein Lieblingsspiel der Deutschen at dw.com. Retrieved 19 November 2023.
  18. ^ Parlett (1990), p. 271.
  19. ^ Deutscher Doppelkopf-Verband e. V. at doko-verband.de. Retrieved 19 November 2023.
  20. ^ Bavarian Schafkopf at pagat.com. Retrieved 19 November 2023.
  21. ^ "Company - RTL".
  22. ^ Kulish, Nicholas (23 February 2008). "In Germany, Boxing Finds Appreciation and a Hub". The New York Times.
  23. ^ "The Heavyweights 2014 - Long Live the King — Boxing News". December 2013.
  24. ^ Record 23 lacrosse teams to play at Men's Under-21 World Championship Ali Iveson (Inside the Games), 30 May 2021. Accessed 9 June 2021.

Further reading

  • Carr, Gerald A. "The involvement of politics in the sporting relationships of East and West Germany, 1945-1972." Journal of Sport History 7.1 (1980): 40-51. online
  • Ebert, Anne‐Katrin. "Cycling towards the nation: the use of the bicycle in Germany and the Netherlands, 1880–1940." European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire 11.3 (2004): 347-364.
  • Frick, Bernd, and Joachim Prinz. "Crisis? What crisis? football in Germany." Journal of Sports Economics 7.1 (2006): 60-75.
  • Hanssen-Doose, Anke, et al. "Population-based trends in physical fitness of children and adolescents in Germany, 2003–2017." European Journal of Sport Science (2020): 1-11.
  • Koebel, Michel. "The organisation of sport and sports policies in Germany." in Sport, Welfare and Social Policy in the European Union (Routledge, 2020) pp. 75-85.
  • Krüger, Michael. "Historiography, Cultures of Remembrance and Tradition in German Sport." International Journal of the History of Sport (2014) 31#12 pp 1425-1443.
  • Large, David Clay. Nazi games: the Olympics of 1936 (WW Norton & Company, 2007).
  • McDougall, Alan. "Whose Game Is It Anyway?" Radical History Review (May 2016), Issue 125, p35-54; the history of East German football after 1950.
  • McDougall, Alan. The People's Game: Football, State and Society in East Germany (Cambridge University Press, 2014).
  • Meier, Henk Erik, and Cosima von Uechtriz. "The Key Role of Sport Policies for the Popularity of Women’s Sports: A Case Study on Women’s Soccer in Germany." Sociology of Sport Journal 37.4 (2020): 328-345.
  • Meier, Henk Erik, Borja García, and Mara Konjer. "Resisting the pressures of globalisation: the repeated failure of elite sport reforms in re-united Germany." German Politics (2020): 1-21.
  • Merkel, Udo. "Football fans and clubs in Germany: conflicts, crises and compromises." Soccer & Society 13.3 (2012): 359-376. online
  • Schiller, Kay, and Chris Young. The 1972 Munich Olympics and the making of modern Germany (Univ of California Press, 2010).
  • Schulz, Saskia Sarah, Klaus Lenz, and Karin Büttner-Janz. "Severe back pain in elite athletes: a cross-sectional study on 929 top athletes of Germany." European Spine Journal 25.4 (2016): 1204-1210.
  • Suckow, Christina. "Literature review on brand equity in professional team sport: a German perspective on ice hockey." International Journal of sport management and marketing 5.1-2 (2009): 211-225.

External links