The Sports Atlas Trivia Quiz

Answer: Canada

The National Sports Act of 1994 designated ice hockey as Canada's winter sport and lacrosse as the national summer sport. Both sports have their roots in games that have been played for centuries. A form of ice hockey was played in The Netherlands as long ago as the 16th century. The game was brought to North America by European settlers and played wherever there was ice on which to have a game. A newspaper in colonial Williamsburg carried a story about a game of hockey played in a snow storm in Virginia.

The first game to use a puck rather than a ball was played on frozen Kingston Harbour in Ontario in 1860, and the majority of the players were Crimean War veterans. Where hockey got its name is not really known. Some etymologists suspect that it derives from hoquet, the French word for a shepherd's crook, because the stick was curved. Others believe it may have come from the Dutch hok, meaning shack or small shed, which was also the term used for goal in The Netherlands.

Lacrosse had its origins among the native North American peoples of eastern Canada and the U.S., where it went by different names - the Onondaga people called it dehuntshigwa'es ("men hit a rounded object") and the eastern Cherokee called it da-nah-wah'uwsdi ("little war"). The Mohawk called it tewaarathon ("little brother of war") and the Ojibway called it baaga'adowe ("bump hips"). Obviously, it was a pretty violent game, regardless of who was playing it! Rules were minimal. It seems that the first object was to injure as many players as possible on the opposing side prior to moving towards the goal. Early balls were made of deerskin, clay, stone, wood, and even the heads of defeated enemies! Lacrosse, by whatever name the aboriginal peoples called it, was more than just a game - it was also a spiritual and religious exercise, and all tribes believed that the game had been invented by the Creator for the Creator's pleasure. It was the French habitants of Quebec who dubbed it lacrosse, owing to the similarity in shape of the stick to that of the bishop's crozier.

Answer: Cambodia

Kickboxing, or Khmer martial art, is the number one sport in Cambodia. It is an ancient martial art, developed in Cambodia and has a history of centuries. During the regime of the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia Khmer martial art was suppressed, but it has gained a resurgence in the country over the past 30 years. Singapore's most popular sport is football, as is Myanmar's and Indonesia's.

Answer: Rugby Union

While football is popular in Wales, it is the sport of rugby union that enjoys the most fervent support of fans. Cricket is less popular, and rock-climbing is not so much a sport as a way of getting about - take it from one who spent her childhood years scrambling over rocky mid-Wales! Cricket is played in Wales, although, since cricket requires a flat playing field, it must be hard to find a pitch big enough, since Wales is mostly uphill both ways.

Answer: Table tennis

The Chinese are renowned for their expertise at table tennis. Basketball and football are also very popular, and many Chinese practice the martial art of kung fu. In recent years, China has increased its proficiency in the world of ice skating and swimming, and is a serious contender in both these sports at the Olympic level. Hong Kong, which was ceded back to China by the British in 1997, claims dragon boat racing as its sport, and it is a sport which is also becoming popular in North America. Mahjong is not a sport, but a game played with tiles and it is not so much a game as an obsession with its adherents.

Answer: Field hockey

While Pakistanis often excel at cricket, which is the most widely-played sport in the country, the designated national sport is field hockey - at which Pakistanis also excel. Polo, a game that originated in what is now Iran and spread through Asia via conquest primarily, is also a popular sport.

Answer: Uzbekistan

Kurash is a form of upright jacket wrestling, and has been practiced in Uzbekistan for 3,500 years. It is one of the most ancient of the martial arts. Kurash means 'grappling' or 'wrestling' in Uzbekistani. For centuries kurash was a form of public entertainment at major social events like weddings and holiday events.

Indeed, kurash is so intertwined with the culture of Uzbekistan that the grave site of one of the paramount exponents of the art of the 12th century, Pahlavan Mahmud, is a site of pilgrimage to this day.

In the 14th century, Timur, the great Turco-Mongolian leader and founder of the Timurid Empire, used kurash to train his soldiers and to improve their physical and mental powers.

Answer: Lithuania

Basketball is considered the national sport in all three of the Baltic republics - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. As in most countries, football runs a close second in popularity. In 1996, at the Atlanta Olympics, Lithuania won the bronze medal in basketball.

Answer: Cricket

While cricket is the national sport of England, football is by far the most popular sport. Cricket has its origins in Saxon or early Norman days in the Weald, that part of southeastern England that encompasses parts of Kent and Sussex. It was a children's game for centuries before adults took it up (the first recorded reference to adults playing cricket dates back to 1611 when two Sussex men were fined for playing cricket on a Sunday instead of going to church! One wonders why the rest of the players got off scot free?)

With the spread of the British Empire, cricket was exported to the (then) pink parts of the world map, and the first recorded international game took place between England and Canada in 1844. For many years, England and Australia have played a series of Test Matches for the Ashes (so-called based on a satirical obituary published in 'The Sporting Times' after the English team was defeated at its own game for the first time in 1882 by a team from Australia. The obituary lamented the death of English cricket, which would be cremated and its ashes buried in Australia). Cricket is immensely popular in Australia, New Zealand, India, Pakistan, South Africa and the West Indies.

Answer: Russia

Sambo is a modern martial arts discipline, developed in the former Soviet Union. It was officially recognized as a sport in 1938. It derives its name from the Russian phrase meaning 'self-defence without a weapon' - SAMozashchita Bez Oruzhiya. Sambo had its start when the founders of the sport sought a means by which the Red Army's abilities in hand-to-hand combat could be improved and augmented. One of the founders, Vasili Oschepkov, had earned his nidan (second degree black belt) from the founder of judo, Jigoro Kano, and taught both judo and karate at the Central Red Army House.

He applied his Osensei's philosophy combined with indigenous Russian styles of combative wrestling to the early development of sambo. The new sport was incorporated into the training of every Soviet soldier. Sambo is now growing in popularity in other parts of the world.

Answer: Tuvalu

Tuvalu, formerly part of the Ellice and Gilbert Islands, is the second smallest (by population) country in the world. Comprised of four islands and five atolls (one of which is uninhabited) in the South Pacific, it became a British protectorate in 1892 and an independent constitutional monarchy under Queen Elizabeth II in 1978 when the Polynesian population separated from the rest of the Ellice and Gilbert Islands whose population was Micronesian.

The Micronesian-populated islands became a separate nation now called Kiribati. Perhaps it is the longstanding relationship with Britain which has prompted the Tuvaluans to designate darts as their national sport, replacing their traditional sport, kilikiti, a game similar to cricket.

The most popular sport in Fiji, Papua New Guinea and Tonga is English rugby.