For a country with a population of only 21 million, Australia over the years has excelled on the sporting arena. The most popular sport in the country, by crowd attendance, is Australian Rules football (AFL). It’s not possible to explain how AFL works in words, so checkt this youtube clip for an idea:
Horse racing is another Australian passion. The spring carnival starting in September provides the richest prize money in the world for thoroughbred racing, culminating with the Melbourne Cup which is perhaps one of the best known racing events in the world a handicap event held over 3200 meters. For racing purists the Cox plate is the classic race of the year a weight for age race held at Mooney Valley in Melbourne.
Rugby league, tennis and golf are other favourite Australian pastimes. However, perhaps the most participated in sport is netball which has historically be dominated by women participation but mixed and mens netball competitions are also on the rise.
The summer sport that everyone follows is cricket. From the early 90s Australia dominated the world cricket scene being the number 1 ranked team in all forms of the game for 20 years before declining in recent times to the 5th ranked team. During this period, Australia won an unprecedented 3 world cups in a row as well as being the number 1 test nation.
Australia also has a proud history in golf with multiple major winners on the mens tour including Greg Normal, Geoff Ogilvy and Steve Elkington in recent times. Perhaps Australia’s best golf is Karrie Webb a world golf hall of fame representative and winner of 7 majors. Australia has excellent access to golf courses and golf driving range including indoor driving range located in CBDs. Australia has some of the best golf instructors. In fact Melbourne golf coaches in particular coaching some of the best known players on tour including Appleby, Allenby, Baddeley and Ogilvy.
Australia has a proud summer Olympic tradition too hosting 2 Olympic events in 1956 in Melbourne and in 2000 in Sydney. For a small country Australia has many Olympic gold medallists being particularly strong in the fields of swimming, rowing and cycling. In 2011 Cadel Evans won the Tour De France being the first Australian to do so after twice being a runner up.