Sports
Football (association football) is the most widely known sport. There are teams in every town or village, two of which are currently playing in La Liga, Spain's premier league: Valencia CF and Levante UD. There are many big teams elsewhere, such as Villareal CF, CD Alcoyano, Hércules CF, CD Castellón or Elche CF.
Professional Basketball is represented by one team, Valencia BC in the top league, the ACB. Also, Ros Casares Valencia is a female basketball team, which is the current champion of the Spanish Women's League and finalist of the Euroleague Women.
Motorcycle races are very popular, as the Circuit of Valencia race track and its hosted Valencian Community Grand Prix prove.
The autochthonous Valencian sport is the Valencian pilota, which features a professional Valencian Pilota Squad for international matches with related ball games all around the world. This sport has many variants, that may be played at the streets or at special courtfields like the trinquet.It may also be played by teams or on individual challenges. An amazing trait of this sport is that spectators may sit very close or even in the middle of the court. Even while the match is ongoing bookmakers take bets for reds or blues, since these are the colours players must wear, red being the colour of the strongest team or player. The Valencian pilota can be traced to the 15th century, but it was abandoned during modern times, this decadence is being fought back with TV broadcasts, new built colleges have courtfields and a new professional players firm, ValNet.
Another relevant game is the pigeon sport, with an autochthonous dove race being trained, the gavatxut valencià.
Petanca and its variant Calitx are traditional sports as well, especially in towns or among elders.
Regarding female professional sports, Valencian Handball rules the Spanish Honor division league with more than half of the teams, such as CE Handbol Marítim (Astroc Sagunto) and CBF Elda (Elda Prestigio).
Read more about this topic: Valencian Community
Famous quotes containing the word sports:
“I looked so much like a guy you couldn’t tell if I was a boy or a girl. I had no hair, I wore guys’ clothes, I walked like a guy ... [ellipsis in source] I didn’t do anything right except sports. I was a social dropout, but sports was a way I could be acceptable to other kids and to my family.”
—Karen Logan (b. 1949)
“In the past, it seemed to make sense for a sportswriter on sabbatical from the playpen to attend the quadrennial hawgkilling when Presidential candidates are chosen, to observe and report upon politicians at play. After all, national conventions are games of a sort, and sports offers few spectacles richer in low comedy.”
—Walter Wellesley (Red)
“It was so hard to pry this door open, and if I mess up I know the people behind me are going to have it that much harder. Because then there’s living proof. They can sit around and say, “See? It doesn’t work.” I don’t want to be their living proof.”
—Gayle Gardner, U.S. sports reporter. As quoted in Sports Illustrated, p. 87 (June 17, 1991)