Sports and Games

A standard football pitch is roughly 100 to 110 metres long, though the exact size varies by competition.

The modern Olympic Games began in 1896 and were revived from ancient Greek sporting festivals.

Basketball was invented in 1891 using a soccer ball and two peach baskets.

A basketball court measures about 28 metres by 15 metres at the professional level.

Golf balls have dimples because a rough surface helps the ball travel farther through air.

Tennis scoring uses the odd sequence of love, fifteen, thirty and forty rather than simple numbers.

A tennis ball is pressurised so that it bounces predictably on hard court surfaces.

Table tennis balls are made from a lightweight plastic and are roughly 40 millimetres across.

The Olympic flag shows five interlocking rings representing the five inhabited continents of the world.

Ancient Greek athletes trained and competed without clothing, and the word gymnasium reflects that custom.

Baseball allows three strikes per at-bat and four balls before a batter walks.

A baseball is stitched with 108 double stitches of red thread by hand.

Cricket matches can last five days and still finish without a winner being decided.

A cricket ball has a raised seam that bowlers use to make it swerve in flight.

Chess has six different piece types, and each one moves according to fixed rules.

The queen became the most powerful chess piece only during the late fifteenth century.

Castling is the only chess move that lets a player relocate two pieces in a single turn.

A chessboard has 64 squares arranged in eight rows and eight columns.

Playing cards come in four suits, and a standard deck holds 52 cards plus jokers.

The four suits in a deck are thought to reflect older suit systems from medieval Europe.

Jokers were added to decks for certain games and are often left unused.

Snooker is played on a much larger table than pool, with six pockets around the rails.

A marathon race covers 42.195 kilometres, a distance standardised in the early twentieth century.

The marathon race takes its name from a legendary run by a Greek messenger after a battle.

Olympic gold medals are mostly silver, with only a thin layer of gold outside.

Stadium seating is often arranged in a bowl shape so that spectators face the action from all sides.

The ancient Olympic Games were held every four years for over a thousand years.

Ancient Olympic festivals included a sacred truce that paused wars so travellers could attend safely.

Volleyball nets stand at different heights for men's and women's competitions, set by rule books.

A volleyball team may touch the ball three times before it must cross the net.

Ice hockey pucks are frozen before games so that they slide more smoothly and bounce less.

An ice hockey rink is surrounded by boards designed to keep the puck in play.

Badminton uses a shuttlecock rather than a ball, which slows it down sharply in flight.

Rugby allows only backward passes, so players must kick ahead to move the ball forward.

Football goalkeepers may use their hands, but only inside their own penalty area.

Offside rules in football are among the most argued-over laws in the whole sport.

Boxing rounds last three minutes in professional bouts, separated by one-minute rest intervals.

Wrestling and boxing both appeared in the ancient Olympic programme in very different forms.

Board games like chess and checkers are played on grids where position matters more than luck.

Dice have been used for games for thousands of years and were once made from animal bones.

A standard six-sided die has opposite faces that always add up to seven.

Dominoes are tiles with two numbered halves used for matching games across many cultures.

Bowling pins are arranged in a triangle, and knocking down all ten earns a strike.

An archery target has ten scoring rings, with the innermost ring worth the most points.

Fencing weapons come in three types, each with its own target area and scoring rules.

Weightlifting competitions use two lifts, the snatch and the clean and jerk.

Swimming races are held in pools measured in metres, with lanes separated by floating lane ropes.

Track races are run anticlockwise, a tradition that comes from early athletic meetings.

A stadium running track is usually 400 metres long when measured in the inside lane.

Curling players sweep the ice in front of a moving stone to make it travel farther and straighter.

Olympic host cities are chosen years in advance by a vote of committee members.

The Olympic torch is lit at a ceremony in Greece before travelling to the host city.