The ranking is based on endurance, strength, power, speed, agility, flexibility, nerve, durability, hand eye co-ordination and analytic aptitude.
10. Cross Country
Cross country is a running sport in which teams and individuals run a race. The course of the race is typically 4–12 kilometres (2.5–7.5 mi) long. It may include surfaces of grass, and earth, pass through woodlandsand open country, and include hills, flat ground and sometimes gravel road.
Cross country is both an individual and a team sport. Cross country races traces its history to the 19th century and an English game called “hare and hounds” or “the paper chase”. Schools in England started competing in cross country races in 1837, followed by a national championship on December 7, 1867.
9. Baseball
A bat-and-ball game played between two teams of nine players each of whom take turns batting and fielding. Old French games such as thèque, la balle au bâton, and la balle empoisonnée also appear to be related to baseball. A book by David Block Baseball Before We Knew It: A Search for the Roots of the Game (2005), suggests that baseball originated in England.
Cricket, also a very popular sport is believed also to be descended from such games, though evidence uncovered in early 2009 suggests that cricket may have been imported to England from Flanders.
Baseball craze hit the New York metropolitan area in the mid 1850s. In the next five to six years, local journals started referring to baseball as the “national pastime” or “national game“.
8. Gymnastics
A tough sport involving the performance of exercises requiring physical strength, flexibility, power, coordination, grace, balance and control.
The word gymnastics derives from the common Greek adjective (gymnos) meaning “naked”, related to verb (gymnazo), whose meaning is “to train naked“, “train in gymnastic exercise”, or generally “to train, to exercise”.
Girolamo Mercuriale (Italian philogist and physician) wrote Le Arte Gymnastica in 1569. He brought together his study of the attitudes of the ancients toward diet, exercise and hygiene. He also studied the use of natural methods for the cure of disease.
Men’s events in Gymnastics are floor exercise, pommel horse, still rings, vault, parallel bars and the high bar. Artisic events for women in Gymnastics include vault, uneven bars, balance beam, floor.
7. Tennis
Tennis is a racquet sport. It can be played individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles).
Tennis’s origin lay in 12th century northern France, where a ball was struck with the palm of the hand. Louis X of France was a keen player of jeu de paume (“game of the palm“), which later evolved into real tennis.
Racquets came into use in 16th century, and the game began to be called “tennis”. It is derived from the Old French term tenez, which can be translated as “hold!”, “receive!” or “take!”, an interjection used as a call from the server to his opponent.
Roger Federer has won 17 grand slam titles and 6 world tour finals, the most for any male player. Experts of tennis, former tennis players and his own tennis peers believe Federer is the greatest player in the history of the game.
6. Martial Arts
Martial arts is a sport of combat practices. They are practiced for a variety of reasons: self-defense, competition, physical health and fitness, entertainment, as well as mental, physical, and spiritual development.
Dating back to 3400 BC, where the Ancient Egyptian paintings show some form of struggle. In Vietnam, drawings and sketches from 2879 BC describe certain ways of combat using sword, stick, bow, and spears.
Xia Dynasty gave birth to Chinese martial arts. The Yellow Emperor wrote lengthy treatises on medicine, astrology and the martial arts.
Jackie Chan, is one of the best known Hollywood actors and martial artists.
5. Wrestling
Wrestling is an athletic combat sport that involves techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns.
Wrestling grasped its root as an entertainment sport in 19th-century Europe which has now become a multi-million dollar entertainment industry.
Professional wrestling mimics the structure of title match combat sports. Wrestlers compete for a championship, and must defend it after winning it. These titles are represented physically by a belt.
Famous world wrestlers include Hulk Hogan, The Rock, Stone Cold, Jhon Cena, Rick Flair and Stacy Keibler.
4. Basketball
Basketball is a team sport played by two teams of five players. The goal is to shoot a ball through a hoop 18 inches (46 cm) in diameter and 10 feet (3.048 m) high mounted to a backboard at each end.
A physical education instructor at the International Young Men’s Christian Association Training School (YMCA) in Springfield, Massachusetts was trying to keep his gym class active on a rainy day in 1891. He sought a vigorous indoor game to keep his students occupied. He wrote the basic rules and nailed a peach basket onto a 10-foot (3.05 m) elevated track.
The International Basketball Federation was formed in 1932 by eight founding nations: Argentina, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Portugal, Romania and Switzerland. Basketball is one of the world’s most popular and widely viewed sports.
3. Football
Football or soccer is a sport played between two teams of eleven players with a spherical ball. Soccer is played by 250 million players in over 200 countries, making it the world’s most popular sport.
Soccer demands speed and endurance ,but you also need foot skills because without them people can take the ball away from you. In soccer there is different positions and one of those is Keeper or Goalie. A keeper needs to stay alert and focused all the time. You need to know when and how to grab the ball and how to protect it once it’s in your hands.
Variants of football have been codified for reduced-sized teams (i.e. five-a-side football) play in non-field environments (i.e. beach soccer, indoor soccer) and for teams with disabilities (i.e. paralympic association football).
2. Ice Hockey
Ice hockey is a team sport played on ice. Two teams of skaters use their sticks to shoot a vulcanized rubber puck into their opponent’s net to score points.
Ice Hockey has led to its nickname “The Fastest Game on Earth“, due to its fast pace nature. Hockey is most popular in areas of Canada and the northern United States and Europe.
British soldiers and immigrants to Canada and the United States brought their stick-and-ball games with them. They played them on the ice and snow of winter. John Franklin wrote “The game of hockey played on the ice was the morning sport” on Great Bear Lake during one of his Arctic expeditions in 1825.
In North America, the National Hockey League (NHL) is the highest level for men’s hockey. NHL is the most popular. In Russia and much of eastern Europe, The Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) is the highest league.
Ice hockey enjoys immense popularity in Canad and is the official national winter sport of Canada. Canada has 617,107 registered hockey players, including male, female and junior level players which is highest in the world.
1. Boxing
Boxing is a combat sport in which two people engage in a contest of strength, speed, reflexes and endurance by throwing punches at each other.
The earliest known traces of boxing comes from a Sumerian relief from the 3rd millennium BC. The earliest evidence for fist fighting with any kind of gloves can be found on Minoan Crete (c. 1500–900 BC). Boxing statues of Prama mountains (c. 2000–1000 BC) are also found.
Starting from 17th century, boxing was motivated by money, as the fighters competed for prize money, promoters controlled the gate, and spectators bet on the result.
Knocking a person unconscious may cause permanent brain damage. Since 1980, more than 200 amateur boxers, professional boxers and Toughman fighters have died due to ring or training injuries. In 1983, the Journal of the American Medical Association called for a ban on boxing. Since then, the British, Canadian and Australian Medical Associations also have called for bans on boxing.
Muhammad Ali is considered to be the greatest ever boxer produced in the history of boxing.
