94 Fun Facts About Sports Trivia for Kids

How many players from each team are on a basketball court at the same time?

5 a side was not fixed in the rules until 1897; before that teams were as big as the gym class, and James Naismith's very first game in 1891 had nine players on each side.

How many players per soccer team take the field at kickoff?

11 players start for each side, one of them the goalkeeper; if injuries or dismissals leave a team with fewer than seven, the laws say the match cannot go on.

What colour must players wear on court at Wimbledon?

White is compulsory at Wimbledon, down to coloured trim no wider than a centimetre; Andre Agassi stayed away from 1988 to 1990, partly because the rule banned his flashy kit.

In which sport do players use sticks to shoot a rubber puck into a net?

Ice hockey pucks are made of hard rubber and frozen before every game, because a warm puck bounces like a ball while a frozen one slides flat and fast across the rink.

How long is a marathon race?

26.2 miles became the standard because of the 1908 London Olympics, where the race was laid out to start at Windsor Castle and finish in front of the royal box in the stadium.

Which country did the football star Pelé play for?

Brazil won three World Cups with Pelé, the first in 1958 when he was still a teenager; the government then declared him a national treasure to keep foreign clubs from luring him away.

Simone Biles is a champion in which sport?

Gymnastics now has several moves called the Biles, named after Simone Biles because she was the first to land them in competition; she won the Olympic all-around title in 2016 and again in 2024.

Michael Jordan won six NBA championships in the 1990s with which team?

Chicago Bulls: Jordan led them to six titles between 1991 and 1998, yet as a high school sophomore he had famously failed to make the varsity team.

In baseball, how many strikes make a strikeout?

3 strikes and the batter is out, but a foul ball cannot be the third strike unless it is a bunt, so a batter can stay alive by fouling off pitch after pitch.

In American football, how many points is a touchdown worth?

6 points go to a touchdown, a name left over from the game's rugby roots: players once had to touch the ball to the ground to score, but now it only has to cross the goal line.

How often is the FIFA World Cup held?

The tournament has taken place every four years since the first one in 1930, apart from 1942 and 1946 because of the Second World War.

In which country were the ancient Olympic Games held?

Greece held the ancient Games at Olympia, and before each one a truce was announced so that athletes and spectators from rival cities could travel there safely.

What is the small peg that holds a golf ball up for the first shot of each hole called?

A tee props the ball up for the opening shot; before pegs caught on, golfers had to build a little heap of sand by hand and balance the ball on top of it.

Which sport is played by hitting a shuttlecock over a net?

Badminton's shuttlecock has been smashed at 426 km/h in a match, yet its feathers create so much drag that it slows almost at once and drops steeply.

Which country does the sprinter Usain Bolt come from?

Jamaica: Usain Bolt grew up there as a keen cricketer, until his school coaches saw how fast he ran and steered him towards the track.

What time did Usain Bolt run in 2009 to set the 100 m world record?

9.58 seconds came from a man thought too tall to sprint: at 1.95 metres Bolt was expected to be slow out of the blocks, yet in Berlin he cut 0.11 off his own record.

Which pair of events did Usain Bolt win at three Olympic Games in a row?

100m and 200m: Bolt won both at three straight Games; he also won three relay golds, but lost one of them years later when a teammate's 2008 drug sample was retested.

Which tennis player won her 23rd major singles title at the 2017 Australian Open?

Serena Williams beat her older sister Venus in that final, then revealed in April that she was expecting a baby, which meant she had been pregnant throughout the tournament.

In tennis, what is the score called when a game is tied at 40-40?

Deuce comes from an old French word for two: from 40-all, a player has to win two points in a row to take the game.

Which country did Lionel Messi captain to the 2022 World Cup title?

Argentina had lost the 2014 final with Messi as captain; eight years later in Qatar he lifted the trophy at last, after a 3-3 draw that was settled on penalties.

Lionel Messi is the all-time leading scorer of which Spanish club?

Barcelona took Messi on at 13, when his family moved across the Atlantic for the chance; he went on to score more goals for the club than anyone in its history before leaving in 2021.

Which American club did Lionel Messi join in 2023?

Inter Miami is co-owned by David Beckham, who had a clause in his own 2007 playing contract that let him buy a new MLS team for 25 million dollars.

Which apparatus do female gymnasts compete on but male gymnasts do not?

Balance beam routines pack flips onto a strip just 10 centimetres wide, about the width of a hand, and a fall costs a whole point; men compete on rings and pommel horse instead.

Whose all-time NBA scoring record fell to LeBron James in 2023?

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's record of 38,387 points had stood since 1984, the year LeBron James was born; LeBron needed 20 NBA seasons to pass it.

What was LeBron James's slot in the 2003 NBA draft, straight out of high school?

First overall pick: LeBron was already so famous that Sports Illustrated had put him on its cover as a high school junior and called him 'The Chosen One'; Cleveland, his home-state team, chose him.

Which word was added to the Olympic motto 'Faster, Higher, Stronger' in 2021?

Together was added in 2021, after a dash: 'Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together'; the first three words were borrowed by Pierre de Coubertin from a priest friend who loved athletics.

How many players does each volleyball team have on the court at the same time?

Six a side, and one of them wears a different colour: the libero, a defence specialist who stays in the back row and may not spike the ball from above the net.

How high off the ground is the rim of a basketball hoop?

10 feet was simply the height of the balcony rail in the gym where James Naismith hung his first goals in 1891, and the game has kept it ever since.

How many innings make up a regular baseball game?

Nine innings make a full game, but the home team skips its last turn at bat if it is already ahead, and a tied game simply carries on into extra innings until someone leads.

What colour jersey does the leader of the Tour de France bicycle race wear?

Yellow is usually said to match the yellow paper of L'Auto, the newspaper that started the Tour in 1903 to boost its sales; the jersey itself only arrived in 1919.

Which trophy do the NHL's ice hockey champions win each season?

The Stanley Cup began in the 1890s as a gift from Lord Stanley, Canada's governor-general, for the country's best amateur team; professionals took it over, and winners' names are still engraved on the trophy itself.

In ten-pin bowling, what is it called when you knock down all the pins with your first ball?

A strike scores ten plus whatever the next two balls knock down, which is why twelve strikes in a row add up to a perfect game of 300.

Duke Kahanamoku, the Olympic swimming champion who popularised surfing, grew up riding waves in which islands?

Hawaii is where modern surfing is thought to have begun; Duke Kahanamoku, raised beside Waikiki beach and an Olympic gold medallist in 1912 and 1920, gave surfing displays on his travels that won it fans in California and Australia.

Skateboarding became an Olympic sport for the first time at which Games?

Skateboarding debuted at Tokyo 2020, held in 2021, where Japan's 13-year-old Momiji Nishiya won the first women's street gold and Britain's Sky Brown, also 13, took park bronze.

Table tennis is also known by what nickname?

Ping-pong became a trade name for the game, so the sport's associations had to call themselves 'table tennis' instead; it began in England as a parlour game played on dining tables.

What are the three wooden posts a cricket bowler aims at called?

The stumps carry two small bails on top, and the bowler's aim is to hit them hard enough that a bail falls: only then is the wicket broken and the batter bowled out.

Which city hosted the first modern Olympic Games in 1896?

Athens got the ending it wanted in 1896: a local runner, Spyridon Louis, took the lead late in the first Olympic marathon, won it, and became a national hero overnight.

In which winter sport do players slide granite stones across ice while teammates sweep with brooms?

Curling's sweepers scrub the ice just ahead of the moving stone, which makes it slide further and bend less; the game began in Scotland and is nicknamed 'chess on ice'.

When a soccer player scores three goals in one game, what is it called?

A hat-trick probably takes its name from cricket, where a bowler who took three wickets with three balls in a row was rewarded with a new hat.

The Paralympic Games grew out of a 1948 sports competition in England for which group?

Injured war veterans with spinal injuries competed at the 1948 event, organised by the doctor Ludwig Guttmann; it grew until Rome staged the first Olympic-style Games for disabled athletes in 1960.

Which swimmer has won more Olympic medals than any other athlete in history, 28 in total?

Michael Phelps was put in the pool at seven, partly to burn off his restless energy; he went on to win 28 Olympic medals, 23 of them gold.

In rugby union, what is the five-point score for grounding the ball over the opponents' line called?

A try is named for what it used to be worth: nothing. Touching the ball down once earned a team only a try at kicking a goal, and the kick was what scored.

Which Canadian player is known as 'The Great One' and had his number 99 retired by every team in the NHL?

Wayne Gretzky's 2,857 points are the NHL record, and he would hold it even if he had never scored a goal: his assists alone outnumber every other player's career points.

How many holes does a full round of golf usually have?

18 became the standard after 1764, when the golfers of St Andrews in Scotland decided that some of their 22 holes were too short and merged them.

In volleyball, what is a serve that wins the point without being touched called?

An ace is a serve the other team cannot keep in play; it is the same word as the ace in a pack of cards, from a Latin name for a single unit: one hit, one point.

In tennis scoring, which word is used for a player's score of zero points?

Love probably comes from 'playing for love', meaning for nothing; another theory is the French l'oeuf, 'the egg', because an egg looks like a zero.

What did James Naismith use as the goals in the very first basketball game in 1891?

Peach baskets were what the janitor could find, so Naismith nailed two to the gym balcony; they kept their bottoms, and someone had to fetch the ball out after every score.

Basketball and volleyball were both invented by instructors at which organisation?

The YMCA employed both men in Massachusetts: James Naismith devised basketball in Springfield in 1891, and four years later William Morgan created volleyball for older men who found basketball too strenuous.

Rafael Nadal won a record 14 titles at which tennis tournament?

The French Open is the one major played on clay, the slow surface Nadal ruled: he once won 81 clay-court matches in a row, and his 14 titles in Paris are a record.

How is the Olympic flame lit at Olympia before every torch relay?

With a mirror and sunlight: a curved mirror focuses the sun's rays until the torch catches, and if the day is cloudy, a flame lit the same way at a rehearsal is used instead.

An Olympic gold medal is only plated with gold, so which metal makes up most of it?

Silver makes up at least 92.5 per cent of an Olympic gold medal, with about six grams of gold plated on top; the last solid gold ones were handed out in 1912.

How many seconds does an NBA team have to shoot before the shot clock expires?

24 seconds came from simple maths: team owner Danny Biasone divided a game's 2,880 seconds by the 120 shots a lively game produced, and in 1954 the new clock put an end to stalling.

Which country is marathon great Eliud Kipchoge from?

Eliud Kipchoge is from Kenya; in Vienna in 2019 he ran the marathon distance in 1:59:40, the first sub-two-hour run, though it did not count as an official record.

In 1954, Roger Bannister became the first person to run a mile in under how long?

Four minutes fell to a medical student, not a full-time athlete: Roger Bannister fitted his training around his hospital studies and ran 3 minutes 59.4 seconds at Oxford.

Who scored the first perfect 10 in Olympic gymnastics, in 1976?

Nadia Comăneci, aged 14, scored the first perfect 10 on the uneven bars at Montreal 1976; the scoreboard could not display a 10, so her score appeared as 1.00.

What does the winner of the Masters golf tournament get to wear?

The Masters champion receives a green jacket at Augusta National; he may keep it for a year, after which it stays at the club and is worn only there.

In golf, what is a score of one stroke under par on a hole called?

A birdie is one under par; the story passed down is that the word began at Atlantic City Country Club in New Jersey, where golfers took to calling a fine shot 'a bird'.

Which uniform number is retired across all of Major League Baseball in honour of Jackie Robinson?

42 is the one number no team may hand out, yet every player in the major leagues wears it on 15 April, Jackie Robinson Day, the anniversary of his 1947 debut.

How far apart are the bases on a Major League baseball diamond?

90 feet has been in the rules since 1857 and has never needed changing: a few feet more would hand the advantage to the fielders, and a few less to the runners.

In baseball, what is a home run hit with the bases loaded called?

A grand slam scores four runs, the most possible on one swing; the name comes from card games such as bridge, where it means winning every trick.

Which team won the very first Super Bowl in 1967?

The Green Bay Packers beat Kansas City 35-10 in what was officially the AFL-NFL World Championship Game; the name Super Bowl only became official later.

Which quarterback won a record seven Super Bowls?

Tom Brady was not picked until the sixth round of the 2000 draft, yet he went on to win seven Super Bowls, six with New England and one with Tampa Bay.

In soccer, how far from the goal line is the penalty spot?

12 yards it is, and the penalty kick was the idea of a goalkeeper: William McCrum, from Milford in County Armagh, is credited with proposing it in 1890.

What colour card does a soccer referee show to send a player off?

A red card sends a player off and a yellow is a caution; English referee Ken Aston thought of the idea at a traffic light, and cards debuted at the 1970 World Cup.

Which country hosted and won the first FIFA World Cup in 1930?

Uruguay beat Argentina 4-2 in the final after the two sides argued over whose ball to use; the compromise was Argentina's ball for the first half and Uruguay's for the second.

Which country won the first FIFA Women's World Cup, held in China in 1991?

The United States beat Norway 2-1 in the final; FIFA was not yet ready to call it a World Cup, so the event was officially a 'World Championship' named after its sponsor, M&M's.

Cristiano Ronaldo made his international debut in 2003 for which country?

Portugal won its first major trophy at Euro 2016 with Ronaldo as captain, even though a knee injury forced him off on a stretcher early in the final.

Kylian Mbappé made his international debut in 2017 for which country?

France won the 2018 World Cup with Mbappé, then 19, scoring in the final, the first teenager to do so since Pelé in 1958; he then gave his prize money from the tournament to charity.

Naomi Osaka plays tennis for which country?

Japan: Osaka was born in the city that shares her name and left for the United States at three, yet she chose to represent her birthplace and became its first winner of a major singles title.

The Ashes cricket series is played between England and which country?

Australia beat England in 1882, and a newspaper printed a mock obituary saying English cricket had died and 'the ashes' would be taken to Australia; the tiny urn followed soon after.

Which country's rugby team, the All Blacks, performs the haka before matches?

New Zealand's best-known haka, 'Ka Mate', is credited to the Māori chief Te Rauparaha, who is said to have chanted it after a narrow escape from his enemies; the All Blacks took it up in the early 1900s.

The Webb Ellis Cup is the trophy for which competition?

The Rugby World Cup trophy honours William Webb Ellis, the Rugby School pupil who, the story goes, broke the rules in 1823 by picking up the ball and running with it.

What does the Indianapolis 500 winner traditionally drink in victory lane?

Milk: the tradition began in 1936 when winner Louis Meyer drank buttermilk in victory lane and a dairy executive spotted a marketing chance.

What colour jersey does the leader of the Giro d'Italia bike race wear?

Pink matches the paper of La Gazzetta dello Sport, the sports newspaper that created the race and still prints on pink; Italians call the jersey the maglia rosa.

The Iditarod is a long-distance race across Alaska for teams of which animals?

Sled dogs once carried the mail along part of this trail; the race, first run in 1973, takes the fastest teams from Anchorage to Nome in under ten days and celebrates Alaska's frontier past.

Which flowers are draped over the winning horse at the Kentucky Derby?

Roses: a whole blanket of them is draped over the winning horse, which is how the Derby came to be called 'The Run for the Roses'.

Which three sports make up a triathlon?

A triathlon is swimming, cycling and running, in that order, from the Greek for 'three' and 'contest'; the clock keeps running while athletes change gear between legs.

How many events does an athlete compete in during a decathlon?

10 events over two days earn the winner the nickname 'world's greatest athlete', a title said to go back to 1912, when Sweden's king paid Jim Thorpe that compliment at the Olympics.

The 'Fosbury Flop' is a backwards-over-the-bar technique in which event?

The high jump: Dick Fosbury's coach tried to talk him out of going over backwards, but he won Olympic gold with it in 1968 and it soon became the standard style.

Which stroke is swum first in an individual medley race?

Butterfly leads off, then backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle; in a medley relay the order changes and backstroke goes first, because that swimmer has to start in the water.

Who landed the first 900 on a skateboard at the 1999 X Games?

Tony Hawk landed the first 900, two and a half mid-air rotations, at the 1999 X Games in San Francisco after ten or so failed attempts.

Chloe Kim won Olympic gold at 17 in 2018 in which snowboard event?

Halfpipe: Chloe Kim won it at 17 in 2018 and again in 2022, the first woman to win it twice; in 2026 she finished second to South Korea's Choi Ga-on.

In which winter sliding sport do racers go head-first down an icy track?

Skeleton racers lie face-down and go head-first; the sport is thought to be named after the bony look of the early metal sleds, and luge riders go feet-first on their backs.

Which martial art of throws and holds was founded by Kanō Jigorō in 1882?

Judo, 'the gentle way', turns an opponent's own force against them; Kanō is also credited with bringing its dan ranks into martial arts from the schools of the board game Go.

Boxing legend Muhammad Ali was born with what name?

Cassius Clay was also his father's name, given in honour of a 19th-century Kentucky abolitionist; the boxer dropped it in 1964, calling it a slave name, and became Muhammad Ali.

Beijing, the first city to host both Summer and Winter Olympics, used which stadium for both opening ceremonies?

The Bird's Nest, named for the tangle of steel that wraps it, was built for the 2008 Summer Games and brought back 14 years later for the 2022 Winter Games.

Which city was chosen to host the 2028 Summer Olympics?

Los Angeles won without a fight: so many rivals had pulled out of the race for 2024 that the IOC handed out two Games at once, 2024 to Paris and 2028 to Los Angeles.

What does a Zamboni machine do at a hockey rink?

A Zamboni resurfaces the ice, shaving off the scratched top layer and laying down fresh water that freezes smooth; Frank Zamboni, who ran a California rink, built the first one in 1949.

Fencing has three weapons: the foil, the sabre and which other?

The épée is the heaviest of the three weapons and the simplest to score with: a touch anywhere on the body counts, even a toe, while foil fencers may only hit the torso.

In a rowing boat, who steers and calls out commands to the rowers?

The coxswain is the only person in the boat who faces forwards and can see the course; the word joins 'cock', an old name for a small boat, and 'swain', a servant.

Which sailing trophy, first raced for in 1851, is named after the schooner that won it?

The America's Cup is named not for the country but for the schooner America, which beat a British fleet around the Isle of Wight in 1851 and took the trophy across the Atlantic.

Which golfer won his first Masters in 1997, aged 21, by a record 12 strokes?

Tiger Woods began that Masters badly, taking 40 shots over his first nine holes, then played the next nine in 30 and pulled away to win by 12.

Pelé's parents named him after which American inventor, dropping one letter from the surname?

Thomas Edison: his parents dropped the 'i' to make Edson, though a slip on his birth certificate put it back; he said 'Pelé' probably came from his mangling the name of a goalkeeper called Bilé.

Which figure-skating jump is the only one that takes off facing forward?

Axel jumps are named after Axel Paulsen, a Norwegian speed and figure skater who first showed one in 1882; the forward take-off adds an extra half-turn, so a triple Axel is three and a half spins.