Argentina - Argentine sport

Although Pato is Argentina’s national sport, played by gauchos on the XIX century, soccer is the most captivating sport for the people of the country. Kids play it from an early age in neighborhood clubs and even out on the streets. Deeply rooted in popular culture, there is no citizen that doesn’t have his own favorite team.

As for auto racing, Turismo Carretera (Road Racing) and TC2000 have many fans that follow their favorite drivers through circuits all over the country. Basketball, tennis, volley ball, and rugby are next in popularity.

When talking about Argentina’s sports, there are five names which are impossible to avoid, five great men that have a special place in the heart of the Argentine people, a place they have won with talent, passion, devotion and charisma.

Diego Armando Maradona in soccer, Guillermo Vilas in tennis, Juan Manuel Fangio in car racing, Roberto DeVicenzo in golf, and Carlos Monzón in boxing, have all left their prints in the great history of sports with their accomplishments, and have put our country’s name on the tongue of the whole world.

SOCCER

Soccer is without a doubt the sport with the most fans among the Argentine people. Its popularity and gathering power arouses a kind of passion like no other sporting activity.

A great talent seedbed for soccer players, Argentina delivered the world’s greatest player of all times: Diego Armando Maradona. At his peak, he won the Mexico 86 World Cup, although the Argentine team had already achieved that goal for the first time in 1978.

Creator of one of the two schools of thought that rivaled for years, Carlos Salvador Bilardo coached the team that achieved the greatest glory in Mexico. His rival in the game’s philosophy, César Luis Menotti, had won the World Cup in 1978 and would coach Maradona in the Sub-20 World Cup triumph a year later.

The Argentine team is one of two countries on the continent that have won the America Cup the more times with 14 titles (Uruguay is the other). The last two were in 1991 and 1993, coached by Alfio Basile. In Athens 2004, coached by Marcelo Bielsa, the Olympic team won the gold medal for the first time in Argentine history.

Besides the ’79 juvenile title, the Sub-20 Team won the world championship five more times: in 1995, 1997, 2001, 2005, and 2007.

As for teams, Argentina is the country that has won the most LIbertadores de América Cups, the continent’s main tournament. Independiente has won 7 times (four of them in a row) and Boca Juniors 6 times, making them the biggest winner teams in almost 50 years of the traditional championship.

The players that astound fans in the country’s stadiums migrate to other leagues with greater financial power, where they dazzle the whole world: Lionel Messi, Sergio Agüero, Carlos Tevez, are the latest examples of pure talent at a young age that have seduced all soccer fans.

TENNIS

Today, the country is one of the powers in tennis worldwide, with David Nalbandián as the most regular and talented player of the so called “Argentine Legion”. By the end of the 2007 season, Argentina had four players among the world’s top 25, and 11 among the top 100.

The most outstanding players have been Guillermo Vilas in the men´s tour and Gabriela Sabatini in the women´s one.

Vilas was a true promoter of the sport in the country. He won four Grand Slams between 1974 and 1979 and made it to the finals of the Davis Cup in 1981, teaming up with José Luis Clerc.

In 1977 he had his best year, winning 16 tournaments, an absolute record for the time. He also achieved 50 wins in a row, a record he maintained until 2006. With 913 wins, Vilas is one of the top 3 tennis players of all times.

Sabatini won the Grand Slam, the US Open in 1990, and got the silver medal at the Seoul Olympic Games of 1988. She got to be third in the world’s ranking.

The Davis Cup, played by national double teams, is the great debt for Argentine tennis, which got to be sub champion in 1981 and 2006.

In doubles, Paola Suárez was the only Argentine pro player that made it to  first place in the world’s ranking with teammate Virginia Ruano Pascual. Suárez won eight Grand Slam titles.

AUTO RACING

A very traditional sport in Argentina, its biggest name is Juan Manuel Fangio, five times winner of the Formula 1 championship, between 1951 and 1957.

In the 70’s, Carlos Alberto Reutemann won twelve grand prizes in the top category, and the sub championship in 1978.

Two local tournaments, the Turismo Carretera and the TC2000, arouse a similar passion as soccer. Every weekend, thousands of fans attend races on circuits around the country. Juan María Traverso is the symbol of local auto racing.

BOXING

A very popular sport that has had many Argentine world champions: Horacio Acavallo, Nicolino Locche, Víctor Galíndez, Miguel Castellini, Miguel Cuello, Hugo Corro, Sergio Palma, Santos Laciar, Gustavo Ballas, Ubaldo Sacco, Juan Martín Coggi, Pedro Décima, Julio Vázquez, Néstor Giovanni, Jorge Fernando "locomotora" Castro, Marcelo Domínguez, Carlos Salazar, Juan Córdoba, Hugo Soto, Víctor Godoi, Pablo Chacón and Raúl Balbi.

Carlos Monzón deserves his own paragraph. Regarded as one of Argentina’s greatest sportsman, he was middle weight champion of the world between 1970 and 1977, winning 14 challenges.

Omar Naráez is today’s fly weight champion, and has won 13 challenges to date.

Even though he was never a champion, Oscar “Ringo” Bonavena still lives in the Argentine people’s heart thanks to his personality. Candid, naïve, and pure-hearted, he thrilled people with his mythical match versus Mohammed Ali.

BASKETBALL

It is another important sport that also has its “Argentine legion” abroad. Emanuel Ginóbili, Andrés Nocioni, Carlos Delfino, Fabricio Oberto, Walter Herrmann and Luis Scola all dazzle next to the stars of the North American NBA.

With a glorious past (Argentina was the world champion in 1950) and especially popular in the provinces, basketball has given us new joy on this new century. Ruben Magnano’s team, lead by Ginóbili, has won the gold medal at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, a year after reaching the Indianápolis World Championship finals.

RUGBY

It came to the country before soccer: it’s been played since 1873. The national team, known as The Pumas, is among the world’s ten most powerful teams. Hugo Porta is Argentine rugby’s maximum figure.

The national team participated –with various results- in every world championship, achieving its best performance in the 2007 tournament in France. The team got  third place, beating the powerful local team on two occasions as well as countries with huge rugby tradition, such as Ireland and Scotland.

Marcelo Loffreda’s team, lead by captain Agustín Pichot, only lost when playing against the team that would later be the tournament’s winner: South Africa.

Juan Martín Hernandez, Felipe Contepomi, Pichot, and Patricio Albacete are among the outstanding players that made such an achievement possible, all of them are playing in world class European rugby on top level teams.

VOLLEYBALL

In 1982 the national team made its best performance in a World Championship. It hosted the event where it won the bronze medal. In terms of Olympics, the most outstanding performance took place in Seoul ’88, also achieving bronze.

Today, Argentina plays the Volleyball World League every year, where it competes with the world’s most powerful teams. Daniel Castellani, Hugo Conte and Marcos Milinkovic are among the more outstanding local volleyball players.

HOCKEY

The audience for field jockey grew along the good performances of the female Argentine team, known as “Las Leonas” (The Lionesses). Lead by Luciana Aymar, many times regarded as the world’s best player, the national team won the silver medal at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, the Champions Trophy in 2001, the World Championship in 2002, a bronze medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics and the Wolrd Championship in 2006.

Less popular, roller hockey brought seven world titles back to the country. Four times by the male national team, and three by the female one.

POLO

Brought to Argentina by British immigrants in 1875, the world’s main three tournaments are played in the country: the Argentine Open Polo Championship, the Hurlingham Open, and the Tortugas Open, all constituting the so called Triple Crown.

A high risk sport, today Argentina is -as it has in the past- the discipline’s undisputed leader, with the more outstanding players participating in tournaments all over the world.

The national team has won the World Championship three times, and it is the team that has got to the top of the podium the most times. When it was an Olympic sport, polo brought  two gold medals to Argentina, in 1924 and 1936. Today Adolfo Cambiaos is the world’s best polo player.

GOLF

At the South American vanguard, Argentina has had great golfers. Roberto DeVicenzo dazzled in the 50’s winning 230 tournaments all over the world, among them six PGA Tours and the British Open in 1967. José Cóceres, Eduardo Romero, Angel Cabrera and Ricardo González are some outstanding players of today.

Olympic Games

Boxing has always been the Olympic sport to bring more medals to the country. Arturo Rodríguez Jurado (1928), Víctor Avendano (1928), Alberto Lovell (1932), Carmelo Ambrosio Robledo (1932), Oscar Casanovas (1936), Rafael Iglesias (1948) and Pascual Pérez (1948) got the seven gold ones for Argentina, which also has seven silver and ten bronze ones.

Two gold medals and three silver ones have been won in athletics, and two other gold ones in polo. Soccer and basketball got their only gold medal in 2004. Rowing got the gold in 1952 and swimming did it in 1928.

In field jockey, “Las Leonas”  (The Lionesses)  won the silver in Sydney 2000 and the bronze in Athens 2004.

Gabriela Sabatini got the only silver medal in tennis, while Paola Suárez and Patricia Tarabini got the bronze in the doubles category.

Carlos Espínola won three windsurf medals in three consecutive Olympics: silver in Atlanta 96 and Sydney 2000, and bronze in Athens 2004.

Georgina Bardarach got the bronze on swimming in 2004. The only volleyball medal was also bronze, in 1988.

SPORTS AS A TOURIST COMMODITY

A mass spectacle that packs stadiums around the country, soccer is experienced every weekend with a renewed passion. The best sample of Argentine passion for soccer is the so called “Superclásico”, a match played by the two most popular rival teams: River and Boca. Regarded as one of the world’s more intense and colorful spectacles, it attracts thousands of tourists and journalists from all over the globe each time it is played.

Besides enjoying the TC and TC2000 mass races, in 2009 car fans will be able to see the legendary Dakar Rally in Argentina. The total circuit of 9 thousand kilometers will pass through the roads of the Pampa and Patagonia.

But if it’s about looking for the world’s best polo, there is no better place to see it than Argentina. The Argentine Open Polo Championship attracts more than 12 thousand spectators that come to see the greatest players in action.