OTHER SPORTS

Football sala: Spain is the European Champion at the moment (title won last year and the world runner up (2008), a fact which shows the high level that exists of this sport there is in Spain highlights teams like Elpozo Murcia and Inter MoviStar, winners of many European titles.

Handball: The Spanish national handball team Ciudad Real achieved last year the victory in Europe Championship last year. In addition the Spanish handball obtained at the Olympic Games a bronze medal (with great figures like Jose Hombrados and Iker Romero).

Golf: In this sport, Sergio Garcia stands out. His most important victory has been the title in Shangai.

Swimming: swimming is a sport in which Spain does not stand out much but in recent years very good swimmers have appeared such as Rafael Muñoz (has already made a world record) and Alex Villaécija. In the synchronized swimming the main representative is Gemma Mengual, who apart from having numerous individual titles, has titles in pairs and in group. She obtained two silver medals in the Olympic games; one in the modality of pairs with Fuentes and other one in the modality of group.


Sailing: Sailing is a sport in which Spain has always stood out like the Echavarri and Paz golden medal. And Martinez and Fernandez’s golden medal in Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.
Pirogues: In this sport David Cal, who has numerous titles at personal level, won in the last Olympic Games a silver medal in two different modalities. Also the canoeists Craviotto and Perez won a golden medal.

MOTOR

Within this section, I am going to talk about four sports briefly: Motociclismo, Formula 1, Rally and Dakar.
Motorcycle: In this sport always has there been a lot of Spanish participation. Moreover right now, a great motorcycle generation exists in all the modalities, highlighting last year victory in 125cc for Julián Simon. In 500cc Jorge Lorenzo and Daniel Pedrosa, who finished last year second and fourth respectively.


Formula 1: In this sport there is a prominent name, Fernando Alonso, who is the best Spanish pilot in the history of this modality winning two world titles in the year 2005 and 2006. Apart from Alonso, this year Martínez de la Rosa and Jaime Alguersuari will participate also.


Rally: In this sport the Spanish Daniel Sordo stands outwho gradually is doing gat between the best in the world in the modality.


Dakar: In Dakar Daniel Roma's victories stand out in motorcycles (year 2004, 2006 and 2009) and the great victory of the pilot Carlos Sainz, who besides his victories in rally, he has been the first Spanish one won a Dakar in the modality of cars (2010).

CICLYNG

Spanish cycling is also in great time standing out men like Alberto Contador, Carlos Sastre, Alejandro Valverde, Samuel Sanchez, Oscar Freire and Oscar Pereiro among others. They stand out for big titles such as Tour of France (Pereiro in 2006, Sastre in 2008 and Contador in 2007 and 2009), tour of Spain (the last sample was last year winning Alejandro Valverde) and Giro of Italy (Contador won in 2008). Also Spain has won world championships in recent years, highlighting Freire's figure. Alberto Contador, who apart from two Tour of France and the Giro of Italy, has won the Vuelta of Spain besides other titles.

In addition, in the Beijing Olympic Games the gold was obtained in this sport of the hand of Samuel Sanchez.

I have to comment that in the modality of track cycling in the 2008 Olympic Games Spain obtained three medals: a gold medal for the veteran and biggest cyclist Joan Llaneras, a silver medal for Joan Llaneras and Tauler and a bronze one for the cyclist Leire Olaberria.

TENNIS

Spanish tennis, not to vary, also is one of the moments best moment of history because there is a good generation of Spanish tennis players inside the best hundred of ATP. Among them, I have chosen Rafael Nadal because besides being the best Spanish tennis player at the moment, he is (at his 23 years) one of the major figures of the world tennis in the history for facts as winning 40 titles highlighting fourteen masters series and four Roland Garros, an Open of Australia and a Wimbledon. Apart from these big successes, Nadal has also won a golden medal, in the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games beating Djokovic in a great semi-final and the Chilean Fernando Gonzalez in the final. Besides Nadal, there is a series of very good tennis players very good like Fernando Verdasco, David Ferrer and Juan Carlos Ferrero among others. Spain won the Davis Cup (the world’s cup) defeating Argentina in 2008 and Czech Republic in 2009. Also female tennis is in a great level in doubles modality winning titles as Roland Garros. Anabel Medina and Virginia Ruano(Vivi) won a silver medal in the Olympic Games of 2008.

BASKETBALL

Spanish basketball is in the best moment of its history as we can verify in big victories in the most important world’s sports events. Among these victories we can mention the Japan world championship in 2006 defeating countries like Lithuania in quarter-final, Argentine in semi-finals (in a gruelling match) and Greece in the final. As a sign of the good level of the Spanish players between the initial quintets of the tournament appeared three Spanish players. Other sample of the great level and game of the Spanish basketball team was in the Olympic Games where they remained second winning a silver medal. The last sample of the good level that is given in Spanish basketball was last year in Poland where after a bad start of tournament, Spain recovered and won the title. Inside Spanish basketball teams Barcelona, Real Madrid and TAU Vitoria stand out. Another example apart from this is that in the NBA there are five Spanish players, Pau Gasol, who last year won the European title with Spain and also he won the NBA ring with his team, The Angels Lakers.

FOOTBALL

Right now Spain is the European champion, the second Euro which Spain gets in all its history, defeating selections as powerful as Italy or Russia, and in the final to Germany for one to nil, goal that Fernando Torres scored. In addition, in this Euro the striker David Villa was the maximum scorer and Xavi Hernández was appointed the best player. Spain is also placed by the FIFA as the best team in the world by its victory in the Euro and the great game that was shown. Apart from this, the Spanish League is one of the best leagues in the world together with the English Premier and the Italian Calcium. In addition, in our league many of the best players in the world play, we can verify it according to FIFA five best players in the world are Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Iniesta and Xavi Hernández, these last two are Spanish players. Also the best goalkeeper in the world is Spanish according to FIFA that is Iker Casillas whose matches have not only helped Real Madrid, but the Spanish selection as he is the goalkeeper. Within the Spanish league FC Barcelona won all football competitions with the most brilliant game and with the best player in the world who, in this last year, had won the Golden Ball (the trophy to the best player in the world) Seville has won two UEFA cups in recent years.

INTRODUCTION

Spanish sport is now in one of its best moments in its history. I will write a brief analysis of different disciplines to see the good level that exists in all of them.I will comment on the following sports: football, basketball, tennis, cycling, engine etc. After this, I will talk about the news of the sports worldwide this year.