Sport: Life in the UK test study notes

Key facts to remember

• Major sporting venues – London's Wembley Stadium and Cardiff's Principality Stadium.
• Cricket: the Ashes is a series of Test matches between England and Australia.
• Football: the UK's most popular sport; England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have separate national teams, and the English Premier League has a huge international audience.
• Professional football clubs first appeared in the late 19th century.
• 1966 – England's men won the football World Cup, held in England: their only international tournament win (England's women have won the European Championship twice since 2022).
• Rugby: originated in early 19th-century England and later split into two codes, union and league, each with its own rules; Northern Ireland plays with the Irish Republic.
• Rugby union's Six Nations Championship is contested by England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France and Italy.
• Horse racing: Royal Ascot (a five-day meeting in Berkshire), the Grand National (Aintree, near Liverpool), the Scottish Grand National (Ayr) and the National Horseracing Museum (Newmarket).
• Golf: traced back to 15th-century Scotland; St Andrews is the home of golf, and The Open is one of the sport's major championships.
• 1872 – the first tennis club was set up in Leamington Spa, as modern tennis developed in late 19th-century England.
• Tennis: Wimbledon, held at the All England Club, is the world's oldest tennis tournament and the only Grand Slam event on grass.
• Sailing: in 1966–67 Sir Francis Chichester made the first solo voyage around the world passing both the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn; Sir Robin Knox-Johnston was the first to do it solo and non-stop, in 1969.
• Rowing: each year Oxford and Cambridge universities race each other on the Thames in the Boat Race.
• 1902 – the first motor-car races were held in the UK, which remains a world leader in motor-sport technology.
• Motor sport: a Formula 1 Grand Prix, the British Grand Prix, is held in the UK every year.
• Skiing: dry ski slopes around the UK, including Europe's longest, near Edinburgh, plus skiing on snow in winter at Scotland's five ski centres.
• London Olympics: 1908, 1948 and 2012; the main 2012 site was in Stratford, East London.
• Paralympics: grew from Sir Ludwig Guttmann's work with spinal-injury patients at Stoke Mandeville hospital, Buckinghamshire.
• Sir Roger Bannister – first mile under four minutes (1954); Sir Jackie Stewart – three-time Formula 1 world champion; Bobby Moore – captain of England's 1966 World Cup winners; Sir Ian Botham – England cricket captain and record-setting all-rounder.
• Torvill and Dean – 1984 Olympic ice-dancing gold; Sir Steve Redgrave – rowing gold at five Olympics in a row; Dame Kelly Holmes – 800 m and 1,500 m gold in 2004; Dame Ellen MacArthur – fastest solo sail around the world (record set 2004–05).
• Sir Chris Hoy – Scottish cyclist, six Olympic golds; Bradley Wiggins – first British Tour de France winner (2012); Jessica Ennis – heptathlon gold (2012).
• Mo Farah – born in Somalia; won 5,000 m and 10,000 m gold in 2012, the first Briton to win Olympic gold over 10,000 metres.
• Andy Murray – won the US Open men's singles in 2012 and the Wimbledon men's singles in 2013 and 2016.
• Paralympians: Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson – 16 medals, 11 gold, over five Games; David Weir – six golds across 2008 and 2012; Ellie Simmonds – swimming golds in 2008 and 2012.
• Wheelchair athletes Tanni Grey-Thompson and David Weir have both won the London Marathon several times (Weir six times in the handbook; eight since 2018).