Sports in Nauru

Nauru has a rich history in terms of sports. The Australian Rules football is the national sport of Nauru. There is currently a 12-team senior league available in the Nauru Island and has a huge spectator base. Nauru has internationally competed in Australian Rules football competitions of Arafura Games, Barassi International youth Tournament and Australian Football International Cup.

Nauruan sports also include soccer and softball game; there is a Nauruan Soccer team as well but its not recognized by the Federation International de Football Association.

Along with these sports, activities like Tennis, Sailing, Swimming and golf are practiced on the Island. There is a large stadium in Nauru at Yaren and few pitches for certain sports. The stadium at Yaren is almost obsolete now and is hardly used because it does not comply with the international standards.

To cover up the stadium demands a stadium is projected to be built in the Meneng, however there are some financial issues that is causing problems in the construction of the stadium.

The current stadia in Nauru are as under:

• Yaren National Stadium
• Meneng Stadium,, Meneng
• Lunkbelt Oval at Aiwo
• Denig Stadium at Denigomodu
• Aida Oval

Apart from the professional games, traditional sports like catching birds at evening when they come back from foraging at sea. The men use a lasso which is supple rope with some weight at the end. When they find a bird, they throw their lasso up and it hits and drapes over the bird which fall on ground and is captured. Just like the bird catching, weightlifting is also part of the traditional sports in Nauru Island.

Nauru in Olympics Games:
Republic of Nauru has participated in certain international gaming competitions as well, some of the well know of them are the Summer Olympics Games of 1996 at Atlanta, Sydney Olympics in 2000, Athens Olympics in 2004 and the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

Nauru is famous for its weightlifters and all the seven athletes that took part in the Olympics were weightlifters.

It is worth mentioning here that Nauru is the smallest nation by population to be a part of the 202 members of International Olympics committee.

Marcus Stephen was the first male athlete from Nauru to take part in the Olympics games, he participated in 1996 and 2000 Olympics games. And Sheba Pao was the first Nauruan female athlete to participate in the Olympics; she took part in the 2000 Olympics games.