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Popular sports
With nature on our doorstep, almost wherever you are, it’s not too surprising that we like doing sports outside. There’s a growing trend of outdoor gyms opening in and around Swedish cities, and the list of Swedes’ ten preferred sports activities also show outdoorsy tendencies:
Top 10 activities
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Football is hugely popular, with more than one million Swedes –roughly one in ten (!) – playing football every year. Perhaps a combined effect of Zlatan Ibrahimović ’s stardom and the success of the Swedish women’s football team, one of the world’s top teams since the early 2000s.
Hockey is another national sport of ours. We have a top-tier league of our own, but a lot of young players go abroad – most notably to North America, where many have made their way onto the NHL AllStar Team. Ice hockey is one of the most male-dominated sports in Sweden and riding one of the most female-dominated.
Sports for the people
Swedish non-profit sports association Friskis&Svettis has an emphasis on keeping people fit and healthy. Founded in 1978, the association now has more than 500,000 members, which equals more than 5 per cent of the Swedish population.
of the Swedish population play football every year.
