Primary
Each football team has 11 players on the pitch.
Did You Know? Sports Facts for Students
Fun sports facts about football, the Olympics, chess and Arab and world champions, for students.
62 facts3 stages
Tip for school assemblies: pick 5 to 7 facts from different subjects and start each one with "Did you know that...".
Facts for Primary students
Primary
Each basketball team has 5 players on the court.
Primary
Each volleyball team has 6 players on the court.
Primary
The five Olympic rings are blue, yellow, black, green and red.
Primary
The FIFA World Cup is held once every four years.
Primary
A football match lasts 90 minutes, split into two halves of 45 minutes.
Primary
Swimming is a sport that uses most of the body's muscles.
Primary
A marathon is 42.195 kilometres long.
Primary
Chess began in India around the 6th century.
Primary
Table tennis is also called 'ping-pong'.
Primary
In tennis, the word 'love' means a score of zero.
Primary
A golf ball has small dimples that help it fly farther.
Primary
The first World Cup was held in Uruguay in 1930, and Uruguay won it.
Primary
A chessboard has 64 squares.
Primary
A basketball hoop is 3.05 metres above the floor.
Primary
Each chess player starts with 16 pieces.
Primary
Horse riding, archery and swimming were well-known sports among the Arabs in the past.
Primary
The Olympic flame is lit in Olympia, Greece, before every Games.
Primary
A set in volleyball is won by reaching 25 points with a lead of at least two.
Primary
The Japanese word 'karate' means 'empty hand'.
Primary
Brazil has won the FIFA World Cup five times.
Facts for Middle school students
Middle school
James Naismith invented basketball in 1891.
Middle school
William Morgan invented volleyball in 1895.
Middle school
The marathon distance of 42.195 km became official in 1921, based on the race at the 1908 London Olympics.
Middle school
Usain Bolt set the 100-metre world record of 9.58 seconds in 2009.
Middle school
The Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin revived the Olympic Games in modern times.
Middle school
In 2022 Morocco became the first Arab and African team to reach a World Cup semi-final.
Middle school
Qatar hosted the 2022 World Cup, the first World Cup held in the Arab world.
Middle school
Video assistant referee (VAR) technology was used at a World Cup for the first time in 2018.
Middle school
Each handball team has 7 players on court, including the goalkeeper.
Middle school
Yellow and red cards were first used in football at the 1970 World Cup.
Middle school
A football pitch for international matches is between 100 and 110 metres long.
Middle school
Tennis's four Grand Slam tournaments are the Australian Open, Roland Garros, Wimbledon and the US Open.
Middle school
Wimbledon is the oldest tennis tournament in the world, first held in 1877.
Middle school
The first Paralympic Games were held in Rome in 1960.
Middle school
Jordan's national team reached the AFC Asian Cup final for the first time in its history in 2024.
Middle school
Moroccan runner Hicham El Guerrouj has held the 1,500-metre world record since 1998.
Middle school
The usual maximum break in a single visit in snooker is 147 points.
Middle school
Sumo wrestling is Japan's traditional national sport.
Middle school
A badminton shuttlecock can travel faster than 400 km/h in a smash.
Middle school
The Tour de France cycling race was first held in 1903.
Facts for Secondary students
Secondary
The ancient Olympic Games went on for more than a thousand years, from 776 BC to about AD 393.
Secondary
Women took part in the modern Olympic Games for the first time at Paris 1900.
Secondary
Romanian gymnast Nadia Comăneci scored the first perfect 10 in Olympic gymnastics in 1976.
Secondary
The International Football Association Board (IFAB), founded in 1886, writes and updates the Laws of the Game.
Secondary
FIFA was founded in Paris in 1904.
Secondary
The Olympic motto is 'Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together', with 'Together' added in 2021.
Secondary
Egyptian weightlifter El Sayed Nosseir won gold at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics, one of the first Arab gold medals.
Secondary
Ahmad Abughaush won Jordan's first Olympic gold medal, in taekwondo at Rio 2016.
Secondary
The first Asian Games were held in New Delhi in 1951.
Secondary
Fast-twitch muscle fibres help with sprinting, while slow-twitch fibres help with endurance events.
Secondary
Training at high altitude makes the body produce more red blood cells.
Secondary
The term 'hat-trick' came from cricket in the 19th century.
Secondary
In the 10th century Abu Bakr al-Suli was one of the most famous chess players at the Abbasid court.
Secondary
The Ballon d'Or was first awarded in 1956.
Secondary
The 'Fosbury Flop', jumping backwards over the bar, transformed the high jump from the 1968 Olympics onwards.
Secondary
The longest tennis match in history lasted more than 11 hours over three days at Wimbledon in 2010.
Secondary
An Olympic gold medal is made mostly of silver and plated with gold.
Secondary
Endurance horse races can be as long as 160 kilometres in a single day.
Secondary
The World Anti-Doping Agency was founded in 1999.
Secondary
The Olympic Games were cancelled in 1916, 1940 and 1944 because of the two World Wars.
Secondary
Modern football analytics measure things like expected goals to judge the quality of chances.