Illustrative image. (source: TASR)
Historically, canoeists, sport shooters and ice-hockey players have won the most medals for Slovakia. While these sports are currently in decline in the country, there are others that are gaining on popularity instead; some of them are quite unconventional.
Year after year, the number of athletes in Slovakia is growing, as is the number of officially recognised sports and the amount of money that goes into them as well.
It may look like sports are in for good time in Slovakia, but when it comes to results, the professional sport is on a steep decline, as evidenced by the last Summer Olympics (Slovakia won only a single bronze medal - Ed. note).
The Sme daily looked at trends in the popularity of individual sports. The data comes from the Tourism and Sports Ministry, which collects various information on the popularity of sports so that it can redistribute state contributions based on them.
In 2016, there were 129,000 registered athletes under the age of 23 in recognised sports in Slovakia; in 2024, there were 148,000.
This number has been increasing every year. The only exception was the pandemic, when the number of athletes decreased slightly. However, some sports have been doing well even during the pandemic, such as mountaineering or roller skating.
The number of table tennis players and baseball players has also increased, and the popularity of arm wrestling has also increased.
Traditional sports in Slovakia can be divided into those whose popularity is increasing - football, basketball, tennis, swimming sports - and those whose popularity is stagnating - ice-hockey, cycling, sports shooting.
And there are those with the number of athletes decreasing, including athletics, gymnastics, volleyball, canoeing, which has probably been the most successful sport in Slovakia medal-wise in the last 20 years.
Cheerleading now a sport
Some traditional sports are being replaced by new and unconventional ones.
