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Sports Quiz — 50 Questions with Answers

5 rounds · 50 questions

Round 1 of 5 · Question 1 of 50

The Olympics

Who founded the modern Olympic Games?

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Every question, answer and explanation

The Olympics

  1. Who founded the modern Olympic Games?

    Answer Pierre de Coubertin

    A French educator who believed physical education had made the difference in national fortunes, and who designed the rings himself. His revival was the third or fourth such attempt in the nineteenth century — the earlier ones simply did not last.

  2. How many rings are on the Olympic flag?

    Answer Five

    Five, and the colors were chosen so that every national flag in use at the time contained at least one of them, counting the white background. The rings do not stand for individual continents in any official sense.

  3. The Summer Games are held every how many years?

    Answer Four

    Four, and the interval has its own name — an Olympiad. The numbering counts intervals rather than celebrations, which is why the Games canceled by war still occupy their number in the sequence.

  4. What is the official marathon distance?

    Answer 42.195 km

    Just over forty-two kilometers, and the exact figure is an accident of one particular race rather than a round number anyone chose. A later question in this quiz says which one.

  5. Olympic gold medals are mostly made of what metal?

    Answer Silver with gold plating

    Silver with a gold coating — the rules require at least six grams of gold on a medal that is otherwise mostly silver. Solid gold was last awarded in 1912.

  6. Where is the Olympic flame traditionally lit?

    Answer Olympia, Greece

    Olympia in Greece, lit from the sun with a curved mirror. A backup flame is lit at a rehearsal days earlier in case the sky is overcast, which it often is.

  7. Triathlon combines swimming, cycling and what?

    Answer Running

    Running, and the order is fixed for a practical reason: the least safe discipline to do while exhausted comes first, and the one you can survive on tired legs comes last.

  8. Which city was the first to host the Summer Games three times?

    Answer London

    London, in 1908, 1948 and 2012. The middle one was held while rationing was still in force, and athletes were asked to bring their own towels.

  9. The first modern Olympics (1896) were held where?

    Answer Athens

    Athens, and only about fourteen countries took part. Several winners were tourists who happened to be in the city and entered on the day.

  10. Which sport made its Olympic debut in 2021 alongside skateboarding?

    Answer Surfing

    Surfing, alongside skateboarding, sport climbing and karate. The host country of a Games can propose additional sports, which is why the list changes from one edition to the next.

Ball & Court

  1. How many basketball players are on court per team?

    Answer Five

    Five per side, which is fewer than most team sports and is why individual players matter so much more here than in football or rugby. The original 1891 game was played with nine a side.

  2. How many volleyball players are on court per team?

    Answer Six

    Six, arranged in two rows, and they rotate position every time they win the serve back. The rotation is the rule that makes the sport awkward to learn: everyone has to be able to play every position.

  3. In tennis, what is a score of zero called?

    Answer Love

    Love. The most repeated explanation derives it from the French for egg, from the shape of a zero, and it has never been established — the earliest English uses simply have the word with no explanation attached.

  4. Which of these is NOT a tennis Grand Slam?

    Answer The Miami Open

    The four are the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open. Winning all four in one calendar year is rare enough that it has happened only a handful of times in either singles draw.

  5. How many feathers does a badminton shuttlecock have?

    Answer Sixteen

    Sixteen, and all sixteen must come from the same wing of the same kind of bird so that they curve identically. That is why a shuttlecock spins in a consistent direction in flight.

  6. A table tennis game is played first to how many points?

    Answer Eleven

    Eleven. It was twenty-one until 2001, when the sport shortened games to make matches better suited to television — one of the clearer cases of broadcast changing the rules of a sport.

  7. In golf, one stroke under par on a hole is called a...?

    Answer Birdie

    A birdie, from American slang around 1900 where a bird meant something excellent. The other bird names — eagle, albatross — were invented afterward to extend the joke.

  8. How many handball players are on court per team?

    Answer Seven

    Seven, six outfield and a goalkeeper, and substitutions are unlimited and made on the run. That combination is what gives the sport its pace compared with other indoor codes.

  9. A baseball team fields how many players?

    Answer Nine

    Nine, and the positions are numbered rather than named in scorekeeping — which is why a double play can be written as a short sequence of digits and understood by anyone.

  10. In rugby union, how many players are on each side?

    Answer Fifteen

    Fifteen. The other main code of rugby uses thirteen, and the split happened in 1895 over whether players could be paid for time off work — a division about class rather than about rules.

Athletics & Water

  1. What is Usain Bolt's 100m world record?

    Answer 9.58 seconds

    9.58 seconds, set in 2009. His top speed during it was over forty-four kilometers an hour, and he covered his fastest twenty-meter stretch in under 0.82 seconds.

  2. Hurdles, javelin and long jump all belong to which sport?

    Answer Athletics

    Athletics, which covers running, jumping and throwing. It is the largest sport at the Games by number of events, and the only one that has been on every modern program.

  3. Which stroke opens the individual medley in swimming?

    Answer Butterfly

    Butterfly. The order is butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle — arranged so that no swimmer has to change direction of the body mid-race except once.

  4. How many events make up a decathlon?

    Answer Ten

    Ten, spread over two days. The winner has traditionally been called the world's greatest athlete, a phrase attributed to a king addressing the 1912 champion.

  5. The marathon distance was fixed at which Games?

    Answer London 1908

    London in 1908. The course ran from Windsor Castle to the stadium, and the extra distance beyond twenty-six miles was added so that the finish line lay in front of the royal box.

  6. How many Olympic gold medals did Michael Phelps win in total?

    Answer Twenty-three

    Twenty-three golds and twenty-eight medals in all, more than most countries have won in the sport. His total is roughly double that of the next most decorated Olympian in any discipline.

  7. The 4x100 medley relay starts with which stroke?

    Answer Backstroke

    Backstroke, and the reason is mechanical rather than traditional: backstroke is the only stroke that starts in the water, so putting it first avoids a change of starting position mid-relay.

  8. In a relay, the baton must change hands within...?

    Answer The exchange zone

    The exchange zone, which is twenty meters long. Teams practice the handover more than they practice running, because a fumbled baton costs more than any realistic difference in speed.

  9. The high jump technique named after a 1968 Olympic champion is the...?

    Answer Fosbury Flop

    The Fosbury Flop. He was not a favorite, his technique was mocked as a novelty, and within a decade essentially every high jumper in the world was using it.

  10. An Ironman triathlon finishes with a run of what distance?

    Answer A full marathon

    A full marathon, after a 3.8 kilometer swim and a 180 kilometer ride. The cut-off is seventeen hours, and the phrase used at the finish line is a trademark owned by the race organizer.

Winter & Combat

  1. Which winter sport involves sweeping the ice with brooms?

    Answer Curling

    Curling. Sweeping briefly melts a film of water in front of the stone, which reduces friction and can extend its travel by several meters — so the sweepers are steering as much as cleaning.

  2. How many ice hockey players are on the ice per team, goalie included?

    Answer Six

    Six including the goaltender, and teams change players while play continues rather than at stoppages. That rolling substitution is why shifts last under a minute.

  3. The highest score in a judo match is called...?

    Answer Ippon

    Ippon, and it ends the contest immediately regardless of the score. Few sports have a single action that stops everything, which is part of why the sport rewards attacking over accumulating points.

  4. A four-rotation jump in figure skating is called a...?

    Answer Quad

    A quad, four full rotations completed in under a second. The height gained is barely more than for a triple — what changes is how fast the skater rotates once in the air.

  5. Which of these is NOT a Winter Olympic sport?

    Answer Triathlon

    Triathlon is a summer sport. The winter program has its own version on snow, but the swimming leg makes the original impossible in the conditions.

  6. What shape is a boxing ring?

    Answer Square

    Square, despite the name. Early prizefights were held inside a circle drawn on the ground or formed by spectators, and the word survived the change of shape.

  7. Ski jumping is scored on distance and what else?

    Answer Style

    Style, judged by five officials whose highest and lowest scores are discarded. Wind and gate conditions are also compensated for numerically, so the published score is an adjusted figure rather than a raw one.

  8. Taekwondo became a full Olympic sport at which Games?

    Answer Sydney 2000

    Sydney in 2000, having been a demonstration sport twice before. It is one of only two Olympic combat sports that award points for kicks to the head.

  9. How does a skeleton athlete ride the sled?

    Answer Head-first, face down

    Head-first and face down, reaching well over a hundred kilometers an hour with no brakes and no steering mechanism — direction comes from shifting shoulders and knees against the sled.

  10. A sumo wrestler loses by leaving the ring or by...?

    Answer Touching the ground with anything but the soles

    Touching the ground with anything but the soles of the feet. Bouts usually last only a few seconds, which is why the preparation ritual takes far longer than the contest.

Hard Mode

  1. What is the oldest tennis tournament in the world?

    Answer Wimbledon

    Wimbledon, first held in 1877, and the only one of the four majors still played on grass. The surface is the reason its matches are historically shorter and its serve-dominated eras more pronounced.

  2. Who invented basketball?

    Answer James Naismith

    James Naismith, who invented it in 1891 to keep students active indoors during a New England winter. The first baskets were peach baskets with their bottoms intact, so someone had to fetch the ball after every score.

  3. Who invented volleyball?

    Answer William Morgan

    William Morgan, who designed it in 1895 as a gentler alternative for men who found the new game of basketball too strenuous. It was originally called mintonette.

  4. Which event is NOT part of the modern pentathlon?

    Answer Archery

    Archery. The five are fencing, swimming, riding, shooting and running, chosen to represent the skills a nineteenth-century cavalry officer might need behind enemy lines.

  5. The Olympic motto 'Citius, Altius, Fortius' means...?

    Answer Faster, Higher, Stronger

    Faster, higher, stronger — and since 2021 a fourth word meaning together was added, the first change to the motto since it was adopted.

  6. Nadia Comaneci scored the first Olympic perfect 10 in which sport?

    Answer Gymnastics

    Gymnastics, in 1976. The scoreboard had not been built to display a ten, so it showed 1.00 and the crowd had to be told what had happened.

  7. The America's Cup is contested in which sport?

    Answer Sailing

    Sailing. The trophy is older than the modern Olympics — first contested in 1851 — which makes it the oldest international trophy in sport still being competed for.

  8. The Ryder Cup is contested between the USA and...?

    Answer Europe

    Europe. Until 1979 the American side played Great Britain and Ireland, and the field was widened to the whole continent because the contest had become too one-sided to be interesting.

  9. A perfect game in ten-pin bowling scores how many points?

    Answer 300

    Three hundred, from twelve consecutive strikes. The count works out that way because a strike scores ten plus the next two balls, so early strikes are worth more than they appear.

  10. The overall leader of the Tour de France wears which jersey?

    Answer Yellow

    Yellow, and the usual explanation is that it matched the paper the newspaper organizing the race was printed on. The race exists because that newspaper wanted circulation, which is true of several major sporting events.

About the Sports Quiz

Sport produces the deepest and narrowest knowledge there is. A person can carry twenty years of one league in their head — line-ups, records, the exact sequence of a final that happened before they were born — and be unable to say how many players stand on a volleyball court. Nobody is embarrassed by this, and nobody should be, but it does mean a general sports quiz behaves differently from every other kind: the specialists do badly and the magpies do well.

Fifty questions in five rounds of ten: the Olympics, ball and court games, athletics and water, winter and combat sports, and a hard round. Four options each, with the answer shown as you pick. Soccer is not here at all — it has a quiz of its own, because a sport with that much history in it would have eaten half of these fifty questions and left the other twenty sports fighting over the rest.

The questions favor the parts of sport that stay still: how many players, how long a course is, where a sport was invented and by whom, what a scoring term means. Current records are largely left alone, partly because they move and partly because they are the least interesting thing a sport knows about itself. The Olympic round leads because it is the one event that briefly turns everybody into a fan of disciplines they will not think about again for four years.

How it works
  1. Choose from four options with no clock running, and read to the end — a couple of questions turn on a single word.
  2. The answer is marked immediately and lingers when you get it wrong. Tap anywhere to skip ahead once you have read it.
  3. Rounds arrive every ten questions and jump between sports on purpose: nobody follows all five, and the jumps are where the score is decided.
  4. The result gives you fifty points broken into five round scores, which is the honest picture — a specialist and a generalist can finish on the same total and have almost nothing in common.
  5. Below the quiz the fifty questions sit with their answers in round order — that is where you go back to the sport that left you blank, or borrow a few to ask someone else.

Frequently asked questions

Why is there no soccer in a sports quiz?

Because it would have taken over. One sport with a century of tournaments, transfers and rules disputes can fill fifty questions on its own, and once it took ten of these it would have crowded out an entire other discipline. It has a separate quiz where it can have all the room it needs, which also means this set can give a full round to winter and combat sports without apologizing for it.

Are the records in here current?

The set leans away from records for exactly that reason, and where one appears it is a long-standing mark rather than something set last season. Rules, dimensions, origins and terminology make better questions anyway: they are the things a sport agrees on about itself, and they do not need rechecking every year.

Do I have to have played these sports?

No. Almost everything here is available to somebody who has only ever watched, and the origin questions are simply history. If anything, having played one sport seriously is a mild disadvantage — deep knowledge of one discipline does nothing for the other four rounds and can make the gaps feel worse than they are.

Is it mostly Olympic sports?

One round of five is explicitly the Games, and the athletics, water and winter questions naturally overlap with them, so roughly half the set has an Olympic connection. The ball and court round is where the professional leagues live, and the hard round goes wherever it likes, including sailing, cycling and ten-pin bowling.

What would a good all-round sports fan score?

Thirty. Below twenty-five almost always means the score came from one or two rounds and collapsed elsewhere, which is the normal shape for a real sports fan rather than a sign of ignorance. Anyone clearing forty follows sport in general rather than a team in particular, which is a rarer habit than it sounds.

Is the Sports Quiz free, and do I need an account?

Free, with no account and no email. The fifty questions and the answer list below both load with the page, which is how people end up using it to run a round at a club night rather than only to play alone. Nothing you tap leaves the tab or is sent anywhere.

How long does the Sports Quiz take?

Nine minutes or so for the fifty. The rounds are the Olympics, ball and court sports, athletics and water, winter and combat, then the hard set — five separate territories, which is why a fan of one sport can score the same as somebody who follows none of them closely.