Poland's sports include almost all sporting disciplines, in particular: football, volleyball, motorcycle speedway, ski jumping, track and field, handball, basketball, tennis, and combat sport. The first Polish Formula One driver, Robert Kubica, has brought awareness of Formula One Racing to Poland. Volleyball is one of the country's most popular sports, with a rich history of international competition. Poland has made a distinctive mark in motorcycle speedway racing thanks to Tomasz Gollob, Jaroslaw Hampel, Bartosz Zmarzlik, Maciej Janowski and Rune Holta. Speedway is very popular in Poland. They won the world cup (2014), and the Polish Extraleague has the highest average attendances for any sport in Poland. The Polish mountains are an ideal venue for hiking, skiing and mountain biking and attract millions of tourists every year from all over the world.
Cross country skiing and ski jumping are popular TV sports, gathering 4–5 million viewers each competition, with Justyna Kowalczyk, Dawid Kubacki, Adam Małysz and Kamil Stoch as the main attractions. Baltic beaches and resorts are popular locations for fishing, canoeing, kayaking and a broad-range of other water-themed sports.
St. Hubertus race in Łódź, Poland
Robert Lewandowski in 2018
Bartosz Kurek
Popular Spodek sport's complex in Katowice
Justyna Kowalczyk-Tekieli
Justyna Maria Kowalczyk-Tekieli is a Polish cross-country skier who has been competing since 2000.
Kowalczyk is a double Olympic Champion and a double World Champion. She is also the only skier to win the Tour de Ski four times in a row and one of two female skiers to win the FIS Cross-Country World Cup three times in a row. Kowalczyk holds the all-time record for wins in the Tour de Ski with 14, and had 29 podiums in total. She also won the Vasaloppet women's edition in 2015.
Justyna Kowalczyk-Tekieli
Justyna Kowalczyk celebrates the gold medal in the women's 30 km classical event at the 2010 Olympics.
Justyna Kowalczyk (middle) in 2013 alongside Marit Bjørgen and Kerttu Niskanen.