The UEFA Champions League is an annual club association football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by top-division European clubs. The competition begins with a round robin group stage to qualify for the double-legged knockout rounds, and a single-leg final. It is the most-watched club competition in the world and the third most-watched football competition overall, behind only the UEFA European Championship and the FIFA World Cup. It is one of the most prestigious football tournaments in the world and the most prestigious club competition in European football, played by the national league champions of their national associations.
1. Fußball-Club Kaiserslautern e. V., also known as 1. FCK, FCK, FC Kaiserslautern, K'lautern or colloquially Lautern, is a German sports club based in Kaiserslautern, Rhineland-Palatinate. In addition to football, the club also operates in several other sports.
Football is the most popular sport in Germany with 57% of the population declaring interest in watching it. The German Football Association is the sport's national governing body, with 6.6 million members organized in over 31,000 football clubs. There is a league system, with the Bundesliga, 2. Bundesliga and 3. Liga on top. The winner of the Bundesliga is crowned the German football champion. Additionally, there are national cup competitions, most notably the DFB-Pokal and DFL-Supercup.
1. SC Göttingen 05 is a German football club based in Göttingen, Lower Saxony. The club is the second to use that name.
Sportin Germany is an important part of German culture and their society. In 2006 about 28 million people were members of the more than 87.000 sport clubs in Germany. Almost all sports clubs are represented by the German Olympic Sports Federation.
Lahnau is a municipality in the Lahn-Dill-Kreis in Hesse, Germany, and lies about midway – about 6 km each way – between the towns of Wetzlar and Gießen.
Sport is considered a national pastime in Finland and many Finns visit different sporting events regularly. Pesäpallo is the national sport of Finland, although the most popular forms of sport in terms of television viewers and media coverage are ice hockey and Formula One. In spectator attendance, harness racing comes right after ice hockey in popularity.
Powerchair football, also known as Power Soccer, is a variant of association football for people with physical disabilities. Players use specially designed powered wheelchairs in order to maneuver and kick/hit an oversized football. The game is played in a gymnasium on a regulation basketball court. Two teams of four players use powerchairs equipped with footguards to attack, defend, and spin-kick a 13-inch (330 mm) football in an attempt to score goals.
Sport in Europe tends to be highly organized with many sports having professional leagues. The origins of many of the world's most popular sports today lie in the codification of many traditional games, especially in the United Kingdom. However, a paradoxical feature of European sport is the extent to which local, regional and national variations continue to exist, and even in some instances to predominate.
Steven Dillon Serio is a wheelchair basketball player. As a co-captain of the USA Men's National Wheelchair Basketball Team, he led the American men to their first Paralympic gold medal since 1988 at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympic Games and defended the gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics. He currently plays for the New York Rolling Knicks in the NWBA Championship Division.
Gesche Schünemann is a German former wheelchair basketball player and Paralympian who was part of the team that took the silver medal in the women's wheelchair basketball at the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing, and the gold medal-winning team in wheelchair basketball at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London.
Justin Cain Eveson, OAM is an Australian swimmer and wheelchair basketball player who has won Paralympic medals in both sports.
Troy Sachs, OAM is an Australian wheelchair basketball player. He competed at five Paralympic Games from 1992 to 2008, where he won three medals. Sachs won two national league championships in Australia, three national league championships in the United States, one national league championship in Germany, and an André Vergauwen Cup championship with Italian club Tabu Cantu.
Michael Auprince, is an Australian swimmer and wheelchair basketball player. He set several swimming records and was selected to represent Australia at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London in swimming, where he won gold and bronze medals. He represented the Rollers team at the 2020 Summer Paralympics. Michael is currently on the coaching staff of the University of Alabama Wheelchair Basketball team.
Annabel Breuer is a wheelchair fencer and 1.5 point wheelchair basketball player. She has played for SKV Ravensburg and Sabres Ulm in the German wheelchair basketball league. In December 2012 she was contracted to play for first division club RSV Lahn-Dill as well as Sabres Ulm. She has also played the national team, with which she won two European titles, was runner-up at 2010 World Championships, and won a gold medal at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London. After the London Games, President Joachim Gauck awarded the team Germany's highest sporting honour, the Silbernes Lorbeerblatt.
Britt Dillmann is a 1.0-point wheelchair basketball forward, who plays for RSV Lahn-Dill in the German wheelchair basketball league. She has also played for the national team, winning a silver medal at the 1988 Summer Paralympics in Seoul. She retired soon afterwards, but staged a comeback in 2011, rejoining the national team, which went on to win the European championships, and then a gold medal at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London. President Joachim Gauck awarded the team Germany's highest sporting honour, the Silbernes Lorbeerblatt.
Annika Zeyen-Giles is a former 1.5-point wheelchair basketball player, who has played for ASV Bonn, RSV Lahn-Dill and BG Baskets Hamburg in the German wheelchair basketball league, and for the University of Alabama in the United States. She has represented her country a total of 382 times in which she won six European titles, was the runner-up at 2010 and 2014 World Championships, won silver medals at the 2008 Summer Paralympic Games in Beijing and 2016 Summer Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro, and won a gold medal at the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London, for which President Joachim Gauck awarded the team Germany's highest sporting honour, the Silbernes Lorbeerblatt . Following the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games, Zeyen retired from wheelchair basketball to pursue alternative sporting challenges as an individual athlete.
The FCK Rolling Devils was a wheelchair basketball club located in Kaiserslautern with German soccer club 1. FC Kaiserslautern acted as name sponsor till 2020. Their first team played in the Rollstuhlbasketball-Bundesliga from 2014 to 2016.
Club Deportivo Ilunion, formerly known as Club Deportivo Fundosa ONCE, is a wheelchair basketball team based in Madrid, Spain.
