Basketball was invented by James W. Naismith to keep his students fit during the winter. In December 1891, the physical education teacher at the YMCA International Training School in Springfield, USA sought a suitable indoor sport for his students, and plenty of the rules for the game he created still apply today. The first international games were played in the 1920s, and the first world championships took place in the 1950s.
Brief overview of the rules
Basketball is a sport played by two opposing teams of five players on a rectangular indoor court. Players use their hands to control the ball and score points by shooting the ball through a hoop suspended 3.05m (10 feet) above the ground. Olympic basketball games are divided into four 10-minute quarters. Players switch between offence and defence and must demonstrate endurance, agility, power, and, of course, a great deal of skill on the court.
Olympic history
Basketball first featured at the Olympic Games as a demonstration sport at the St. Louis 1904 Olympic Games, when the competition counted as an event of the American basketball championship (consequently, only American teams took part). Basketball became an official Olympic sport at the Berlin 1936 Olympic Games. Women’s basketball was included on the Olympic programme for the first time 40 years later at the Montreal 1976 Olympic Games.
Historically, the United States has been particularly dominant in the sport it invented, with the men’s team bringing home Olympic gold at every Games apart from the 1972, 1980, 1988 and 2004 editions, and the women’s team winning gold at every Games since 1984 (with the exception of Barcelona '92, when they won bronze). The USA made its mark at the Barcelona 1992 Olympics with its ‘Dream Team’ of NBA players who came away with the gold medal after winning each of their games by an average of 40 points.
