Sport in the Netherlands Sport in the Netherlands Approximately 4.5 million of the 16 million people in the Netherlands are registered to one of the 35,000 sports clubs in the country. About two thirds of the population older than 15 years participates in sports weekly. Football, or soccer, is the most popular sport in the Netherlands, with field hockey and volleyball as the second and third most popular team sports. Ice-skating, tennis, gymnastics and golf are the four most widely played individual sports. A number of native Dutch sports are also practiced, such as fierljeppen (Polsstokverspringen), beugelen, kaatsen, klootschieten, kolven and korfball. Organization of
Sports Studies in France and the national network is completed with at least one second level school per French départment containing a sport-étude section. The sports-études sections ensure the basic learning foundations, but these must be carried out in one of the specialised centres for a particular sport. Each sports federation in France who is attributed a high level label by both the minister for sports and the national commission of that sport, has several of these centres or poles. The National Institute of Sport and Physical Education (Institut national du sport et de l'éducation physique), INSEP, houses several of these poles. In certain,