Sport in Croatia to some extent table tennis and chess. Various amateur sport games are popular in Croatia, notably picigin. Franjo Bučar (1866–1946) is widely considered to be the father of modern Croatian sport. He founded the Croatian Sports Federation in 1909 within what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Bučar introduced a multitude of mainstream sports in Croatia, such as football, alpine skiing, ice skating and ice hockey, as well as gymnastics and fencing. The Franjo Bučar State Award for Sport, the Republic of Croatia's highest award in the development of sport, is named in his honor. With the exception of the years
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,