Watching and playing sports is an important part of culture in

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdo ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

where almost six out of ten (59%) of the adult population regularly participate in one or more sports. Belfast has several notable sports teams playing a diverse variety of sports including football (

Windsor Park Windsor Park is a football stadium in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is the home ground of Linfield F.C. who own the land the stadium is built on, while the Irish Football Association own and operate the stadium and pay Linfield an annual rent ...

being the home of the

Northern Ireland national football team The Northern Ireland national football team represents Northern Ireland in international association football. From 1882 to 1920, all of Ireland was represented by a single side, the Ireland national football team (1882–1950), Ireland natio ...

as well as

Linfield F.C. Linfield Football Club is a Northern Irish professional football club based in south Belfast which plays in the NIFL Premiership – the highest level of the Northern Ireland Football League. The fourth-oldest club on the island of Ireland, Li ...

), rugby (including at Ravenhill's

Kingspan Stadium Kingspan Group plc is a building materials company based in Ireland trading in over 70 countries with 159 factories employing over 15,000 people. The company operates with five divisions; Insulated Panels, Insulation, Light & Air, Water & Energy, ...

, home of former European champions

Ulster Rugby Ulster Rugby is one of the four professional provincial rugby teams from the island of Ireland. They compete in the United Rugby Championship and the European Rugby Champions Cup. The team represents the IRFU Ulster Branch, which is one of ...

), traditional Irish Gaelic games, and North American sports such as American football and ice hockey (at the SSE Arena where the multiple time

Elite Ice Hockey League The Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL), sometimes referred to as the British Elite League or, for sponsorship reasons, the Viaplay Elite League, is an ice hockey league in the United Kingdom. Formed in 2003 following the demise of the Ice Hockey ...

champion

Belfast Giants The Belfast Giants (known officially as the Stena Line Belfast Giants due to sponsorship) are a professional ice hockey team based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. They compete in the UK's Elite Ice Hockey League (EIHL) and are the current cham ...

are based. The

Belfast Marathon The Belfast City Marathon takes place in Belfast in Northern Ireland. The organisers describe it as the "largest mass sport participatory event in Northern Ireland" with between 15,000 and 18,000 participants taking part in several events. These ...

is run annually on May Day, and attracted 14,300 participants in 2007. Cycling, triathlon and athletics are also popular as both participation and spectator sports, with the first two stages of the

2014 Giro d'Italia The 2014 Giro d'Italia was the 97th running of the Giro d'Italia, one of cycling's Grand Tour races. The race started off in Belfast, on 9 May, with a team time trial and concluded in Trieste, on 1 June, with a flat stage. A total of 198 r ...

starting from Belfast City Centre, and the annual high profile

Belfast International Cross Country The Antrim International Cross Country, formerly the Belfast International Cross Country, is an annual cross country running meeting which takes place every January in Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is one of the IAAF's cross country permit meet ...

event being held in the grounds of Stormont Castle every year until 2009. The Stormont Estate is also one of the four home grounds for the

Ireland cricket team The Ireland cricket team represents all of Ireland in international cricket. The Irish Cricket Union, operating under the brand Cricket Ireland is the sport's governing body in Ireland, and organises the international team. Ireland participa ...

, alongside Bready, Malahide and Clontarf, and also hosts the Northern Cricket Union provincial teams.

Football

The

, ranked 54th in the February 2019

FIFA World Rankings The FIFA Men's World Ranking is a ranking system for men's national teams in association football, led by Brazil . The teams of the men's member nations of FIFA, football's world governing body, are ranked based on their game results with the ...

plays its home matches at

. Belfast was the home town of the renowned

Northern Irish Northern Irish people is a demonym for all people born in Northern Ireland or people who are entitled to reside in Northern Ireland without any restriction on their period of residence. Most Northern Irish people either identify as Northern ...

footballer,

George Best George Best (22 May 1946 – 25 November 2005) was a Northern Irish professional footballer who played as a winger, spending most of his club career at Manchester United. A highly skilful dribbler, Best is regarded as one of the greatest pla ...

who died in November 2005. On the day he was buried in the city, 100,000 people lined the route from his home on the Cregagh Road to Roselawn cemetery. Since his death the

City Airport The City airport is an umbrella term used to refer to airports - international, regional or otherwise - that are extremely close - generally walking distance - to the city centre. This discounts any airport that has "city" in the name, like Kansas C ...

has been named after him and a trust has been set up to fund a memorial to him in the city centre. Four NIFL Irish League

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

teams are based in Belfast;

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...

Cliftonville F.C. Cliftonville Football & Athletic Club is a Northern Irish, semi-professional association football club playing in the NIFL Premiership – the top division of the Northern Ireland Football League. The club was founded in September 1879 by John ...

Glentoran Glentoran Football Club is a professional football club that plays in the NIFL Premiership. The club was founded in 1882. History Early history In 1914, Glentoran won the Vienna Cup, becoming the first United Kingdom team to win a European t ...

, and

NIFL Championship The Northern Ireland Football League Championship (known as the Lough 41 Championship for sponsorship reasons) is the second level of the Northern Ireland Football League, the national football league in Northern Ireland. Clubs in the Championshi ...

teams include Dundela, Harland & Wolff Welders F.C.,

Knockbreda F.C. Knockbreda Football Club (formerly Knockbreda Parish) is a semi-professional, Northern Irish football club playing in the NIFL Championship. They hail from Belfast and play their home matches at Breda Park, on the Upper Braniel Road located in ...

and

PSNI F.C. PSNI Football Club is an intermediate, Northern Irish football club playing in the NIFL Premier Intermediate League. The club is associated with the Police Service of Northern Ireland, and its home ground is Newforge Lane in Belfast. History I ...

Intermediate-level clubs Queen's University, Newington Youth and Sport & Leisure Swifts compete in the

NIFL Premier Intermediate League The NIFL Premier Intermediate League is the third division of the Northern Ireland Football League, the national association football league in Northern Ireland, and the highest intermediate division in Northern Ireland, occupying level three in ...

Albert Foundry F.C. Albert Foundry Football Club is a Northern Irish, intermediate football club from Belfast playing in Division 1A of the Northern Amateur Football League. Its home ground Paisley Park on the West Circular Road. As well as the first team, there is ...

, Bloomfield F.C., Colin Valley,

Crumlin Star F.C. Crumlin Star Football Club is an intermediate, Northern Irish association football club based in Belfast, and playing in the Premier Division of the Northern Amateur Football League. The club plays in black. History The club, based at the Cru ...

, Dunmurry Rec.,

Dunmurry Young Men F.C. Dunmurry Young Men Football Club is a Northern Ireland, Northern Irish, intermediate football club playing in Division 1B of the Northern Amateur Football League. The club is based in Dunmurry in Belfast, and was formed in 1955. The club plays ...

East Belfast F.C. East Belfast Football Club is a Northern Irish, intermediate football club playing in the Premier Division of the Northern Amateur Football League. The club is based in East Belfast. Long-standing members of the Amateur League, they have been cha ...

Grove United F.C. Grove United Football Club is a Northern Irish intermediate football club playing in Division 1A of the Northern Amateur Football League. The club hails from north Belfast and began life as the 40th (Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal ...

Immaculata F.C. Immaculata Football Club is an intermediate, Northern Ireland association football club based in west Belfast and playing in the Premier Division of the Northern Amateur Football League. The club plays in sky blue and plays home games at Grosv ...

, Iveagh United, Malachians F.C., Orangefield Old Boys,

Rosario Youth Club F.C. Rosario Youth Football Club (also known as Rosario Y.C.) is a Northern Ireland, Northern Irish, intermediate football club playing in the Premier division of the Northern Amateur Football League.The club has three senior teams competing in the ...

, St Luke's, St Patrick's Young Men F.C.,

Shankill United F.C. Shankill United Football Club is a Northern Irish, intermediate football club playing in the Premier Division of the Northern Amateur Football League. They play their home matches at the Hammer pitch on Agnes Street in the Shankill area of Belf ...

Short Brothers F.C. Short Brothers Football Club, often referred to simply as Shorts is a Northern Irish intermediate football club playing in Division 1C of the Northern Amateur Football League. It is connected to the Short Brothers aerospace manufacturing compan ...

Sirocco Works F.C. Sirocco Works Football Club is a Northern Irish intermediate football club playing in Division 1A of the Northern Amateur Football League. Established in 1924, the club is the longest existing club in all the intermediate and junior divisions i ...

and

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

compete in the

Northern Amateur Football League The Northern Amateur Football League, also known as the Northern Amateur League and often simply as the Amateur League, is an association football league in Northern Ireland. It contains 13 divisions. These comprise four intermediate sections: ...

and

Brantwood Brantwood is a historic house museum in Cumbria, England, overlooking Coniston Water. It has been the home of a number of prominent people. The house and grounds are administered by a charitable trust, the house being a museum dedicated to Jo ...

Donegal Celtic Donegal Celtic Football Club is an intermediate football club based in Belfast, Northern Ireland who currently play in the Ballymena & Provincial Football League. The club, founded in 1970, plays its home matches at Donegal Celtic Park. Club co ...

and St James Swifts in the

Ballymena & Provincial League Ballymena ( ; from ga, an Baile Meánach , meaning 'the middle townland') is a town in County Antrim, Northern Ireland. It is part of the Borough of Mid and East Antrim. The town is built on land given to the Adair family by King Charles I i ...

. Notable defunct clubs include Belfast Celtic F.C., one of the most successful teams in Ireland until it withdrew permanently from the Irish League in 1949. The club was refounded in 2019 when Sport & Leisure Swifts F.C. rebranded.

Gaelic football and hurling

Gaelic football Gaelic football ( ga, Peil Ghaelach; short name '), commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA or Football is an Irish team sport. It is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score by kic ...

is the one of the most popular spectator sports in the island of Ireland.

Casement Park Casement Park ( ga, Páirc Mhic Asmaint) is the principal Gaelic games stadium in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and serves as the home ground of the Antrim football and hurling teams. It is located in Andersonstown Road in the west of the city ...

, in West Belfast has a capacity of 32,000 which makes it the second largest

Gaelic Athletic Association The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA; ga, Cumann Lúthchleas Gael ; CLG) is an Irish international amateur sporting and cultural organisation, focused primarily on promoting indigenous Gaelic games and pastimes, which include the traditional ...

ground in Ulster. It was named after Sir

Roger Casement Roger David Casement ( ga, Ruairí Dáithí Mac Easmainn; 1 September 1864 – 3 August 1916), known as Sir Roger Casement, CMG, between 1911 and 1916, was a diplomat and Irish nationalist executed by the United Kingdom for treason during Worl ...

, one of the revolutionaries of the

1916 Easter Rising The Easter Rising ( ga, Éirí Amach na Cásca), also known as the Easter Rebellion, was an armed insurrection in Ireland during Easter Week in April 1916. The Rising was launched by Irish republicans against British rule in Ireland with the a ...

. Home to

Antrim GAA Antrim may refer to: Boats * Antrim 20, an American sailboat design People * Donald Antrim (born 1958), American writer * "Henry Antrim", an alias used by Henry McCarty, better known as Billy the Kid, a 19th-century outlaw * Harry Antrim (188 ...

, Casement was regularly host to finals in the Ulster Hurling Championship, which Antrim dominated before it was suspended. Football finals, traditionally have been played in

Clones, County Monaghan Clones ( ; , meaning 'meadow of Eois') is a small town in western County Monaghan, Ireland. The area is part of the Border Region, earmarked for economic development by the Irish Government due to its currently below-average economic situation ...

. Queen's University and the

University of Ulster, Jordanstown sco, Ulstèr Universitie , image = Ulster University coat of arms.png , caption = , motto_lang = , mottoeng = , latin_name = Universitas Ulidiae , established = 1865 – Magee College 1953 - Magee Un ...

compete in the

Sigerson Cup The Sigerson Cup is the trophy for the premier Gaelic football championship among Higher Education institutions (Universities, Colleges and Institutes of Technology) in Ireland. It traditionally begins in mid January and ends in late February. ...

. This is the top division championship of university

in Ireland. They also compete in the

Fitzgibbon Cup The Fitzgibbon Cup ( ga, Corn Mhic Giobúin) is the trophy for the premier hurling championship among higher education institutions (universities, colleges and institutes of technology) in Ireland. The Fitzgibbon Cup competition is administered ...

, which is the

Hurling Hurling ( ga, iománaíocht, ') is an outdoor team game of ancient Gaelic Irish origin, played by men. One of Ireland's native Gaelic games, it shares a number of features with Gaelic football, such as the field and goals, the number of p ...

university championship equivalent.

Rugby Union

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...

European European, or Europeans, or Europeneans, may refer to: In general * ''European'', an adjective referring to something of, from, or related to Europe ** Ethnic groups in Europe ** Demographics of Europe ** European cuisine, the cuisines of Europe ...

champions

Ulster Ulster (; ga, Ulaidh or ''Cúige Uladh'' ; sco, label= Ulster Scots, Ulstèr or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional Irish provinces. It is made up of nine counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United King ...

, play at

Ravenhill Stadium Ravenhill Stadium (known as the Kingspan Stadium for sponsorship reasons) is a rugby stadium located in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is the home of Ulster Rugby. With the opening of a new stand for the 2014 Heineken Cup quarter-final against ...

in South Belfast. The All-Ireland League is the national league for the 50 senior

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

clubs in Ireland. There are three Belfast clubs in the league:

Malone Malone is an Irish surname. From the Irish "''Mael Eóin''", the name means a servant or a disciple of Saint John. People * Gilla Críst Ua Máel Eóin (died 1127), historian and Abbot of Clonmacnoise, Ó Maoil Eoin * Adrian Malone (1937–2 ...

and Queen's University (Division 2A) and

Belfast Harlequins Belfast Harlequins is a multi-sports club located off the Malone Road in south Belfast, Northern Ireland. The club name provides the overall umbrella for rugby union, men's and ladies' hockey, and squash. The club is associated on and off the fi ...

(Division 2B). The Ulster Senior League and the

Ulster Senior Cup The Ulster Senior Cup is a knock-out competition for senior rugby union teams in the province of Ulster. It is administered by Ulster Rugby. The most successful club is Queen's University with 23 wins. The current holders are City of Armagh RF ...

are also competitions entered by senior rugby clubs in

. There are seven junior clubs in Belfast: Belfast Met, CIYMS, Civil Service, Cooke, Grosvenor,

Instonians Instonians is a sports club based in Belfast, Northern Ireland, that incorporates rugby union, men's and ladies' hockey and cricket sections. There is also a golf society that plays under the Instonians name. Instonians Rugby Football, Cricke ...

and PSNI; and six schools play rugby:

Campbell College Campbell College located in Belfast, Northern Ireland and founded in 1894 comprises a preparatory school department (junior age) and a senior Northern Ireland 'Voluntary Grammar' school, the latter meaning, in terms of provision of education, a ...

Belfast Royal Academy The Belfast Royal Academy (commonly shortened to ) is the oldest school in the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland. It is a co-educational, non-denominational voluntary grammar school in north Belfast. The Academy is one of 8 schools in Northern ...

Grosvenor Grammar School Grosvenor Grammar School (formerly Grosvenor High School) is an 11–18 co-educational controlled grammar school and sixth form in Belfast, County Antrim, Northern Ireland. History Grosvenor Grammar School was founded in 1945 as Grosvenor Hi ...

Methodist College Belfast God with us , established = 1865 , type = Voluntary grammar , religion = Interdenominational , principal = Jenny Lendrum , chair_label = Chairwoman , chair = Revd. Dr Janet Unsworth , founder ...

Royal Belfast Academical Institution The Royal Belfast Academical Institution is an independent grammar school in Belfast, Northern Ireland. With the support of Belfast's leading reformers and democrats, it opened its doors in 1814. Until 1849, when it was superseded by what today is ...

and

Wellington College Wellington College may refer to: *Wellington College, Berkshire, an independent school in Crowthorne, Berkshire, England ** Wellington College International Shanghai ** Wellington College International Tianjin *Wellington College, Wellington, New Z ...

Cricket

Belfast boasts Ireland's premier

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

venue at Stormont, Belfast. The Ireland cricket team plays many of its home games at this venue, which, in 2006, also hosted the first ever

one-day international A One Day International (ODI) is a form of limited overs cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of overs, currently 50, with the game lasting up to 9 hours. The Cricket World Cup ...

(ODI) between

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

and

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. In 2007, Ireland,

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

played a triangular series of one-day internationals at Stormont, and in 2008 the qualifying tournament for the

ICC World Twenty20 The ICC Men's T20 World Cup (earlier known as ICC World Twenty20) is the international championship of Twenty20. Organised by cricket's governing body, the International Cricket Council (ICC), the tournament consists of 16 teams, comprising t ...

was held there. At club level, Belfast has nine senior teams: CIYMS,

and Civil Service North of Ireland are in the Premier League of the

NCU Senior League The Northern Cricket Union (NCU) Senior League is the provincial cricket league within the NCU jurisdiction in Ireland, which covers counties Antrim, Armagh, Down and south Tyrone of Northern Ireland. The league was formed in 1897 and is curre ...

;

Cregagh Cregagh () is an area southeast of Belfast in County Down, Northern Ireland. It is the name of a townland and has been adopted as the name of an electoral ward of Belfast City council. The townland dates back to medieval times, when it was part ...

and Woodvale are in Section 1; BISC are in Section 2; and Cooke Collegians, Dunmurry and Newforge are in Section 3.

Hockey

Hockey Hockey is a term used to denote a family of various types of both summer and winter team sports which originated on either an outdoor field, sheet of ice, or dry floor such as in a gymnasium. While these sports vary in specific rules, numbers o ...

is a major participatory sport in Belfast, for both men and women. There are four senior men's clubs:

Cliftonville Cliftonville is a coastal area of the town of Margate, situated to the east of the main town, in the Thanet district of Kent, South East England, United Kingdom. It also contains the area known as Palm Bay. The original Palm Bay estate was ...

, NICS and Queen's University; and one junior club: PSNI. There are nine senior ladies' clubs:

Pegasus Pegasus ( grc-gre, Πήγασος, Pḗgasos; la, Pegasus, Pegasos) is one of the best known creatures in Greek mythology. He is a winged divine stallion usually depicted as pure white in color. He was sired by Poseidon, in his role as hor ...

Victorians In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardian ...

, Knock, Queen's University, CIYMS, NICS, PSNI,

and Cooke.

Ice hockey

Belfast is represented in the

by Ireland's first professional ice hockey team, the

. The game was brought to Belfast by Canadian businessman Bob Zeller in 2000. The team won the British Ice Hockey Superleague Championship in 2002 and were crowned the Elite League Champion in 2006. Ex-NHL star

Theo Fleury Theoren Wallace "Theo" Fleury (born June 29, 1968) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player, author, and motivational speaker. Fleury played for the Calgary Flames, Colorado Avalanche, New York Rangers, and Chicago Blackhawks of the ...

played for the team and was named the

most valuable player In team sports, a most valuable player award, abbreviated 'MVP award', is an honor typically bestowed upon an individual (or individuals, in the instance of a tie) whose individual performance is the greatest in an entire league, for a particu ...

in the league during his time there. Home matches are played at the

Odyssey Arena The Odyssey Complex, formerly Odyssey Centre, is a sports and entertainment complex located within the Titanic Quarter in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The complex originated in 1992 and came into fruition in June 1998. It opened in December 20 ...

and watched by up to 7000 fans.

Roller derby

Belfast Roller Derby Belfast Roller Derby (BRD) is a flat track roller derby league based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Founded in January 2010, the league consists of two teams that play teams from other leagues, and is a member of the Women's Flat Track Derby As ...

was founded in 2010, and was the first

roller derby Roller derby is a roller skating contact sport played by two teams of fifteen members. Roller derby is played by approximately 1,250 amateur leagues worldwide, mostly in the United States. Game play consists of a series of short scrimmages (jam ...

league in Northern Ireland.Alex Gulrajani,
Roller skate revolution
,

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadca ...

, 18 August 2010

Other sports

* Double world champion Alex "Hurricane" Higgins and

Joe Swail Joe Swail (born 29 August 1969) is a Northern Irish former professional snooker player from Belfast. He retired in May 2019 after being relegated from the tour. He has reached ten major ranking semi-finals, including the 2000 and 2001 World Cha ...

are both professional snooker players from Belfast. The city also runs its own District Snooker League. * Belfast Knights and

Belfast Trojans The Belfast Trojans are an American Football team formed in January 2006, and have competed in the Irish American Football League, IAFL since 2007 playing NCAA rules in full contact. The Belfast Trojans are the current national champions, after ...

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

teams represent Belfast in the IAFL, competing for the

Shamrock Bowl The Shamrock Bowl is the championship game of the American Football Ireland (AFI), the highest level of American football on the island of Ireland, culminating a season that begins in March of the current calendar season. The Shamrock Bowl use ...

. * Belfast has produced several world champion boxers including

Wayne McCullough Wayne Pocket Rocket McCullough (born Wayne William McCullough; 7 July 1970) is a former professional boxer from Northern Ireland who competed from 1993 to 2008. He held the WBC bantamweight title from 1995 to 1997, becoming the first boxer fr ...

and

Rinty Monaghan John Joseph Monaghan (21 August 1918 – 3 March 1984) was a world flyweight boxing champion from Belfast. He became famous in the post-war period, eventually rising to become undisputed world champion and a hero to many people in his home city ...

. The

Ultimate Fighting Championship The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is an American mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion company based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is owned and operated by Zuffa, a wholly owned subsidiary of Endeavor Group Holdings. It is the largest MMA ...

recently announced that UFC 72 will take place at Odyssey Arena on 16 June 2007. * The

is run annually on May Day, attracting 14,300 participants in 2007. * In 2013 Belfast held the

World Police and Fire Games The World Police and Fire Games (WPFG) is a biennial athletic event, open to active and retired law enforcement and fire service personnel throughout the world. The WPFG Federation is an arm of the California Police Athletic Federation (CPAF), ...

. *

Dave Finlay David Finlay Jr. (born 31 January 1958) is an Irish retired professional wrestler currently signed to WWE as a trainer/assistant coach. He is known for his work with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) under the ring name Fit Finlay from 1995 to ...

, a professional wrestler, is from Belfast.

References

{{reflist, 30em