Cancun Hotels Kuartos Mexico Reservations made easy!: Mexican Sports ================================================================================ Kuartos.com on 23 February, 2008 09:53:00 Mexico's chief spectator sport is soccer ( futbol ). Mexican teams have been notably successful on the international stage, and going to a game is a thrilling experience, with vast crowds for the big ones. The capital and Guadalajara are the best places to see a match and the biggest game in the domestic league, the "Superclasico", between Chivas from Guadalajara and América from Mexico City, fills the city's 150,000 seater Aztec stadium to capacity. Baseball (beisbol) is also popular, as is American football (especially on TV). Jaialai (better known as frontón , or pelota ) is Basque handball, common in big cities and played at very high speed with a curved scoop attached to the hand. Points are scored by whacking the ball hard and fast against the end wall, as in squash, but the real scores are made in odds and pesos, since this, for spectators at least, is largely a gambler's sport. Mexican rodeos ( charreadas ), mainly seen in the north of the country, are as spectacular for their style and costume as they are for the events, while bullfights remain an obsession: every city has a bullring - Mexico City's Plaza México is the world's largest - and the country's toreros are said to be the world's most reckless, much in demand in Spain. Another popular bloodsport, usually at village level, is cockfighting , still legal in Mexico and mainly attended for the opportunity to bet on the outcome. Masked wrestling is very popular in Mexico, too, with the participants, Batman-like, out of the game for good should their mask be removed and their secret identity revealed. Nor does the resemblance to comic-book superheroes end with the cape and mask: certain wrestlers, most famously the capital's Superbarrio, have become popular social campaigners out of the ring, always ready to turn up just in the nick of time to rescue the beleaguered poor from eviction by avaricious landlords, or persecution by corrupt politicians. You'll find facilities for golf, tennis, sailing, surfing, scuba diving and deep-sea fishing - even riding and hunting - provided at all the big resorts. Sport fishing , especially, is enormously popular in Baja California and the big Pacific coast resorts, while freshwater bass fishing is growing in popularity too, especially behind the large dams in the north of the country. The gentler arts of diving and snorkelling are big around the Caribbean, with world-famous dive sites at Cozumel and on the reefs further south. The Pacific coast is becoming something of a centre for surfing , with few facilities as yet (though you can rent surfboards in major tourist centres such as Acapulco and Mazatlán) but plenty of Californian surfies who follow the weather south over the winter. The most popular places are in Baja California and on the Oaxaca coast, but the biggest waves are to be found around Lázaro Cárdenas in Michoacán (where, however, local people are not known for their enthusiasm for surfers). A more minority-interest sport for which Mexico has become a major centre is caving . With a third of the country built on limestone, there are caverns in most states that can be explored by experienced cavers, potholers or spelunkers. The Ministry of Tourism publishes a leaflet on participatory sport in Mexico, and can also advise on such things as licences and seasons