Austrians from the Western provinces of Tirol, Vorarlberg and Salzburg are doing a lot of sport in their leisure. Cycling is their most popular activity. The laziest people in relation to sport are living in Lower Austria, shows the result of the survey.

Carinthians take the second place in the ranking of the most unathletic Austrians. The most popular sports of the Austrians are cycling, hiking, winter sport, running, swimming and gymnastics.

There are a lot of differences in the federal states about the most popular sports. People from Burgenland are passionate about table tennis, basketball and volleyball. Carinthias prefer skating and ice hockey.

Styrians like to bowl, Lower Austrians enjoy yoga, cycling is the number one sport in Vorarlberg, and winter sport as well as hiking in Tirol and Salzburg on the top.

The model province is Upper Austria. Upper Austria shows almost exactly the average of the favourite sports from all the other federal states together. Viennese prefer indoor sports and martial arts.

38 percent of the Austrians do sport at least once in a week. The EU-average is 40 percent. The most athletic Europeans can be found in Sweden and Finland (72 percent), and also in Denmark (64 percent). Greeks and Italians are on the lowest end of the list.

The two main problems were environment protection reasons and no support from Vienna. The Austrian Ski Association is not able to build such a project without any help. The proposed location of the ski-jump hill was the district of Döbling in the north of the city.

Now the Austrian Ski Association plans a new ski-jumping hill in the province of Lower Austria. “If possible close to Vienna”, confirms a spokesman. Viennas mayor also thinks that the new project should be build close to Vienna, wrote Austrias daily newspaper “Wiener Zeitung”.

Austrias Broadcasting Corporation reports that second league club Gratkorn might be involved in the Europan football betting scandal. Their 1:7 home defeat against Austria Lustenau from the province of Vorarlberg could be manipulated.

It was told that there were extremly high stakes in Asia for a Lustenau victory. Gratkorn coach Michael Fuchs even claims that he has seen some Asian men in the main stand talking with their mobile phones the whole match through. “But of course it’s allowed for people from Asia to use their mobile phones during football matches of Austrias second league”, clarifies the leery coach.

Also the development of the odds for Gratkorn vs Austria Lustenau was a bit strange. First Gratkorn was the clear favourit for the betting provider, but several hours before the match the situation changed completely, and Austria Lustenau was the team which had the lowest odds.

The 1:0 victory in Manchester was probably the only time in club history when Rapid played in red. Next week against Celtic Rapid wants to do it again. According to an article in the British Daily Mirror, Celtic seems to be not happy about such a decision and talks about provocation.

Still the Green and whites from Glasgow believe that Rapid was cheating in 1984 to receive a third match. The anger was always there, and now Rapid Vienna in red again? Too much for some Celtics. Someone was also talking about a “security problem” if Rapid really plays in red.

The man who scored the important 1:0 in 1984 is the Rapid coach today: Peter Pacult. Rapid goalkeeper Helge Payer explains that Celtic Glasgow and Rapid Vienna in red raises nice memories for Rapid supporters. “When they did it in 1984, we can do it again”, he confirmed.

The match against Celtic in 1984 was the round of the last sixteen in the European Cup. Later Rapid also threw Dresden and Moscow out of the competition, and lost the Final in Rotterdam against Everton with 1:3.

Bild: © Mayangsari | Dreamstime.com

After a 1:0 victory at home in the first leg, a 1:2 defeat in Birmingham against Aston Villa was enough to make the qualification for the Europe League. The Viennese, who stepped up with many young players, showed a tremendous performance and were also able to win the match in the return leg. A poor liquidation of scoring chances and a referee from Spain with two dubious penalty decisions for the home team made the match unnecessarily thrilling.

But at the end Rapid was simply too strong for Aston Villa. Now all 4 international present teams from Austria made their qualifications for the Europe League: Rapid Vienna, Sturm Graz, Austria Vienna and as last and least FC Salzburg. It was a great evening yesterday for the heavy scolded Austrian football.

Aston Villa – Rapid 2:1 (1:0)
Villa Park Birmingham, 23.000 visitors, Referee Carballo (Spain)

Goals:
1:0 Penalty (38.) Milner
2:0 (53.) Carew
2:1 (76.) Jelavic

Aston Villa: Guzan – Beye, Cuellar, Davies (83./Lowry), Shorey – Milner, Delph (86./Albrighton), Petrow, A. Young – Heskey (82./Agbonlahor), Carew

Rapid Vienna: Payer – Dober, Soma, Patocka, Katzer – Trimmel (56./Maierhofer), Heikkinen, Hofmann, Pehlivan, Drazan – Jelavic (87./Boskovic)

Yellow Cards: Cuellar, A. Young, Carew (Aston Villa) Dober, Payer (Rapid)

The Austrian swimmer Markus Rogan was involved in a serious boxing match with four doormen in a Roman disco, and sustained heavy injuries in his face and on his leg. The swimmer wanted to celebrate his participation on the swim world cup in Rome.

There are different versions of the incident in the news. Rogan himself declared that he was attacked without a reason. Austrias Broadcasting Corporation “ORF” promulgated that Rogan was kicked out of the disco, but could not accept the decision of the doormen, return and started a boxing match with four doormen, in which he got the short straw.

The Austrian swimming association wants to verify the violent incident. Paul Schauer, who is its president, said that aggressions are refuseable.

Bild: © Mayangsari | Dreamstime.com

The 22-year-old Lower Austrian signed a contract for five years. Napoli coach Roberto Donadoni was very impressed about Hoffers performances in the past times. That’s why he wanted to have him in his team at all costs.

Erwin Hoffer: “I am very happy that the move to a foreign club worked. Napoli is a very famous destination.” But Hoffer also declared that he is sad leaving Rapid Vienna. “It was a matter close to my heart to play for this club”, he said. Hoffer promised that he wants to return to Rapid one day.

The 22-year-old has 11 caps and played for Rapid since June 2006. His previous teams were 1.SC Haidhof, FC Tribuswinkel, Badener AC, and Admira Wacker Mödling. In 2008 he celebrated the Austrian championship with Rapid. In 2007 he made the fourth place with Austria in the U-20 world cup. And one year before he was a member of the Austrian U-19 team, who made the third rank in the U-19 Euro.

In his first statement he said that the current performances of the club were scandalous. He promised to change that. Today Krankl is going to run his first training.

LASKL is Krankls first position as a coach since 2005. Before the 56-year-old was the manager of the Austrian national team. One of his most famous quotes during his career was the sentence: “We have to win the match, everything else is primary.”

Hans Krankl will come with his friend Heinrich Strasser. Strasser should be the assistant coach. LASKL president Peter Michael Reichel was very excited about his new capture. “Krankl is a motivation artist and one of Austrias most famous presenters in football”, he said.

Austrias football legend has a contract for the last nine matches of the championship. In June the club will decide if he should stay or go.

The 53-year-old charismatic connoisseur of the art of living is known as a successful short-term coach. There is also no difference in his new contract. The lenght of the contract amounts only several months.

Football experts confirm that Constantini “knows how to talk to players”. He always find the right words to get the maximum out of any player. It will be interesting how he will do with the anguished Austrian team. Constaninis first comment was not extensive. He just said that he is going to spend a lot of time in Vienna and that he will do the job.

In this sense: deeds instead of words.

Now it seems the hasty enthusiasm is simply blown away. The official reason is the world depression. SK Austria Kärnten wants to save money, and prefers to stay at home.

But some newspapers write something else. Football players were afraid of the exploding crime in South Africa. Also the cholera epidemic of South Africans neighbour Zimbabwe was an issue. But of course, the official reason of the cancellation was the financial crisis. Nothing else.

Now the club wants to stay three or four days in Italy or Croatia instead.