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List of Sports Starting With ‘P Full Guide of 2023

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What is a sport that starts with pYou’re pumped up for some intense P-action when it comes to sports, arencha? Well strap yourself in, ’cause we’re taking you on a wild ride through the exhilarating world of sports starting with the letter P.

From paddleboarding to pankration, platform tennis to Popinjay, we’ll clue you in on all the pulse-pounding games that start with a P. Whether you wanna get messy with some paintball, ride the raging rapids of polocrosse or take the plunge into platform diving, we got you covered.

And don’t forget the classics like pickleball, pesäpallo and pole climbing – oldies but goodies. Our all-star lineup takes you from the racquet to the ring, target range to trail ride.

So get ready for an adrenaline-fueled adventure through the best P sports. This ain’t your grandpappy’s ping pong – things are about to get extreme!

Key Takeaways

  • Paddleboarding and playboating offer athletic challenges of balancing and maneuvering on water.
  • Pankration allows intense full-contact fighting with few rules or limitations.
  • Pato is an exciting equestrian team sport requiring ball skills on horseback.
  • Para-cycling enables disabled athletes to race at high speeds using customized handcycles.

Racquet Sports

Racquet Sports
I’ve tried pickleball, padel, and platform tennis. Pickleball combines elements of badminton, tennis, and table tennis and is played with a paddle and plastic ball on a badminton-sized court. Padel is a racquet sport that mixes elements of tennis, badminton, and squash and is played in enclosed courts about half the size of a tennis court.

Platform tennis, also called paddle tennis, uses specialized paddles and balls and is played on fenced-in courts smaller than regulation tennis courts.

All three are fun, dynamic racquet sports worth checking out if you’re looking to pick up a new paddle game!

Pickleball

You’d be surprised to learn that pickleball’s paddles pack more punch than tennis rackets when the plastic polygon projectiles ping the taut court netting.

  • Contests actively engage players of all ages.
  • Positions pivot rapidly across petite playing areas.
  • Padding protects bare knees during animated dives.
  • Perspiration drips profusely under summer sunshine.
  • This pleasant pastime is popular from family fun to fierce competition.

Pickleball’s paddles deliver livelier action than larger rackets. This nostalgic net sport nurtures active lifestyles through recreational rallies or rigorous tournaments.

Padel

Look lively lads; padel’s paddle plays playfully poaching tennis’ attributes yet transforms two teams tackling a tiny tin court into a quick-paced doubles dance! Paddles propel polyballs rapidly across petite playing areas as pairs pivot positions, perspiring profusely.

This pleasant pastime nurtures active lifestyles through recreational rallies or rigorous tournaments, enticing everyone from families to fierce competitors to participate in paddleboarding, paintball, parkour, polo or pilates.

Platform Tennis

Platform tennis provides a fast-paced game on small fenced courts as you and your partner strike polyballs with solid paddles. Sliding and sprinting, you slam serves and volley vigorously, striving to conquer opponents.

Paddleboarding, personal watercraft racing, and paintball provide pleasant pauses between intense platform tennis matchups.

Ball Sports

Ball Sports
Here are some lesser known ball sports with unique spins to explore. Pesäpallo, similar to Finnish baseball, features vertical pitching. Pocket Billiards requires sinking balls using a cue stick. In Picigin, players try to keep a ball from touching the water.

There are plenty of fascinating and fun ball sports beyond the most mainstream ones.

Pesäpallo

Try pesäpallo, a Finnish variant of baseball where the ball is tossed straight up in the air! Channel your inner Ichiro as you field, throw, hit and run in this unique ball sport. With its different rules and strategies, it mixes things up from baseball while keeping that satisfying crack of the bat.

Pocket Billiards

Hit the felt as you pocket those billiard balls on the table using a slick cue stick. Aim for a tight rack before you break, then use spin and angles to sink solids and stripes. Finesse position to run the table as you call your shots, drawing gasps with trick banks and kicks.

Master the cue and prevail in 8-ball, cutthroat and rotation until you’re the shark of the billiard hall.

Picigin

Splash into picigin as you gently palm the ball across the water, smooth as a ripple on a pond.

  1. Keep the ball afloat with quick hands and nimble fingers.
  2. Prevent splashes using gentle yet firm paddling motions.
  3. Move fluidly to receive and return the flying orb.

Glide across the surface tension, riding the wakes as you rally with friends. This Croatian pastime tests your balance and reflexes in the balmy brine. With playful flicks and deft dinks, prolong the point, delighting onlookers with aquatic artistry.

Target Sports

Target Sports
Looking to expand your target sport horizons? Give these three exciting ‘p’ sports a shot. Have you tried your hand at pigeon racing, testing a pigeon’s speed in returning home? How about practical shooting, maneuvering through obstacles and aiming precisely with handguns? Or popinjay, utilizing bows or rifles to hit a suspended bird target? Each offers its own abilities, methods, and thrills for the aspiring marksman.

Pigeon Racing

Pigeon Racing

You’re training pigeons so they quickly return to their loft. Thrill of the chase as your birds soar home. Count every second; victory measured in milliseconds. Strive for the elusive perfect time.

Attempt Time Place
1 5 min 3 sec 3rd
2 4 min 58 sec 1st
3 5 min 1 sec 2nd

Pigeon racing tests a bird’s speed returning home. Shave off time and climb the ranks.

Practical Shooting

Grip your handgun tight as you move through the obstacle course, shooting targets precisely and rapidly. Quick reactions and steady aim are needed amid challenging setups. Obstacles abound but stay focused, moving and shooting with precision.

Skills are constantly tested so train hard to become a top marksman. Discipline and determination push your shooting skills to the next level.

Popinjay

Draw your bow carefully as you take aim at the suspended popinjay, focusing on that colorful bird swaying high above. Hit the mark and revel in success, though missing means defeat in this traditional test of archery skill.

  • Station yourself steadily to aim true at the wooden bird.
  • Control your breathing and release smoothly.
  • Stay focused despite the popinjay’s constant movement.
  • Let your arrow fly straight and enjoy victory’s sweet thrill.

Combat Sports

Combat Sports
Looking to get your adrenaline pumping with some intense combat? You should check out pankration, pencak silat, and pehlwani. Pankration is a modern revival of an ancient Greek Olympic combat sport that blended boxing and wrestling.

Pencak silat originated in Indonesia and incorporates a wide variety of fighting styles and self-defense techniques. Pehlwani is a form of folk wrestling popular in South Asia. All three deliver fierce competitions testing strength, agility, and fighting prowess.

If you seek thrilling action in the ring or on the mat, these combat sports will challenge and excite you.

Pankration

Test your brutal hand-to-hand combat talents with pankration, a modern revival of the ancient Olympic grappling and striking sport. Mixing boxing and wrestling, pankration allows fierce full-contact fights with few rules.

Let loose and battle in the gritty, intense matches as you strike, kick, grapple and toss opponents into submission.

Pencak Silat

Pencak silat, an Indonesian martial art, fuses together diverse fighting styles and deadly techniques. Harness kicks, punches, grappling, and weapons into a lethal fighting form to unleash your inner warrior.

This intense, full-contact combat art builds focus, strength, and reflexes for facing any opponent.

Pehlwani

Polish your grapples and locks as you embrace pehlwani, the traditional South Asian style of folk wrestling that builds strength, stamina and connection through intense clinch fighting. Grip wrists, twist joints and bear-hug opponents with ferocious might; though a gentleman’s sport, pehlwani forges fortitude through forceful takedowns and pins.

Equestrian Sports

Equestrian Sports
Looking for an adrenaline rush on horseback? Strap on your riding boots and saddle up, because polo, pole climbing, and polocrosse will get your heart pounding. Grab your mallet and practice your swing – you’ll need precision aim to knock that polo ball between the goal posts.

Feel the burn as you climb wooden poles towering 20 feet high in pole climbing competitions. Then get ready for a fast-paced match as you pass, dribble, and shoot a polocrosse ball down the field.

These thrilling equestrian sports require skill, strategy, and no fear of falling. If you’re seeking an electrifying equine experience, it’s time to take up one of these pulse-quickening sports.

Polo

You’re in for a wild ride when you saddle up to play polo. This equestrian sport blends horseback riding with hockey as you swing mallets, hitting balls into goals. Polo takes speed, agility, teamwork and horse-handling skills to outmaneuver opponents across the expansive field.

Power and accuracy let you pole vault ahead, scoring goals in this thrilling game on horseback.

Pole Climbing

Grab the pole and climb like your life depends on it to reach new heights in this vertical test of skill, strength and daring. Scramble up the wooden pole, clinging on for dear life as you ascend higher and higher.

Pull yourself up as the crowd below cheers you on. Reach the top and raise your arms in triumph, reveling in the glory of conquering the pole.

Polocrosse

Gallop on and swing your mallet to score in polocrosse, mixing lacrosse and polo for a fast-paced game on horseback.

  • Ride your trusty steed, mallet in hand as you chase the ball downfield.
  • Pass and catch on the fly at full gallop, avoiding collisions.
  • Shoot on goal before defenders intercept, cheering if you score.

Play hard but have fun in this rough and tumble equestrian sport.

Strength Sports

Strength Sports
Strap on your weight belt and grab your platform shoes, because powerlifting and platform diving will test your strength and fearlessness. Feel the burn as you squat, bench press, and deadlift massive weights in powerlifting competitions.

Then step up to the edge of the 33-foot platform and perform your best flips, spins, and entries into the water for platform diving. These gravity-defying sports will push your power and courage to new heights. Let’s dive in and discover the thrill of top-level strength sports.

Powerlifting

Test your strength in powerlifting as you strive for maximum lifts in the squat, bench press, and deadlift. Join the ranks of powerlifters pushing their limits, battling gravity alongside kindred spirits.

Perseverance and passion fuel personal bests as you squat deep, drive the bar off your chest, and lock out deadlifts with all your might. Power pulsates through your body, adrenaline surges—each rep a triumph. Revel in the thrill of lifting massive weights as you test your mettle in powerlifting.

Platform Diving

Jump with all your might from the lofty tower as you fly gracefully through the sky, diving into the depths of the bluest waters below. Hold your breath and straighten your body, slicing into the pool with hardly a splash.

Surge back to the surface, emerging triumphantly as cheers erupt around you. Another perfect dive executed flawlessly. Bask in the thrill of flight and the cool caress of water as you gracefully conquer platform diving.

Disabled Sports

Disabled Sports
You grip the handholds, hoist your body up the wall, and feel the exhilaration of conquering new heights through para-climbing. Whizzing past on your custom racing cycle, you sprint for the finish line in para-cycling competitions tailored for disability classifications.

Ramming your wheelchair into opponents, you drive the ball downfield in intense wheelchair football matches. Disabled sports like para-climbing, para-cycling, and wheelchair football enable athletes to push limits and unleash competitive spirit.

Para-Climbing

You scale those sheer rock faces with your upper body strength, showing the world that nothing’s going to stop you from reaching the top.

  • Specialized harnesses
  • Climbing routes and courses
  • Combined upper and lower body techniques
  • Adaptive equipment like prosthetics
  • Integrated safety and support systems

You prove no mountain’s too high for you to climb. The peaks keep calling, and you’ll answer by ascending in adaptive style.

Para-Cycling

You’re navigating those handcycles at blistering speeds, pushing your athleticism to the limits as the wind whistles past you. Did you know para-cyclists have reached speeds over 60 mph in competition? Handcycles and recumbent cycles propel you forward as you pedal with pumped arms.

Aerodynamics streamline you for velocity. The roads call as records fall to your will and skill.

Powerchair Football

Wheeling and dealing down the court, you’re passing, pivoting, and scoring with powerchair football skills. Accelerating in your powerchair, you maneuver and spin, dribbling the ball toward the goal. Though defender powerchairs swarm, you euro step and shoot a goal! Your powerchair football talents shine, dodging and weaving across the hardwood for the score.

Water Sports

Water Sports
Grab your board and paddle, the thrills of paddleboarding await. Balancing on the wide deck, you propel yourself across glassy lakes using long, powerful strokes. In whitewater rapids, you perform heart-stopping tricks and spins during exciting playboating runs.

Paddleboarding

Balancing like a caffeinated circus seal, you wobble atop the paddleboard, fighting to stay dry as the paddle slips from your clutch.

  1. Paddling through peaceful coves standing tall.
  2. Plunging into azure seas kneeling low.
  3. Pivoting ’round to take in the sights behind.

    lets you glide across glassy lakes or ride churning ocean waves. It tests your balance and burns calories too.

Playboating

Flippin’ and spinning in the rapids, you’re playboating through the whitewater while staying upright in your kayak. Riding, crashing, churning, twisting in churning waves, slick rocks, squirting, splashing.

Careening around whirlpools, acrobatic, teetering on the edge but never flipping over. Staying dry amidst the drenching waves. Prone paddling the calmer parts, relaxing too.

Animal Sports

Animal Sports
Saddle up, cowpoke – it’s time for some pato action. Mount your trusty steed and grab your mallet, we’re heading to the pato pitch for some fast-paced equestrian fun. This polo-like game from Argentina combines horseback riding and basketball for a wild west showdown.

  • Wrangle that pato (ball) into the goal any way you can – dribbling, passing, or throwing it cowboy style.
  • Watch those pony Express riders zigzag downfield avoiding tackles.
  • Celebrate big when your side scores a goal chukker.

With horses at a gallop, players in colorful gear, and fans cheering from the stands, pato delivers a thrilling, rough and tumble rodeo on the pitch.

Miscellaneous Sports

Miscellaneous Sports
Let’s move on to miscellaneous sports starting with P. Strap on your sneakers and grab your cards, it’s time for parkour, paintball, and poker. Scale walls, dodge obstacles, and sprint through the city with parkour’s gravity-defying moves.

Gear up in camo, grab your splatter gun, and stalk the battlefield eliminating enemies in intense paintball firefights. Finally, match wits and bluff your way to victory in poker, combining strategy, skill, and a little gambling to take the pot.

From acrobatic free-running to tactical shootouts to high-stakes card games, these three sports offer thrilling competition and a challenge.

Parkour

Parkour

Leap over obstacles and soar through the urban jungle as you flow from move to move in parkour. Vault, roll, climb, and swing over the concrete contours of the cityscape. Flow seamlessly, linking each dynamic movement into an urban dance.

Paintball

Dodge and weave through the forest as you evade opponents’ paint-filled capsules in pulse-pounding paintball. Hide behind obstacles to avoid elimination as you stalk through foliage, peering through scope to spot camouflaged rivals.

Adrenaline surges as paint splatters bark inches from your elbow – you spin and return fire, marking an opponent out before sprinting for better cover. Success requires stealth, speed and sharpshooting to triumph in this outdoor sport combining strategy, nerves and marksmanship.

Poker

Outwit opponents as you’re dealt into high-stakes poker, combining gambling, strategy and skill with each flip of the cards. Calculate odds, read tells, and know when to hold or fold as the pot grows, tension mounts, and a single misstep costs the table.

Bluff confidently, wait patiently, then pounce when the timing’s right to rake in the jackpot.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What are the origins of these sports? How and when did they develop?

You’re witnessing the evolution of sports firsthand, friend. From pigeon racing’s roots in ancient civilizations to paintball’s relatively recent origins in the 1980s, these pastimes reflect humanity’s competitive drive and ingenuity.

Though created in different eras, they share a spirit of camaraderie and thrill-seeking that keeps fans returning.

What associations and leagues govern and organize these sports?

You’ll find governing bodies and leagues organizing most popular sports. From pickleball’s USA Pickleball Association to pole climbing’s International Pole Sports Federation, federations ensure fair play and competitive integrity.

Though less structured associations oversee panda badminton and paintball pursuits, passionate participants still find community in their niche pastimes. While major sports boast large formal organizations, smaller sports often rely on enthusiastic amateurs to govern their activities.

Regardless of structure, these oversight bodies shape rules, rankings, and competitions for their sports. Through leagues and associations, participants connect in shared interest and regulation provides order to these athletics.

Even when lacking rigid formality, lovers of a game still unite around their activity.

What are the major championships and tournaments for these sports?

You’ve got the World Pickleball Championships, US Open Platform Tennis Championships, ICF Canoe Polo World Championships, and the WPA World Nine-ball Championship for pool. There are also the World Pigeon Racing Championships, World Para Swimming Championships, and the World Powerlifting Championships.

Major polo tournaments include the U.S. Open and the Queen’s Cup. The World Series of Poker is poker’s most prestigious event.

Who are some of the most famous athletes and champions in these sports?

Randy Stoklos, Kerri Walsh Jennings, and Misty May-Treanor are beach volleyball legends who have wowed fans with incredible plays in the sand. Tennis greats like Gabriela Sabatini, Steffi Graf and Serena Williams have captured Grand Slam titles with powerful serves and finesse.

In diving, all-time greats such as Greg Louganis and Tom Daley have consistently nailed intricate dives with grace from the high platform.

What is the level of participation and popularity for these sports globally? Which countries dominate in each sport?

From angola to zimbabwe, you’ve tracked these fringe sports where passion trumps participation data. Though niche pursuits thrive out of the spotlight, devotees know fervor – not numbers – fuels favorite pastimes.

While some barely blip on the radar, others battle behemoths for global prominence. But true aficionados recognize counting competitors reveals little. Zeal drives these quirky quests, however obscure they remain.

Conclusion

Have you tried your hand at any of these P sports yet? With such a diverse range, there’s bound to be one that sparks your interest. Why not gather some friends and give pickleball, padel, or platform tennis a go? Or if you prefer solo sports, paddleboarding is a fun way to get out on the water.

References
  • sport-topics.com
Avatar for Mutasim Sweileh

Mutasim Sweileh

Mutasim is an author and software engineer from the United States, I and a group of experts made this blog with the aim of answering all the unanswered questions to help as many people as possible.