For sport is not merely a thing for spare time anymore, no sir. It is a religion, a time of worship, which brings people of all ages, races and genders together here in Australia.

Young and old agree that Australians are obsessed with sport and it is undoubtedly the newest and fastest growing religion of our country.

Sport is where the majority of Australians, including myself and I'm sure many of you, choose to focus their respect and admiration, and is linked to feelings of national pride.

Newspapers devote entire sections of their daily news to sport, and television is no different. Foxtel has two channels which produce 24 hour a day sporting coverage and on the weekend you can't change the channel without seeing the golf, or NRL, or AFL, or swimming or...well you get the picture.

Last year in the list of shows viewed by the most people, 6 out of the top 10 shows were sporting events. And t

And if you don't believe me then here's a little story that should change your mind. It's about a young boy from Adelaide who plays tennis. He starts playing the pro-circuit, makes himself noticed, improves with every tournament and within a few years he is the world number one. Who am I talking about? None other than Lleyton Hewitt. He is a god to young tennis players, wanting to be just like him, wearing their hat backwards and making weird gestures like this, in the hope it will make them as good as him.

he year before, the Sydney 2000 Olympics wiped the floor clean with all the other television competition.

I was overseas when the Sydney Olympics were on and when telling people I was from Australia I got the weirdest looks. 'Why on earth are you here, when the Olympics is on right in your backyard,' they'd ask. I didn't really have a response. These people reacted as though I had forsaken my religion. And I suppose in a way I had. Sport is such a huge thing in Australia and I was missing the biggest moment in Australian sporting history.

Sport manages to unite our nation, which is a quality many other countries cannot claim. We are so lucky to have something which brings us together, even in the hardest of times, and I am grateful to be apart of this sporting community.

The ideal climate and space in Australia only make it easier to be a sports fanatic. The thousands of sporting stadiu

Some common words found in the essay are:
, Donald Bradman, Rugby Union, Greek Pantheon, Sydney Olympics, NRL AFL, Barry Spurr, Sport One-day, Lleyton Hewitt, Olympus Greek,
Approximate Word count = 947
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)