European athletes are becoming more popular in the USA. David Beckham, Dirk Nowitzki, Tony Parker, Maria Sharapova, Roger Federer and Annika Sorenstam are some of the more famous and well known Europeans in American.

The American professional basketball league (NBA) and hockey league (NHL) have a large number of Europeans playing on their professional teams. Dirk Nowitzki of Germany was named the Most Valuable Player in the NBA last season.

There are too many European athletes to mention all of them, but some of the more famous and popular European athletes in America’s major sports are:

Basketball:
Zydrunas Ilgauskas - Lithuania
Pao Gasol - Spain
Andrei Kirilenko - Russia
Dirk Nowitzki - Gernmany
Tony Parker - France
Peja Stojakovic - Greece
Andris Biedrins - Latvia
Vladimir Radmanovic, Darko Milicic - Serbia
Tony Kukoc - Croatia
Luol Deng - Great Britain

Tennis:
Roger Federer - Switzerland
Maria Sharapova - Russia
Mary Pierce - France
Bjorn Borg - Sweden
Martina Hingis - Slovakia - Czechoslovakia
Rafael Nadal - Spain
Justine Henin-Hardenne- Belgium

Soccer:
David Beckham - British
Thierry Henry, Zinedine Zidane - France

Golf:
Colin Montgomerie - Great Britain
Sergio Garcia - Spain
Bernhard Langer - Germany
Jesper Parnevik - Sweden
Annika Sorenstam - Sweden
Suzann Pettersen - Norway

Figure Skating:
Katarina Witt - Germany
Oksana Baiul - Ukraine
Alexei Yagudin - Russia

Hockey:
Thomas Vanek - Austria
Peter Forsberg, Nicklas Lidstrom - Sweden
Sergei Zubov, Ilya Kovalchuk - Russia
Alexei Zhitnik - Ukraine
Dominik Hasek, Jaromir Jagr - Czechoslovakia