Every four years, the Olympics unites the world’s best athletes in a competition of various sports. In honor of last Friday’s Olympic opening ceremony, I thought I would shed some light on the less popular sports. Sure, we all love tuning in to the mainstream sports like gymnastics or swimming, but there are many sports that receive very little recognition on the world stage. So here I am, trying my best to recognize them!

1. Badminton

Yes, believe or not, this lovely sport, best known for its appearance on the seventh grade physical education curriculum, has been a part of the Olympics since 1992. Likewise, the U.S. Badminton team recently appeared on The Tonight Show and joined Jimmy Fallon in performing the Badminton Boogie. So if your too busy to commit to an hour of Olympic badminton, watch Team USA shake there tushes on late night television.

2. Canoeing Slalom

I knew about rowing, but I completely forgot about canoeing. I was surprised to learn that there is not just one, but two different types of canoeing that are represented as different events. The main difference between the two is that canoe slalom takes place in white water rapids, while the canoe sprint is on flat water.

3. Canoeing Sprint

Sprint is much simpler that slalom, in that there is one blatantly predominant objective. Get to the finish line as fast as humanly possible. The sprint canoes are longer and more hydrodynamic, while the slalom canoes are more maneuverable.

4. Handball

No, this is not the handball you played on the elementary school playground. The best way I can describe it, based purely on observation and with no regard to the rules, is handball is similar to soccer, only that you use your hands instead of your feet.

5. Judo

Don’t forget about this kicker of a sport when watching the Olympics. Bad joke. In all seriousness, I have always been a little bit confused about the difference between judo and other martial arts.

6. Modern pentathlon

First appearing in the 1912 Olympics, the modern pentathlon consists of fencing, 200m freestyle swimming, show jumping, pistol shooting and 3200m cross-country running. I suppose this is the sport only the true renaissance men and women conquer because of its vastly different events.

7. Sailing

I was astounded by how many categories fall under sailing. There is dinghy, skiff, multihull, and RS:X, more commonly known as windsurfing. After further research, I discovered that there are many types of sailboats and these are just the widely common racing ones.