The Sports Portal
Sport in childhood. Association football, shown above, is a team sport which also provides opportunities to nurture physical fitness and social interaction skills.
Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, through casual or organized participation, improve one's physical health. Hundreds of sports exist, from those between single contestants, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in teams or competing as individuals. In certain sports such as racing, many contestants may compete, simultaneously or consecutively, with one winner; in others, the contest (a match) is between two sides, each attempting to exceed the other. Some sports allow a "tie" or "draw", in which there is no single winner; others provide tie-breaking methods to ensure one winner and one loser. A number of contests may be arranged in a tournament producing a champion. Many sports leagues make an annual champion by arranging games in a regular sports season, followed in some cases by playoffs.
Sport is generally recognised as system of activities based in physical athleticism or physical dexterity, with major competitions such as the Olympic Games admitting only sports meeting this definition. Other organisations, such as the Council of Europe, preclude activities without a physical element from classification as sports. However, a number of competitive, but non-physical, activities claim recognition as mind sports. The International Olympic Committee (through ARISF) recognises both chess and bridge as bona fide sports, and SportAccord, the international sports federation association, recognises five non-physical sports: bridge, chess, draughts (checkers), Go and xiangqi, and limits the number of mind games which can be admitted as sports. (Full article...)
Selected articles
Lumen Field is a multi-purpose stadium in Seattle, Washington, United States. Located in the city's SoDo neighborhood, it is the home field for the Seattle Seahawks of the National Football League (NFL), the Seattle Sounders FC of Major League Soccer (MLS), and OL Reign of the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL). Originally called Seahawks Stadium, it was renamed Qwest Field in June 2004 when telecommunications carrier Qwest acquired the naming rights. The stadium became known as CenturyLink Field following Qwest's June 2011 acquisition by CenturyLink and was nicknamed "The Clink" as a result; it received its current name in November 2020 with CenturyLink's rebrand to Lumen Technologies. It is a modern facility with views of the Downtown Seattle skyline and a seating capacity of 68,740 spectators for NFL games and 37,722 for most MLS matches. The complex also includes the Event Center which is home to the Washington Music Theater (WaMu Theater), a parking garage, and a public plaza. The venue hosts concerts, trade shows, and consumer shows along with sporting events. Located within a mile (1.6 km) of Downtown Seattle, the stadium is accessible by multiple freeways and forms of mass transit.
The stadium was built between 2000 and 2002 on the site of the Kingdome after voters approved funding for the construction in a statewide election held in June 1997. This vote created the Washington State Public Stadium Authority to oversee public ownership of the venue. The owner of the Seahawks, Paul Allen, formed First & Goal Inc. to develop and operate the new facilities. Allen was closely involved in the design process and emphasized the importance of an open-air venue with an intimate atmosphere. (Full article...)
American Pharoah (foaled February 2, 2012) is a Thoroughbred racehorse who won the American Triple Crown and the Breeders' Cup Classic in 2015. He was the 12th Triple Crown winner in history, and in winning all four races, became the first horse to win the Grand Slam of Thoroughbred racing. He won the 2015 Eclipse Award for Horse of the Year and 2015 Champion three-year-old. In 2021 he was inducted into the American Racing Hall of Fame. He was bred and owned throughout his racing career by Ahmed Zayat of Zayat Stables, trained by Bob Baffert, and ridden in most of his races by Victor Espinoza. He now stands at stud at Ashford Stud in Kentucky.
After finishing fifth in his track debut as a two-year-old, American Pharoah won his next two races, the Grade I Del Mar Futurity and FrontRunner Stakes, each by several lengths. An injury kept him out of the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, but the strength of his two wins nonetheless resulted in his being voted American Champion Two-Year-Old Male Horse at the 2014 Eclipse Awards. Before the 2015 season began, Zayat had sold breeding rights to the colt to the Ashford Stud, a division of Ireland's Coolmore Stud. He retained control over the colt and his racing career, as well as an undisclosed dividend on stud fees. (Full article...)
The 1925 FA Cup Final was an association football match contested by Sheffield United and Cardiff City on 25 April 1925 at Wembley Stadium in London, England. The final was the showpiece match of English football's primary cup competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup (FA Cup), organised by the Football Association. Sheffield United won the game with a single goal.
Both teams entered the competition in the first round and progressed through five stages to reach the final. Sheffield United conceded only two goals en route to the final, both in a 3–2 victory over their local rivals The Wednesday in the second round. Cardiff also conceded twice before the final, once in the fourth round and once in the semi-final. They struggled to overcome Third Division North side Darlington in the first round, needing two replays to progress. This was the second time a team from outside England had reached an FA Cup final. The first, Scottish side Queens Park, played in the 1885 final. It was also the first time a Welsh team had reached the final of the competition. (Full article...)
Clifford Clinkscales (born March 11, 1984) is an American professional basketball assistant coach for the KW Titans of the National Basketball League of Canada (NBL Canada) and a former player. A 6-foot-1-inch (1.85 m) point guard, Clinkscales began playing professionally in 2008, with two seasons in the NBA Development League (NBA D-League). He spent most of his professional career in NBL Canada, playing from 2013 to 2020 in Halifax for the Rainmen and the Hurricanes. With the Halifax Hurricanes, he set the record for the most career assists in NBL Canada history.
A native of Jamaica, Queens, in New York City, Clinkscales rose to prominence as a basketball player at a young age, drawing attention from coaches around the country. After his freshman year at Springfield Gardens High School, he transferred to Shores Christian Academy in Ocala, Florida, where his team won the National Association of Christian Athletes title. He was rated as a three-star recruit, and several major college basketball programs showed interest in him. Clinkscales played college basketball for the DePaul Blue Demons from 2004 to 2008. He averaged 8.3 points per game in his first season in college while also becoming the fifth freshman in DePaul history to record 100 assists in a season. Although most of his statistics stagnated in his remaining years in college and his scoring average dropped, he led NCAA Division I in assist-to-turnover ratio as a senior. (Full article...)
Jack Roosevelt Robinson (January 31, 1919 – October 24, 1972) was an American professional baseball player who became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color line when he started at first base for the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947. When the Dodgers signed Robinson, it heralded the end of racial segregation in professional baseball that had relegated black players to the Negro leagues since the 1880s. Robinson was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.
During his 10-year MLB career, Robinson won the inaugural Rookie of the Year Award in 1947, was an All-Star for six consecutive seasons from 1949 through 1954, and won the National League Most Valuable Player Award in 1949—the first black player so honored. Robinson played in six World Series and contributed to the Dodgers' 1955 World Series championship. (Full article...)
The 2012 Tour de France was the 99th edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. It started in the Belgian city of Liège on 30 June and finished on the Champs-Élysées in Paris on 22 July. The Tour consisted of 21 stages, including an opening prologue, and covered a total distance of 3,496.9 km (2,173 mi). As well as the prologue, the first two stages took place in Belgium, and one stage finished in Switzerland. Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) won the overall general classification, and became the first British rider to win the Tour. Wiggins's teammate Chris Froome placed second, and Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas–Cannondale) was third.
The general classification leader's yellow jersey was worn for the first week by Fabian Cancellara (RadioShack–Nissan), who won the prologue. Wiggins, second in the prologue, took the leadership of the race on stage seven, the first mountainous stage, which was won by Froome, and maintained his lead for the remainder of the race, winning the two longest time trials, and not losing time to his main challengers for the overall title in the mountains. (Full article...)
2005 playoff game against the Lethbridge Hurricanes
The Calgary Hitmen are a major junior ice hockey team based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The Hitmen play in the Central Division of the Western Hockey League (WHL). They play their home games at the Scotiabank Saddledome. Bret "The Hitman" Hart, a local-born professional wrestler, was a founding owner as well as the inspiration for the team's name. Established in 1994, the team has been owned by the Calgary Flames hockey club since 1997. They are the third WHL team to represent Calgary, preceded by the Centennials and Wranglers.
The Hitmen have finished with the best record in the WHL four times, and qualified for the playoffs for thirteen consecutive seasons between 1998 and 2010. In 1999, they became the first Calgary team to win the President's Cup as league champions, and the first to represent the city in the Memorial Cup since the Calgary Canadians won the national junior title in 1926. The Hitmen hold numerous WHL attendance records, and in 2004–05 became the first team in Canadian Hockey League history to average 10,000 fans per game. Thirty-nine former Hitmen players have gone on to play in the National Hockey League. (Full article...)- The 1978 FA Cup Final was an association football match between Arsenal and Ipswich Town on 6 May 1978 at the old Wembley Stadium, London. It was the final match of the 1977–78 FA Cup, the 97th season of the world's oldest football knockout competition, the FA Cup. Four-time winners Arsenal were appearing in their ninth final, whereas Ipswich Town were making their debut at Wembley and in their first FA Cup final. Each team had progressed through five rounds to reach the final. Ipswich had needed a replay in the fifth round to proceed past Bristol Rovers while Arsenal won all of their ties at the first time of asking and went into the final as clear favourites.
The game was watched by a stadium crowd of around 100,000 and was broadcast live on television and radio. Ipswich dominated the match, hitting the woodwork three times (including twice from John Wark) before Roger Osborne scored the only goal of the game with a left-foot shot, as Ipswich triumphed 1–0. It remains Ipswich Town's only FA Cup triumph to date and they have not appeared in the final since. Arsenal returned to Wembley the following season and won the 1979 FA Cup Final over Manchester United. (Full article...)
Sir Donald George Bradman, AC (27 August 1908 – 25 February 2001), nicknamed "The Don", was an Australian international cricketer, widely acknowledged as the greatest batsman of all time. Bradman's career Test batting average of 99.94 has been cited as the greatest achievement by any sportsman in any major sport.
The story that the young Bradman practised alone with a cricket stump and a golf ball is part of Australian folklore. Bradman's meteoric rise from bush cricket to the Australian Test team took just over two years. Before his 22nd birthday, he had set many records for top scoring, some of which still stand, and became Australia's sporting idol at the height of the Great Depression. (Full article...)
Otto Wilhelm Rudolf Caracciola (30 January 1901 – 28 September 1959) was a racing driver from Remagen, Germany. He won the European Drivers' Championship, the pre-1950 equivalent of the modern Formula One World Championship, an unsurpassed three times. He also won the European Hillclimbing Championship three times – twice in sports cars, and once in Grand Prix cars. Caracciola raced for Mercedes-Benz during their original dominating Silver Arrows period, named after the silver colour of the cars, and set speed records for the firm. He was affectionately dubbed Caratsch by the German public, and was known by the title of Regenmeister, or "Rainmaster", for his prowess in wet conditions.
Caracciola began racing while he was working as apprentice at the Fafnir automobile factory in Aachen during the early 1920s, first on motorcycles and then in cars. Racing for Mercedes-Benz, he won his first two Hillclimbing Championships in 1930 and 1931, and moved to Alfa Romeo for 1932, where he won the Hillclimbing Championship for the third time. In 1933, he established the privateer team Scuderia C.C. with his fellow driver Louis Chiron, but a crash in practice for the Monaco Grand Prix left him with multiple fractures of his right thigh, which ruled him out of racing for more than a year. He returned to the newly reformed Mercedes-Benz racing team in 1934, with whom he won three European Championships, in 1935, 1937 and 1938. Like most German racing drivers in the 1930s, Caracciola was a member of the Nazi paramilitary group National Socialist Motor Corps (NSKK), but never a member of the Nazi Party. He returned to racing after the Second World War, but crashed in qualifying for the 1946 Indianapolis 500. A second comeback in 1952 was halted by another crash, in a sports car race in Switzerland. (Full article...)
Sidney George Barnes (5 June 1916 – 16 December 1973) was an Australian cricketer and cricket writer, who played 13 Test matches between 1938 and 1948. Able to open the innings or bat down the order, Barnes was regarded as one of Australia's finest batsmen in the period immediately following the Second World War. He helped create an enduring record when scoring 234 in the second Test against England at Sydney in December 1946; exactly the same score as his captain, Don Bradman, in the process setting a world-record 405-run fifth wicket partnership. Barnes averaged 63.05 over 19 innings in a career that, like those of most of his contemporaries, was interrupted by the Second World War.
He made his first-class debut at the end of the 1936–37 season when selected for New South Wales, and he was later included in the team for the 1938 Australian tour of England, making his Test debut in the final international of the series. On the resumption of Test cricket after the war, he was picked as the opening partner to Arthur Morris. Barnes was a member of The Invincibles, the 1948 Australian team that toured England without losing a single match. Retiring from cricket at the end of that tour, Barnes attempted a comeback to Test cricket in the 1951–52 season that was ultimately and controversially unsuccessful. (Full article...)
The 2017 Africa Cup of Nations Final was an association football match to determine the winner of the 2017 Africa Cup of Nations, organised by the Confederation of African Football (CAF). The match was held at the Stade de l'Amitié in Libreville, Gabon, on 5 February 2017 and was contested by Cameroon and Egypt. The sixteen teams who had qualified for the tournament were divided into four groups of four, with the top two from each group progressing to the knock-out phase. Cameroon finished as runners-up in Group A before defeating Senegal and Ghana in the quarter-final and semi-final, while Egypt reached for the final by first winning Group D and then beating Morocco and Burkina Faso.
Egypt started the final strongly and took a 1–0 lead through Mohamed Elneny after 22 minutes. Cameroon had more possession than Egypt in the first half, but their attack lacked potency, and Egypt led at half time. The Egyptians made few attempts to attack in the second half, and Cameroon equalised after 59 minutes through Nicolas Nkoulou, who had come on as a substitute. Egypt were unable to adjust, and Cameroon continued to have the better chances, eventually scoring again two minutes before the end, through Vincent Aboubakar, to record a 2–1 win. The victory marked their fifth Africa Cup of Nations title. As winners, they represented CAF at the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup in Russia, but they did not progress beyond the group phase. (Full article...)
A retiarius (plural retiarii; literally, "net-man" in Latin) was a Roman gladiator who fought with equipment styled on that of a fisherman: a weighted net (rete (3rd decl.), hence the name), a three-pointed trident (fuscina or tridens), and a dagger (pugio). The retiarius was lightly armoured, wearing an arm guard (manica) and a shoulder guard (galerus). Typically, his clothing consisted only of a loincloth (subligaculum) held in place by a wide belt, or of a short tunic with light padding. He wore no head protection or footwear.
The retiarius was routinely pitted against a heavily armed secutor. The net-fighter made up for his lack of protective gear by using his speed and agility to avoid his opponent's attacks and waiting for the opportunity to strike. He first tried to throw his net over his rival. If this succeeded, he attacked with his trident while his adversary was entangled. Another tactic was to ensnare his enemy's weapon in the net and pull it out of his grasp, leaving the opponent defenceless. Should the net miss or the secutor grab hold of it, the retiarius likely discarded the weapon, although he might try to collect it back for a second cast. Usually, the retiarius had to rely on his trident and dagger to finish the fight. The trident, as tall as a human being, permitted the gladiator to jab quickly, keep his distance, and easily cause bleeding. It was not a strong weapon, usually inflicting non-fatal wounds so that the fight could be prolonged for the sake of entertainment. The dagger was the retiarius's final backup should the trident be lost. It was reserved for when close combat or a straight wrestling match had to settle the bout. In some battles, a single retiarius faced two secutores simultaneously. For these situations, the lightly armoured gladiator was placed on a raised platform and given a supply of stones with which to repel his pursuers. (Full article...)
The Walden–Wallkill Rail Trail, also known as the Jesse McHugh Rail Trail, is a 3.22-mile (5.18 km) rail trail between the village of Walden, New York and the neighboring hamlet of Wallkill. The two communities are located in Orange and Ulster counties, respectively, in upstate New York.
The trail, like the Wallkill Valley Rail Trail to the north, is part of the former Wallkill Valley Railroad's rail corridor. The land was purchased by the towns of Montgomery and Shawangunk in 1985 and converted to a public trail. The portion of the trail in Shawangunk was formally opened in 1993 and named after former town supervisor Jesse McHugh. Plans to pave the trail between Walden and Wallkill were discussed since 2001, and the route was finally paved between 2008 and 2009. The trail includes an unofficial, unimproved section to the north of Wallkill, and is bounded by NY 52 and NY 208. (Full article...)
The 1993 Football League First Division play-off Final was an association football match which was played on 31 May 1993 at Wembley Stadium, London, between Leicester City and Swindon Town. The match was to determine the third and final team to gain promotion from the 1992–93 Football League First Division, the second tier of English football, to the Premier League. The top two teams in the Football League First Division gained automatic promotion to the Premiership, while the teams placed from third to sixth in the table took part in play-off semi-finals; Swindon Town ended the season in fifth position while Leicester City finished sixth. The winners of these semi-finals competed for the final place for the 1993–94 season in the Premiership. Winning the game was estimated to be worth around £5 million to the successful team.
Swindon took a 3–0 lead as they scored three goals in eleven minutes either side of half time. Glenn Hoddle, Swindon's player-manager, opened the scoring late in the first half and early second-half goals from Craig Maskell and Shaun Taylor made it 3–0 after 53 minutes. Leicester's Julian Joachim scored four minutes later, and with further goals from Steve Walsh and Steve Thompson, the score was level at 3–3. With six minutes of the match remaining, the referee David Elleray awarded Swindon a penalty which was converted by Paul Bodin, securing a 4–3 victory. The win saw Swindon promoted to the top tier of English football for the first time in their club's 73-year League history. (Full article...)
Selected pictures
Credit: KuebiMara Friton in a handball match in the German Handball-Bundesliga.
Iris Pruysen, an athlete with an artificial leg, competes in the long jump at the 2014 Athletics Paralympic Meeting in Stade Sébastien Charléty, Paris, France.
Disabled sports, also known as parasports, are sports played by persons with a permanent or temporary disability, be it physical or intellectual. Many disabled sports are based on existing able bodied sports, modified to meet the needs of persons with a disability. However, several sports have been specifically created for persons with a disability.
Photograph credit: Rodney EeThe pacu jawi is a traditional bull race in Tanah Datar, West Sumatra, Indonesia. In the race, a jockey stands holding on to a pair of loosely tied bulls while the bulls run across a muddy track in a rice field. Recently, it has become a tourist attraction supported by the government, and the subject of multiple award-winning photographs. Dramatic high-speed action, mud splashing, and the jockeys' distinctive facial expressions add to its aesthetic value.
Credit: Fir0002Horses race on grass at the 2006 Tambo Valley Races in Swifts Creek, Victoria, Australia. Horseracing is the third most popular spectator sport in Australia, behind Australian rules football and rugby league, with almost 2 million admissions to the 379 racecourses throughout Australia in 2002–03.
Motocross is form of motorcycle or ATV racing held on enclosed off-road circuits. The tracks are often quite large, natural, terrains with very few man made jumps, unlike Supercross, a sport that was originally derived from Motocross and is executed on a smaller track with many more extreme man made obstacles.
Photograph: Agência Brasil FotografiasSimone Biles (born March 14, 1997), after receiving the gold medal for the all-around event at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Biles also won golds in the vault and the floor events in Rio, a bronze medal on the balance beam, and a gold in the team all-around event as part of a U.S. team dubbed the "Final Five".
Photograph credit: Koen Suyk; restored by Adam CuerdenCynthia Woodhead (born February 7, 1964) is an American former competitive swimmer, world champion, Olympic medalist, and former world-record holder. At the age of fourteen, she won three gold medals at the 1978 World Aquatics Championships, and set seven world records during her career.
Photo credit: Mike Kaplan, USAFIn gridiron football, the quarterback is the leader of the offensive team. At most levels, but especially at the college and professional level, the quarterback is one of the most visible and important roles on the team, being responsible both for calling plays and making decisions during the play. Shown here is Shea Smith of the Air Force Falcons during the 2007 Armed Forces Bowl.
Photo: Marie-Lan NguyenFencing is the sport of fighting with swords; in modern usage the word usually denotes competitive fencing, rather than classical fencing. Here, Fabian Kauter (right) hits Diego Confalonieri (left) with a flèche attack at the final of the Challenge Réseau Ferré de France–Trophée Monal 2012.
Photo: Fir0002A man engaged in waterskiing, a sport in which an individual is pulled behind a boat or a cable ski installation on a body of water, skimming the surface. Waterskiing is a relatively young sport, having been invented in the early 20th century. The skis this person is wearing are specialized for ski jumping.
Photo credit: Håkan DahlströmIce hockey player Wayne Gretzky, as a member of the New York Rangers of the National Hockey League (NHL) in 1997. Gretzky, nicknamed "The Great One", is widely considered the best hockey player of all time. Upon his retirement in 1999, he held forty regular-season records, fifteen playoff records, and six All-Star records. He is the only NHL player to total over 200 points in one season—a feat he accomplished four times. In addition, he tallied over 100 points in 15 NHL seasons, 13 of them consecutively. He is the only player to have his number (99) officially retired by the NHL for all teams.
Photo: Steven Rasmussen; edit: KeraunoscopiaAustralian artistic gymnast Lauren Mitchell (b. 1991) performing a layout step-out on the balance beam during the 41st World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in London, United Kingdom, on 14 October 2009; at the Championships, Mitchell won two silver medals, one for the balance beam and another for floor exercises. Since her first medal in 2007, Mitchell has placed in the World Championships, World Cup, and Commonwealth Games, and competed in two Olympic Games.
Photo: Pavel.ryclTony Estanguet (b. 1978) is a French slalom canoeist who has competed since the mid-1990s. Before announcing his retirement, he competed in four Olympic Games and, with his win at the 2012 London Games, became the first French Olympian to win three gold medals in the same Olympic discipline.
Photograph: D. Bernard & Co; restoration: Adam CuerdenEugen Sandow (1867–1925) was a pioneering German bodybuilder. Born in Königsberg, Prussia, he joined a circus to avoid military service. Fellow strongman Ludwig Durlacher urged Sandow to travel to London and take part in a strongman competition, which he handily won. Sandow rose rapidly to fame and was soon touring Europe and the United States, being featured in a short film series that depicted him flexing. After a bout of ill health, Sandow focused on opening public gyms, inventing or improving exercise equipment, and training would-be military recruits as well as King George V. Sandow is now known as the "father of modern bodybuilding".
Photo: Sport the LibraryJeremy Doyle (1983–2011) was an Australian wheelchair basketball player. Left paraplegic after a car accident, he was classified as a 1 point player. While representing his country Doyle won two gold medals, first at the 2009 Paralympic World Cup and again at the 2010 Wheelchair Basketball World Championship.
Credit: PierreSelim
Credit: Fernando FrazãoThe balance beam is a rectangular artistic gymnastics apparatus, as well as the event performed using the apparatus. Pictured is Daniele Hypólito in the final of the women's artistic gymnastics competition at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, where Brazil finished in 8th place.
Credit: ChePriit Narusk in the qualification for the Tour de Ski cross-country skiing competition in Prague.
Olympic women's cycling winners, 2012Photograph: David IliffThe leaders of the women's road race, one of the cycling events at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, on 29 July 2012. The eventual medallists (left to right: Lizzie Armitstead (silver), Marianne Vos (gold) and Olga Zabelinskaya (bronze)) were photographed approximately 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from the finish line.
Photograph: Ira Rosenberg; restoration: Chris WoodrichMuhammad Ali (1942-2016) was an American former professional boxer, generally considered among the greatest heavyweights in the history of the sport. A controversial and polarizing figure during his early career, Ali is now highly regarded for the skills he displayed in the ring plus the values he exemplified outside of it: religious freedom, racial justice and the triumph of principle over expedience. Ali remains the only three-time lineal world heavyweight champion, having won the title in 1964, 1974, and 1978.
Photograph credit: Kontizas DimitriosBASE jumping is the recreational sport of jumping from fixed objects, using a parachute to descend safely to the ground. The acronym stands for four categories of fixed objects from which the jumps can be made: buildings, antennae, spans, and earth (cliffs). In this photograph, a BASE jumper launches himself from the top of the Sapphire Tower in Istanbul, Turkey.
Boxing is a sport where two participants of similar weight attack each other with their fists in a series of one to three-minute intervals called "rounds". Modern boxing began in 1867 with the Marquess of Queensberry rules. Currently, there are two distinct branches of boxing: Professional and Olympic, which have different rules, but are similar in execution.
Credit: Ralf RoletschekMartin Sesaker representing Norway in curling at the 2012 Winter Youth Olympics.
Did you know...
- ...that sex determination in sports is no longer practiced at the Olympic Games?
- ...that in the history of Major League Baseball, twelve batters have hit two grand slams in the same game?
- ...that the 1903 Tour de France often required riders to cycle through the night?
- ...that French tennis player Henri Leconte won 9 ATP titles in an 11 year period?
- ...that a pit stop (pictured) in Formula One autosport involves about 20 mechanics?
Selected quote
Selected athlete
Rhonda Sing as Bertha Faye
After training with Mildred Burke, she wrestled in Japan under the name Monster Ripper. Although she found adjusting to the Japanese culture difficult, Sing held All Japan Women's title on two occasions and was the first Calgary born wrestler to gain success in Japan. In 1987, she returned to Canada and began working with Stampede Wrestling, where she was rebranded Rhonda Singh. During 1987, she was named their first Women's Champion. She held the title until September 22, 1988, when she lost to Chigusa Nagayo. Over the next few years, Sing once again traveled throughout the world and wrestled for a number of companies, holding several titles. Between 1987 and 1990, Sing worked in Puerto Rico for the World Wrestling Council (WWC), where she held the WWC Women's Championship on five separate occasions by defeating Wendi Richter, Candi Devine, and Sasha in matches for the title.
In 1995, Sing was contacted by the World Wrestling Federation to help their fledgling women's division. She, however, was repackaged as Bertha Faye, a comedic character who lived in a trailer park and dated Harvey Wippleman. Sing made her WWF debut on the April 3, 1995 episode of Monday Night Raw participating in a sneak attack on Alundra Blayze, making it appear as if Blayze's nose had been broken. At SummerSlam, Faye defeated Blayze for the WWF Women's Championship and held the title until the October 23, 1995 airing of Monday Night Raw, where Blayze regained the title. In late 1999, she worked with World Championship Wrestling (WCW) briefly, appearing on several telecasts to help generate interest in a women's division. She was also a contender for both the WCW Cruiserweight Championship and WCW Hardcore Championship. In addition to competing in matches using her Singh and Monster Ripper gimmicks, she also made a couple of appearances with the Nitro Girls dance troupe under the name "Beef", for comic relief. After leaving WCW, Sing quit wrestling. (Full article...)
Selected team
The Maryland Terrapins football team in 2010
The program's achievements have included one NCAA-recognized national championships, nine ACC championships, two Southern Conference championships, eleven consensus All-Americans, several Hall of Fame inductees, and twenty-four bowl game appearances. Maryland possesses the third-most ACC championships with nine. Many former Terrapins players and coaches have gone on to careers in professional football including 15 first-round NFL Draft picks.
The first officially recognized football team was fielded in 1892, and excluding a brief hiatus in 1895, Maryland has competed in college football each season since. Harry C. "Curley" Byrd, a student-athlete at Maryland, became head football coach in 1911 and served in that role for two decades before he became the university president. The Terrapins had consistent on-field success between 1947 and 1955. Maryland then suffered a period of mediocrity, until 1972, when the program again rose to national prominence under coaches Jerry Claiborne and Bobby Ross. The football program underwent another period of lackluster performance beginning in 1986 and lasting until 2001, when Ralph Friedgen was hired as head coach and engineered a first-year turnaround that culminated in a conference championship. In the following years, the Terrapins made regular postseason appearances, but were unable to match the success of Friedgen's first season. (Full article...)
In this month
- August 3, 1949 – The Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League merge to form the National Basketball Association
- August 7, 1983 – The inaugural World Championships in Athletics competition begins in Helsinki, Finland
- August 14, 2010 – The inaugural Youth Olympic Games (opening ceremony pictured) multi-sport event begins in Singapore
- August 18, 1915 – The first game of the Japanese High School Baseball Championship, the largest scale amateur sport event in Japan, takes place
- August 28, 1982 – The inaugural Gay Games, originally called the Gay Olympics, open in San Francisco, California
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