Portal:Sports

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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 is a form of physical activity or game. Often competitive and organized, sports use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills. They also provide enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Many sports exist, with different participant numbers, some are done by a single person with others being done by hundreds. Most sports take place either in teams or competing as individuals. Some sports allow a "tie" or "draw", in which there is no single winner; others provide tie-breaking methods to ensure one winner. A number of contests may be arranged in a tournament format, 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 admitting only sports meeting this definition. Some organisations, such as the Council of Europe, preclude activities without any physical element from classification as sports. However, a number of competitive, but non-physical, activities claim recognition as mind sports. The International Olympic Committee who oversee the Olympic Games recognises both chess and bridge as sports. SportAccord, the international sports federation association, recognises five non-physical sports: bridge, chess, draughts, Go and xiangqi. However, they limit the number of mind games which can be admitted as sports. Sport is usually governed by a set of rules or customs, which serve to ensure fair competition. Winning can be determined by physical events such as scoring goals or crossing a line first. It can also be determined by judges who are scoring elements of the sporting performance, including objective or subjective measures such as technical performance or artistic impression. (Full article...)

Selected articles

Selected pictures

Did you know...

Bearcat Stadium

Selected quote

Dwayne Johnson in 2013
I have so much love and respect for the fans. I'll never forget where I came from. I love the business. I grew up in the business. And everyone always asks me, from Letterman to Stone Phillips, what I miss about wrestling. Hands down, I miss the interaction with the fans. Outside of the ring I loved it, too. I mean, how hard is it to sign an autograph? Don't be an asshole to your fans. And there's many [in WWE] that won't, which is bullshit. But inside the ring, just that energy and feeding off that energy is great. There's something so special about it. And every night I would just have a blueprint of what I would say and rely so much on ad-libbing and waiting to see what happens when I get out there and let it materialize organically and see what happens. Every night was a different crowd and they gave me so much energy, and I'll always love that and always miss that for sure.     

Selected athlete

Zersenay at the 2009 World Championships
Zersenay at the 2009 World Championships
Zersenay Tadese (born 8 February 1982) is an Eritrean long-distance track, and road running athlete. He currently holds the men's half marathon world record. His bronze medal in the 10,000 metres at the 2004 Athens Olympics made him the first ever Eritrean Olympic medallist, and his 20 km title at the 2006 IAAF World Road Running Championships also made him the country's first athlete to win at a world championship event. He does not use a sprint finish to win races: his strategy relies upon a combination of efficient running and fast pace setting.

He became interested in cycling in his teenage years and, after winning a number of races, he set his sights upon becoming a professional cyclist in Europe. He was a relative late-comer to competitive running: in his late teens, scouts from a local athletics club suggested that his cycling stamina might translate to running and invited him to compete. He won the race and was spurred on by the victory to start taking the sport seriously and focus on running.

Zersenay has found most of his success over the half marathon distance, with four consecutive victories in the World Half Marathon Championships from 2006 to 2009 & in 2012, and a world record at the Lisbon Half Marathon in 2010. He has also excelled in cross country running, winning a gold, one silver, and two bronze medals in the long distance race over the last five IAAF World Cross Country Championships.

In 2009 Zersenay became only the second man (after Paul Tergat) to win three World Championship medals over three different surfaces in the same year: winning World Cross Country bronze, 10,000 metres World Championship silver on the track, and gold in road running at the World Half Marathon Championships. He is a popular public figure in his home country; 2500 guests attended his wedding to Merhawit Solomon, which was broadcast live on Eritrean television. His brother, Kidane Tadese, is also a professional distance runner. (Full article...)

Selected team

Liverpool players before a Europa League qualifying match
Liverpool players before a Europa League qualifying match
Liverpool Football Club is an English Premier League football club based in Liverpool. The club has won eighteen League titles, seven FA Cups and a record eight League Cups. Liverpool has won more European titles than any other English club, having won five European Cups, three UEFA Cups and three UEFA Super Cups. Liverpool has long-standing rivalries with neighbours Everton and with Manchester United. The club's anthem is "You'll Never Walk Alone".

Liverpool was founded in 1892 and joined the Football League the following year. The club has played at Anfield since its formation. Liverpool reached its first FA Cup Final in 1914, losing 1–0 to Burnley It won consecutive League championships in 1922 and 1923, but did not win another trophy until the 1946–47 season, when the club won the First Division for a fifth time. The club was relegated to the Second Division in the 1953–54 season. The club was promoted back into the First Division in 1962 and won it in 1964, for the first time in 17 years. In 1965, the club won its first FA Cup. In 1966, the club won the First Division but lost to Borussia Dortmund in the European Cup Winners' Cup final. Liverpool won both the League and the UEFA Cup during the 1972–73 season, and the FA Cup again a year later. The most successful period in Liverpool's history was the 1970s and '80s when Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley led the club to eleven league titles and seven European trophies.

The club's supporters have been involved in two major tragedies. The first was the Heysel Stadium disaster in 1985 in which charging Liverpool fans caused a wall to collapse, killing 39 Juventus supporters. In the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, 96 Liverpool supporters lost their lives in a crush against perimeter fencing. The incident remains the worst stadium-related disaster in British history and one of the world's worst football disasters. (Full article...)

In this month

Match between France and Tonga at the 2011 Rugby World Cup

Topics

Related portals

Categories

Category puzzle
Category puzzle
Select [►] to view subcategories

Things you can do

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject: