Portal:Sports
The Sports Portal
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...)
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Did you know...
- ...that Ed Brown was an African-American slave who rose to become a Belmont Stakes-winning jockey and a Kentucky Derby-winning horse trainer?
- ...that Bearcat Stadium (pictured) of Northwest Missouri State University, originally opened in 1917, is the oldest stadium of any NCAA Division II school?
- ...that Australian sprinter Stanley Rowley is the only Olympic participant to win medals for two countries at the same Olympic Games?
- ...that Battlefield Baseball, a Japanese film, features elements of the sports, martial arts and horror genres, as well as including three musical numbers?
- ...that whipcracking, the art of using a whip to create a miniature sonic boom, is a competitive sport in Australia, where it was also elaborated into whipboxing?
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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...)
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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
- May 8, 1954 – The Asian Football Confederation, the governing body of association football in Asia, is founded
- May 15, 1908 – The International Ice Hockey Federation is founded in Paris as Ligue International de Hockey sur Glace
- May 17, 1875 – The first Kentucky Derby is held, with Aristides winning the race
- May 22, 1987 – The inaugural Rugby World Cup (2011 match pictured), co-hosted by New Zealand and Australia, begins
- May 23, 1985 – The first Games of the Small States of Europe, a multi-sport event for European microstates, begins in San Marino
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