Sports and games

Sports and games

Why do sport?

There are many benefits of doing sport. First of all, it is very important for your health. If you want to be fit, you need to move. Doing sport can also make you stronger mentally. Playing a team sport can teach you how to work with other people. Doing sport is also a good way of meeting new people and finding new friends. And people who want to be good at sport usually don’t smoke.

However, not everybody thinks that doing sport is a good thing. The famous English author George Orwell wrote that competitive sport is basically war without shooting. 1 People sometimes support their favourite team so much that they start hating the people who support other teams. The worst of these people are called hooligans. They damage stadiums and attack other spectators.

Some people do sport just for fun but other people do it for money. Professional sportsmen can become very famous and very rich. People from very poor countries, for example from Kenya, often see sport as the only way to escape from their situation.

However, it is very hard to become one of the top players or athletes. Professional sportsmen have to train very hard every day. Sometimes, they want to win so much that they start cheating. They start taking drugs that make them stronger and faster but that damage their health. One of the most famous cheaters was the cyclist Lance Armstrong. All his victories have been cancelled and he cannot take part in cycling competitions anymore.

Kinds of sports

Individual sports and team sports

There are a lot of kinds of sports. In some sports, for example athletics or judo, people usually compete as individuals. That is why these sports are called individual sports. In other sports, for example in football or ice hockey, people need to make teams before they can start playing. That is why these sports are called team sports.

Summer sports

Some sports are usually done in the summer. If you want to do them in winter, you usually need to be inside. It is for example football, baseball, basketball, tennis, golf, aerobics, boxing or some water sports.

Winter sports

Winter sports are done in the winter. If you want to do them in the summer, you have to go to the mountains or to some place with special equipment. It is Ice hockey, skiing, snowboarding, skating.

Extreme sports

Extremes sports are sports that are very dangerous. These sports are usually quite new. People who enjoy doing extreme sports often say that they give you a sense of adventure. Others say that some people just can’t be happy when they are safe so they invented a lot of crazy ways to get killed. It is bungee jumping, sky diving - They have parachutes on their backs.

The Summer Olympics

At the first Olympic Games, there were just nine sports. Today, there are about thirty. Five sports have been part of every Summer Olympic Games since 1896: athletics, cycling, fencing, gymnastics, and swimming. Some other sports that are usually part of the Summer Olympics today are for example football, basketball, volleyball, water polo, tennis, canoeing, archery, triathlon, weightlifting, rowing, sailing, judo, and others. There are some sports that are not part of the Olympics but might get included in them in the future. Some candidates for new Olympic disciplines are for example squash or bowling.