15. Sports and games

Scientist believe that running may help you to remember things better. People who watch television the whole time- couch potatoes – may be in danger of having heart attack. It is not the television that is the problem, but sitting in the same position for a long time. Surfing is a hugely popular sport. Very few people go surfing regularly.

Sport and games are very important for active relaxation and are also important for our physical and mental health. The main difference between sport and game is that game is the collective and the sort is more individual – it means football or basketball are games and skiing or swimming are sports.

We can practise some of sports and games indoor and some of them outdoor. In the first group there are ice-hockey, basketball, handball, figure skating or gymnastic and in the second group there are baseball, golf, winter sports such as skiing, relays or riding. Some sports such as diving, windsurfing or racing can be quite dangerous and very expensive.

Many sports have their origin in GB. The most specific is cricket, often called the English national sport. It has never been adopted in foreign countries.

Also football, golf and tennis are very popular there. Rugby is very popular in Scotland. In the USA there are especially baseball and basketball, ice hockey and golf. There is a long tradition of school sport clubs at all of the high schools and colleges. There are also very important world’s sport events. The most famous are the Olympics, which are held every four years and have hot its summer and winter part, which change once every two years. Other important events are the World, Cups, The Formula One Championship, Wimbledon.

Kinds of sports: Season sports, outdoors, indoors, social, single, water, ball games.

When you want to do some sport you firstly need to know the rules. If don’t know it you may be sent off the play or you don’t achieve the best results you could. You nearly always need some equipment for doing it. For instance, when you play golf you have to have a lot of equipment – different kinds of stick, balls, special trolley. For some sports you don’t need nearly anything, just your body.

At school we have our Physical Education lessons (two lessons a week). When the weather is good, we use to go out to the stadium, where we usually practice athletics. During the winter we usually go to a gym, where we practise gymnastic or we play basketball or volleyball.

We have many famous sportsmen in the Czech Republic. They play football, hockey, do athletic. The famous sportsman who play football are for example: Baroš, Koller and Rosický. Famous Hockey players are Hašek and Jágr. And now some famous people who do some other sport: Dvořák (athletic), Sáblíková (speed-skating) for example.