BELARUSIAN SPORTSMEN AT THE OLYMPIC GAMES

SPORTS IN BRITAIN

Sport is very important part of life in Great Britain. Thousands of people devote their leisure time to outdoor and indoor games, athletics, cycling, mountain climbing, boxing and other sport. Horse-racing, dog-racing and motor racing are among the most popular sports in Britain. They gather many spectators. The English are great lovers of competitive sports, and when they are neither playing nor watching games they like to talk about them, and when they can’t do that they think about them.

Outdoor games played in Great Britain are team games such as football, cricket and hockey, and games in which individuals or couples try their skill, for example lawn-tennis and golf. The number of participants and spectators shows that the most popular of the team games are football, golf and cricket, and the most popular individual games are lawn-tennis, hunting, shooting, fishing, horse racing and motor racing. Popular indoor games are billiards, darts, chess and draughts.

The game which is especially connected with England is cricket. It is one of the most popular British games which foreigners can hardly understand. Cricket is sometimes called the national game of England. It is played on large sections of grassland known as ‘pitches’. The ball is very hard and made of leather. The game is played on a ‘pitch’ with two ‘wickets’, 22yards apart. The wicket has three vertical stumps with two horizontal bails on them. Cricket is played by two teams of eleven men each. It is scored by a number of ‘runs’ and the players wear white or cream shirts and white flannel trousers. The batsman and the wicket-keeper have gloves and also padded leg-guards. Most cricket matches last one day, but important matches (such as international ones) can last six days. The oldest series of international matches (Test Matches) is between England and Australia, and the team that wins, takes home a famous trophy, The Ashes - called. The trophy has this odd unusual name because it contains the ashes of the stumps and bails that were used in Test series of 1882, and then burned. And even today for cricket lovers winning The Ashes is like winning The World Cup for football! In England cricket is played in schools and universities, and almost all villages and towns have their cricket teams which play regularly at least one match a week during the season – from May to September. There are many thousands of cricket grounds all over England.

This game is very popular in Britain, India, Pakistan, Australia, New Zealand and the West Indies.

The cricket news nearly always gets on to the front page of most newspapers, even when there is something much more important to read about.

However, for the great mass of the British public the eight months of the football (soccer) season are more important than the four months of cricket. Soccer (European football) attracts great attention. There are plenty of amateur and professional soccer clubs in every town. The Cup Final played in London is the culminating event of the football season.

Tennis has become an international game. The number of people who play lawn-tennis is great. Tennis is becoming an ever greater favorite with young people. Some join a tennis club, but most find a partner and go to one of the public courts that can be hired by the hour for a very small payment indeed. The world championships are held each year in the Davis Cup Competition. But the greatest event in tennis is Wimbledon international championship held near London for two weeks at the end of June and beginning of July.

Golf is a porch game which is also very popular among the British. Golf is of Dutch origin and it was played in Scotland as early as the fifteenth century and now the game is played all over the world. In Britain there are public golf courses and clubs in the vicinity of many towns and villages. Golf consists in driving a small hard ball into a series of holes on a golf course, using various clubs. It can be played by one person or by a number of people. Though it has never been recognized as a major sport, golf is becoming more and more popular among people of all ages and social classes in all English –speaking countries, because of its relaxing and healthy effects. Mini-golf is very popular in seaside resorts during the summer holiday.

Swimming is also one of the popular sports in Britain especially among children. Many children learn to swim at school, or during holidays at the seaside, and swimming as a summer pastime is enjoyed by millions of people. There are also indoor swimming pools which make swimming possible all-the-year round. Swimming championship and competitions are widely reported in the press, over the radio and on television. Attempts to swim the English Channel which separates Great Britain from the Continent have been made by swimmers of many nationalities every summer. Some of the attempts are successful.

Various kinds of sports are encouraged in all British schools, univer­sities and clubs. Most secondary schools have playing fields, and boys normally play rugger or soccer in winter and cricket and tennis in summer, while girls play handball, tennis, netball and hockey. Basketball is not played much. They are not particularly interested in being spectators at occasions when human beings compete. Athletics, sports and gymnastics are practiced at schools, but many towns have running tracks for public use. The school gym is usually equipped with climbing ropes, parallel bars, a vaulting horse, rings, and mats. On sports day prizes are awarded for the high jump, long jump, the hundred meter run, hurdles and other events.

The most popular annual sporting events that the British look forward to eagerly, is famous university best race between Oxford and Cambridge, which is held on the Thames every spring.

THE OLYMPIC GAMES

There are many legends surrounding the origins of the Olympic Games. According to Homer, Pelops, the god of fertility staged the most memorable games in antiquity, roughly in 1370 BC. Later on games were organized several times. According to second legend the Games were founded by Heracles (Hercules in Roman mythology). One of them took place in Olympic in Greece in honour of the Olympian Gods in 776 BC with only one race, a sprint, for which the prize for the winner was an olive wreath from a sacred olive tree that was said to have been planted by Heracles himself. This game can be considered the prehistory of the Olympics or the first Ancient Olympic Games.

When the Romans conquered Greece, the Games were also introduced in the Roman Empire. In 393 AD, however, Emperor Theodosius thought that the ‘pagan cult’ could threaten the Christian religion and therefore banned the Games ending a thousand-year period of Olympic Games. After nearly 300 Olympiads the Games stopped.

1,500years passed, and the Games were revived by a Frenchman, Baron Pierre de Coubertin and, appropriately, the first modern Olympic Games opened in 1896 again. Only 12 countries were represented. Pierre de Coubertin wanted to bring nations closer together and have them compete in sports rather than fight in wars. Thanks to the efforts of Coubertin and his supporters, the first modern Games took place in Athens, the actual birthplace of the Olympics. Coubertin’s idea of bringing the nations closer together is symbolised in the Olympic flag: its rings represent the five continents of the world and the colours (blue, black, red, yellow, green, white) were chosen such that they contained the flag colours of all countries participating in the games at the time the Olympic flag was created. The participants competed in nine sports: cycling, tennis, gymnastics, swimming, athle­tics, weightlifting, rowing, wresting and shooting. Sailing was also to have taken place, but had to be cancelled because of bad weather at sea. Despite the many problems that arose in Athens the Olympic Games had come to stay.

From that time on the Olympics were held more or less regularly, depending on the political situation on the conti­nent. In 1900 they were held in Paris, in 1904 - St. Louis, in 1906 - Athens again, in 1908 - London, in 1912 - Stockholm, in 1920 - Antwerp, in 1924 - Paris, in 1928 - Amsterdam, in 1932 - Los Ange­les, in 1936 - Berlin, in 1948 - London, in 1952 - Helsinky, in 1956 - Melbourne, in 1960 - Rome, in 1964 - Tokyo, in 1968 -Mexico, in 1972 - Sapporo, in 1976 -Innsbruck, in 1980 - in Moscow, in 1984 -in the USA, in 1988 - Seoul, in 1992 - in Alberwill, in 1994 - in Lillehammer, in 1998 - Nagano.

Now the Olympic Games are held every two years. They contribute much to the struggle for peace, understanding and trust among peoples.

Months before the Olympics actually take place, the Olympic Flame is lit in Olympia and relayed to the host city where, at the opening ceremony, the last runner lights the Olympic fire. Another highlight of the opening ceremony is the parade of the competitors. At the first modern Olympic games 245 athletes from 13 nations competed in 10 different sports. Now more than 10,000 athletes from about 200 nations compete in 28 different sports. The Olympic motto is 'citius-altius-fortius' (faster-higher-stronger).

As you know the 22nd Olympic Games took place in the Soviet Union in 1980. Five cities: Moscow, Kiev, Minsk, Riga and Tallinn greeted the world's champions. Our sportsmen won 80 gold, 64 silver and 49 bronze medals there. That was the best result among national teams.

In the first Olympics there were no real team sports. Then, slowly, a few team sports joined the program. Football and hockey were the first team sports intro­duced into the Olympics in London in 1908. Then in 1938, at the Berlin Olympics, the Germans brought in handball and the Americans had basketball accepted as an Olympic sport.

It often happens that the country that introduces a new sport into the Olympics then goes on to win the gold medals. In 1904, at the Olympics in St. Louis, the Americans introduced boxing and won all seven events. Five horse riding events were introduced into the 1912 Stockholm Olympics and Swedish riders won four of them. In 1964, at the Tokyo Olympics, two sports which are very popular in Ja­pan were introduced: judo and volleyball. The Japanese won all three gold medals in the judo, and also won the first women's volleyball competition.

Some new sports have recently been added to the Olympics. In Los An­geles, in 1984, baseball was introduced and windsurfing became an Olympic sport. In Seoul Korea, in 1988, there was table tennis for the first time, and tennis returned as an Olympic sport. Unlike tennis, some sports, such as golf and rugby, have been tried in the Olympics but have never returned.

The Olympic movement continues to get wider and wider. Nowadays, major cities compete to host the Olympic Games, not just for the honour the Games bring, but for the vast amount of profit a host country can make.

They can now be seen by nearly every country in the world and are therefore an ideal platform for political statements. When Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan in 1980, many countries in the West, including Britain and the United States, boycotted the Moscow Games. In 1984 some countries decided not to send teams to the Los Angeles Games because they felt there was not enough security and that they were too commercial.

In circumstances like these, the Olympic ideal and spirit comes into ques­tion. And for athletes there is less value in winning a gold medal if the best of the world's athletes are not competing. The question is - how much longer will the Games survive if nations continue to use them as a political platform?

BELARUSIAN SPORTSMEN AT THE OLYMPIC GAMES

For the first time, Belarusian athletes took part in the Helsinki Olympic Games in 1952. The first Belarusian Olympic medalist was Mikhail Krivonosov, a hammer thrower at the Melbourne Games in 1956. In 1994 at XVII Winter Olympic Games the Belarusian National Olympic Committee presented an independent national team. 33 Belaru­sian sportsmen performed in 7 categories. Two silver medals were won by I. Zhelezovsky in speed skating and S. Paramygina in biathlon. At XXVIII Olympic Games in Athens (Greece, 2004) Belarusian sportsmen performed in 23 categories and won 15 medals: 2 gold medals (Julia Nesterenko - 100 m track-and-field athletics, Igor Makarov - judo), 6 silver and 7 bronze medals.

Belarus has raised 61 Olympic champions. 180 Olympic medals were brought to our country, including 70 gold medals. And today the names of Vitaliy Scherbo, six times Olympic champion in gymnastics, Olga Korbut, four times Olympic champion in gymnastics, Elena Belova, four times Olympic champion in fencing, Alexander Medved, three times Olympic champion in free style wrestling, Marina Lobach, Romuald Klim, Alexander Romankov, Tatyana Samussenko, Ivan Ivankov, Ekaterina Karsten and Oleg Ryzhenkov are known all over the world.

Ekaterina Karsten was given the name "Catherine the Great" after the Olympic Games in Atlanta and Sydney. She was a gold medal winner in rowing.

Yulia Nesterenko at the summer Olympics in Athens was called "the White Lightning", as she had revolved the sprinting world for the first time in the long years of Afro-sprinters' total domination and managed to become the best.

Igor Makarov, the Athens Olympic champion in judo, was to the Olympics among the favourites and confirmed his high reputation.

Nowadays, Belarus ranks high in the world sport community. 132 sports are cultivated in our country. The preparation of top-level sportsmen is carried out in 48 Olympic sports.

The Republic of Belarus with its 10-million population while being independent comes in 20 world strongest among more than 200 countries that participate in the Olympic Games.

Alongside with popular sports movement, much attention is paid to professional sport. The system of training world-class sportsmen includes 281 youth sports schools, 162 schools of Olympic reserve, schools of higher sportsmanship, a centre of Olympic training. Physical culture and sports are paid much attention to in Belarus. This is one of the key guidelines of the State policy today.

About 80 international competitions are held in the Republic of Belarus every year. The tournaments for the prizes of the President of the Republic of Belarus, and three times Olympic champion in free style wrestling Alexander Medved, as well as open championships and cups in rhythmic gymnastics, sambo, judo have won world-wide recognition. The traditional rhythmic gymnastics tournament which is held in the Belarusian capital every spring is more than a convincing proof of the beauty of Belarusian gymnasts and their ability to stage a real show. The coaches were really at a loss when they were asked who would go to the Olympics in China. They said, "Let them decide for themselves through competition."

Date: 2015-12-17; view: 1583