IN-LINE ROLLER-SKATING

Children and grown-ups are doing it. Skiers and ice hockey players are doing it.

Athletes and acrobats are doing it. What is "it"? In-line skating!

In-line roller skates are more and more popular. Millions of people in Europe and the USA are putting on their skates and doing the strangest things.

Ice-hockey players and skiers use them in summer. Some have stopped playing ice hockey and play roller hockey with in-line skates instead. Why? It's more fun! Roller hockey combines elements of hockey and basketball. Even women play in-line roller hockey.

The streets of America are full of children playing hockey on their skates. In London parks there are now special skating sections so that skaters don't frighten joggers and walkers when they whizz past at 50 kilometres per hour!

Of course, some people like competition, so there are in-line speed-skating championships with different distances.

Joseph Merlin, a Belgian inventor and musical instrument maker, invented the roller skates in about 1760. He was also the first person to wear them. He wore his new metal skates to a party in London, where he crashed into a very expensive mirror.

He wasn't very interested in skating after this experience.

In 1863, James Plimpton, an American businessman, invented a roller skate that could turn. Plimpton opened a skating club in New York where gentlemen enjoyed showing off for the ladies by doing fancy figures, steps and turns.

Within 20 years, roller skating had become a popular pastime for men and women.

Indoors, wealthy gentlemen played "roller polo," a hockey game. Others held contests in dance and figure skating. Outdoors, men and women were racing in speed contests.

The more the public saw of skating, the more they wanted to try it themselves. Roller skating was soon enjoying its first boom. Roller hockey teams were playing throughout Europe as early as 1901.

In the 1970s, the first plastic skate wheels were made. Such wheels were quieter than those made of wood or metal, and skaters could move faster and easier.

In 1980s, a new kind of roller skates appeared. They are called in-line roller skates.

They were invented by two brothers in Minnesota, USA, who wanted to practice icehockey in the summer.

Everybody liked the invention and soon the two brothers started to produce in-line skates commercially. In 1984, Rollerblade, the first in-line skate company was bom.

Today, there are lots of companies and lots of skates.

(from Speak Out, abridged)

SNOWBOARDING

Snowboarding is the fastest-growing winter sport. It's catching on all over the world and is now included in the Olympic Games.

Did we say sport? Snowboarding is also a way of life, with its own equipment, style, music, clothing and even language.

The "father" of snowboarding is Jake Burton. He became hooked on the idea when he was a teenager and took 15 years to develop the perfect snowboard. Now he owns the largest snowboard business in the world.

Snowboarding is different from skiing. "The only thing skiing has in common with snowboarding is the snow," says one snowboarding fan.

A snowboard looks like a big skateboard without wheels. While standing up with both feet on a board, a snowboarder slides down a slope, controlling the direction with the same small movements that a skateboarder uses. The most difficult thing is, of course, to keep balance.

Skiers, however, aren't happy about the latest craze. They say that snowboards ruin the surface of the snow, and snowboarders can be intimidating as they fly down hills at amazing speeds. Besides, their baggy trousers, baseball caps, bright shirts and Walkmans playing Hip Hop music are not what traditional, conservative skiers are used to.

But snowboarders will give you a long list of reasons why snowboarding is better than skiing.

Snowboarding is especially popular with teenagers and college students (some say as many as 90% of snowboarders is between the ages 10 and 25). "Skiing is for old people," says a student from Colorado. "Snowboarding is for the young. You can go crazy when you snowboard and that's cool."

(from Speak Out, abridged)

SURF'S UP!

Surfing is popular all over the world. It's practised on lakes and rivers, seas and oceans — anywhere with good wind.

Some people think that it's a new kind of sport. But it is not. It was first reported by the British explorer Captain Cook in 1778. It became popular with the introduction of mass-produced, lightweight boards made of fibreglass in the 1960s.

The birthplace of surfing is Hawaii and today it's home of the most famous surfing competition. Huge waves crash along mile after mile of beautiful sand, and every surfer dreams of experiencing surfing in Maui or Oahu.

The best time for surfing is when the waves are high. Serious surfers must be very brave, love adventure and have lots of energy. Once they've experienced the excitement of a ride on top of the waves, they never want to stop.

It takes time to learn to catch a wave at the right moment, stand up on your board and stay there. But during a hot summer day, who minds practising?

(from Speak Out, abridged)

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 874