Doping

Doping in sports is nothing new, but it has grown, expanded geographically and become more visible in recent years. It is a true scourge of many competitive sports and jeopardises the health of millions of young athletes throughout the world.
Doping is the use of a substance or method which is potentially dangerous for the health of sportsmen but is able to improve their performance giving them an advantage over their opponents.
Sportsmen are idols to small children and if they take drugs, it certainly is a bad role model for all young sportsmen and sportswomen. It is not healthy, in fact it is very dangerous to the human body when abused. It is also unfair to the other people who try to be the best without any support of drugs.
Doping is very dangerous for the human body. There is a very fine line between supportive substances (ion drinks, vitamins, food suplements,..) and drugs (anabolic steroids,..). While the supportive ones can help us be healthier, the latter damage the health, actually every part of the human body. In women, the skin loses its flexibility and resilience, masculine hairs appear, the white of the eye turns to yellow, the voice falters, hair loses its quality and tends to fall out. Blood pressure rises, which can lead to a heart attack. It also damages the liver, kidneys and digestive system. Genitals are likely to be damaged, too. It means that one loses his libido, in women it can cause a disorder of their menstruation, which can be a reason of sterility.
In the past there were some cases of sportsmen dying because they took a drug that should have helped them to be better, stronger, more concentrated and so on. But their heart was under such pressure, it was not able to bear it, and collapsed.

Ice hockey

Ice hockey originally came from Canada, where garbage men played game with a broom and cans or other garbage.
Ice hockey is playes by two teams of six players on an ice rink, with a goal net on each end. The main objective of this very fast and dangerous game is to hit a rubber puck into the opposing team´s net with an ice hockey stick. The game begins when the referee drops the puck between the sticks of two players from the opposing teams. This is called a face-off.
An ice hockey rink is divided into three areas: defending, neutral and attacking. There are many other marks in the ice rink so the game has quite complicated rules. Players can move from one zone to another, but cannot pass the puck across more than two zones. A goal is scored when the puck crosses a goal line.
Each game consists of three periods of 20 minutes, divided by breaks or intermissions of 15 minutes. Both teams can use 20 players for every game, but only 6 can play on the ice rink. The game is watched by three referees, and there is also a goal judge behind each goalkeeper, who judges whether the puck has crossed the goal line or not, by turning on a red or green light.

Golf

The game of golf was first played in Scotland some four hundred years ago.
Players are required to hit a ball, using a wooden or iron golf club, from a teeing ground, down to a fairway, and on to a putting green, where the target hole is located. The fairway is a strip of clear land, along which there are natural hazards – such as ponds and streams, man-made hazards – such as bunkers (sand pits), and rough (areas of uncut grass). Championship golf courses have 18 holes.

The object of the game is to hit the ball into each hole in turn and to complete the round usingas few strokes as possible. Players compete individually or in teams, playing the course together in groups of two, three or four. The two basic forms of competition are match play and stroke play. In match play, the side winning the majority of holes over a certain number of rounds wins the match. In stroke play, the winner is the player who finishes a certain nimber of rounds having made the fewest strokes.

Swimming

Swimming already was highly esteemed in ancient Greece and Rome. No other form of exercise uses so many muscles in the body so fully.
The crawl is the fastest swimming stroke. It is also known as freestyle because it is the stroke of choice in freestyle competition. The alternating arm backstroke was first used in the 1912 Olympic Games. The breaststroke is the oldest style of swimming and it is the slowest competitive stroke. Te butterfly was developed in 1930. The sidestroke was the basic stroke in the early years of competition. Now it is used only in non-competitive swimming. It is efficient and allows the swimmer to cover long distances without tiring. The face remains out of the water at all times, which permits the swimmer to breathe naturally.

Amateurs and professionals

We usually exercise when we want our body to be healthy, to get rid of stress or to relax in an active way. Most of us are amateurs, doing sports for pleasure. Achieving excellent results, some people stop being amateurs and become professionals which means they get paid to do a sport. They have to work very hard because they attend many competitions and the main goal is to win. While some sportsmen dream of winning the world championships or an Olympic medal, tennis players attend tournaments at Wimbledon or Flushing Meadow.

Fans

There is another group of people involved in sport – the fans. Many of them are not keen on doing any physical activity regularly but love watching sporting events, either on TV or at the stadium. When there is an important sporting event, like a world championship, the streets are almost empty. People go home or to the stadium to watch their favourite sportsman or their national team. At the stadium (and after the match), they carry their national or team flag and sing songs to support their team and help them win the match.