Sport and Games

Sports are one of the most popular leisure time activities. Sports help to keep fit both physical and mentally. They can help to take some weight, and makes use of skills and strength. During sports events one can meet a lot of new people and see how it feels to be a winner or a looser.
Mostly all of the sports and games are further differentiated into two groups according to where they can be practised. Indoor sports and outdoor sports. Indoor games include for example gymnastics, table tennis, boxing, wrestling, bowling, fencing, act. Outdoor sports include for example skiing, rock climbing, horse riding, golf, wind surfing, soccer, horse riding, act. But most sports and almost all games can be done both indoors and outdoors. It could be track and field events for instance. These events take place in summer stadiums as well as in athletic halls. The games are usually all-season activities. The most numerous group of games are the ball games such as soccer, volleyball or basketball. Sports might be differentiated into individual sports and collective sports. Individual sports are for example boxing, rock climbing, fencing, weight lifting, skiing or cycling. Collective sports include for example football, baseball, basketball, voleyball or hockey. There are many other ways to separate sports in groups known such as motor sports, water sports act.
There are two ways how to make sports. Professionally or amateur. Professionals are paid for making sports and for playing games. The professionalism kind of destroyed the spirit of games. Professionalism makes sports turn into a business. People who make sports and play games professionally don’t usually take it like a fun, but they make it because of money and fame. Teams are buying, selling and trading the players between them. The professionalism makes a corruption in sports because of money. Many games are sold and many players are bribed in professional games. Amateurs games are played for fun and not for money or fame. There are big money in professional sports. Most of those money are from sponsors. Sponsors are usually people or companies who pay money to players or teams for advertising their companies. It’s really effective way to get known for companies. It’s also good way to make money for people in sport. Commercial sponsorship provides money and can help to correct a market and development failure which exists in many aspects of sport and leisure.

The games are really commercionalized in past couple of years. Games turned into a big shows in which the sports stars make s lot of money. The other part of business in sport is buying and selling players. Every professional player or team has a manager who is supposed to take care about good image, sponsors and the business around the game. Some of sponsors advertise their products that are unhealthy such as tobacco or alcohol companies. For example one of the biggest sponsors of Formula 1 is Marlboro, the tobacco monopoly company. In some of the countries is this advertising illegal, but in most of the countries around the world the governments don’t care. I think that all of these countries should make this kind of advertising illegal. I am sure there are enough other sponsors to effort all of these professional sport activities. Where the money are, there are politics too. Some of the politics use sport meets to make their own campaigns. For example the 1936 Olympic Games were awarded to Berlin prior to Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. As the world watched Hitler’s extreme nationalism many wondered if it would conflict with the international spirit the Olympics fostered. Hitler had used Olympic games to promote the superiority of the race. After that the Games were called off during the Second World War. Olympic Games were used through the whole history as a tool or mouthpiece, to further political movements or ideas. The most famous sport competitions are the Olympic Games, Goodwill games and World Student Games. The Olympic Games were already held in ancient Greece. The Olympics were renewed by Pierre de Coubertin about a hundred years ago, and today as well as in ancient times they take place every four years. Pierre de Coubertin was born in Paris and he believed in the Greek athletic ideal of perfection of mind and body. Since 1924 there are two parts to the games. The winter part and the summer part, which alternate once every two years. There are also Paralympic Games known. The Paralympic Games are the zenith of competition for elite athletes with physical disabilities. The fundamental philosophy guiding the Paralympic movement is that these world-class athletes should have opportunities and experiences equivalent to those afforded non-disables athletes. In order to complete in the Paralympics, each athlete must meet strict qualifying standards and be selected to his or her national team. The other famous competition are the Goodwill Games.

The first Goodwill Games were in Moscow in 1986, the second one were held in Seattle in 1990 and the last one were held in St. Petersburg in 1994. Goodwill Games are held every four years. Another famous games are World Student Games. The first International University games were held in Warsaw. Ten games are usually included at these Summer Games as football, athletics, basketball, fencing, gymnastics, judo, swimming, tennis, volleyball, and water-polo. In all of these competitions there is a big pressure on the people in sports. There is a pressure from family, sponsors, couch, manager and from public. So they are trying to win all the time. Many of sportsmen and sportswomen are not good enough to be the best, so some of them take a drugs to get better, to have fame and make a big money. Drugs are illegal in sports so sometimes the sport organisations make a blood tests after the competitions. Many good sportsmen and sportswomen were caught taking the drugs. Some of the most famous sportsmen who were caught taking the drugs are Ben Johnson, Diego Armando Maradona, who was caught couple of times, and many others. There are many kinds of drugs known and some of them are not detectable. Taking drugs is just another kind of corruption in sport. Drugs isn’t the only one unhealthy stuff in sports. Some of the sports are unhealthy themselves. Every sport could be unhealthy, but some of them are really dangerous. Like for example boxing, hockey, American football, act. Most of the professional boxers have a problems with their bodies when they get older. Their hands are shaking and many of them have problems to think like a normal people anymore. There isn’t only a risk of physical problems in boxing, but mentally also. Another unhealthy sport is hockey. Hockey is a hard game. Hockey players get hurt pretty often and missing some tooth is nothing unusual for them. In 1991 there was a hockey player Cajka from Check Republic who got accidentally killed during the game. American Football is known like one of the hardest games. The players have a helmet and a lot of protection, but the duels can be painful anyway. Women have a chance to participate on any kind of sports today. Many women think, that there is a discrimination of women in sports. It is not true. Women can make any sport they want. Many of the people think that women shouldn’t make some kinds of sports, because they are not physically equal to men. For example boxing, wrestling, weigh lifting, act. There are some women in box, but not many people watch those duels.

Sponsors don’t want to give money in duels, that people don’t watch and it’s hard to provide some sports without money. That’s why women are not able to make some of the sports or have their own competitions. Some sportswomen think that there is a discrimination of women in tennis, because on some of the tournaments they aren’t paid as good as men. It’s not a discrimination. It’s just because public isn’t interested to watch women competitions.
There are fans in every sport and they like to participate on game. Fans go on stadiums to see their favourite teams or players. One of the most popular sports for fans is soccer. Some of the soccer stadiums can effort 60-80 thousand people. Between those thousands of people are always some who don’t know how to behave. One of the worst group of vandals were „Rowdies“. It was a British group of soccer fans. There was a soccer match between FC Liverpool and Juventus Turin on May 29th in Brussel, on Heysel Stadium. Rowdies couldn’t miss that match. Stadium was crowded. During the game, Rowdies got in fight with another group of fans. They were acting like wild animals. Many of people were trying to run away down on the field. They couldn’t, because of fences. 39 people died in couple of seconds because of terrible behaviour of an enthusiastic admirers of sport. After this game many of soccer stadiums were divided in more sections, so big groups of fans don’t get a chance of physical contact. Another part of a business that is connected with sports is a business with a computer games. These software companies make a lot of money on their games. There are many of cool games on a computers and many of families have a computers. It’s not good for kids. There used to be much more kids outside, playing games. Today many kids are playing games just through their computers. Some of them don’t even know the pleasure of a real sport, and they hardly find a new friends by sitting in front of computers. The sport facilities in Slovak Republic are pretty good, I think. In winter there are good conditions for skiing on the north of the country and in the summer it is a nice place for mountain biking. Ski jumping or cross country skiing are possible in High Tatras also. High Tatras was one of the candidates for Winter Olympic Games 2002 and now High Tatras candidates for Winter Olympic Games 2006. There are pretty good facilities for sports in Bratislava also.

We have many of swimming pools, gymnasiums, soccer fields, tennis outdoor and indoor courts, hockey arenas, finesses, athletic stadiums, bowling-alleys, horse-riding fields and many facilities for water sports like water skiing, wind-surfing, swimming, scuba diving or fishing and many more.

Sport is important part of my life also. Sport makes me feel better and relaxed. I personally like collective sports. I like to meet my friends and play the games with them. Games also makes me think and develop my way of thinking.
I am not too interested about professional sports. I think they are too commercialised and there is a big corruption in professional sports.