Sports and Games Essay

Sports and Games Essay

Sports and games are activities which many people enjoy. Sport helps us to be in a good condition and to keep fit. We can do sport as hobbies (amateurs) or professionally. Good professionals are well-known for their good results and can also be well-paid. Professional sport has become big business in the past couple of years. Every team or individual needs to have a sponsor. Sponsors are people or companies who pay money to players or teams to advertise their company or products.

We can put sports and games into different categories: indoor and outdoor sports, summer and winter sports, water sports, motor sports, ball games, etc.

Outdoor sports are golf, skiing (cross-country, down-hill, slalom, ski-jump, triathlon), hiking, climbing, marathon running, horse riding, athletic, cycling, sprinting, jogging etc.

Indoor sports include table-tennis, gymnastics, boxing, wrestling, squash, bowling, snooker, pool, darts, chess …

There are also some sports which could be played both outdoor and indoor such as tennis, ball games (basketball, volleyball), ice-hockey, athletics, swimming and many others.

Water sports include swimming, water-polo, diving, water-skiing, wake-boarding, yachting, rafting, canoeing and rowing.

Motor sports are Formula 1, motorcycling, motocross, car racing and power boating.

According to the season we divide sports in summer and winter sports.

Summer sports are athletics (sprint, running, high jump, long jump, shot-put, javelin throw…), water sports, cycling and many ball games (football, volleyball, basketball, golf, cricket, tennis).

Winter sports include ice-hockey, skiing, snowboarding, bobsleigh, skating (speed skating and figure skating – single or in pairs), curling etc.

Sport is all about competition. Someone has to be the winner, someone the looser. Around the world we have a huge number of competitions. There are European and World Championships and many other tournaments of all kinds of sport. However, the most important competition for each sportsman is the Olympic Games. We have the Winter and Summer Olympic Games which take place every 4 years. It’s a dream for every professional to take part in and win one of 3 medals- gold, silver or bronze. When the Olympic Games are over they are followed two weeks later by the Paralympics Games for sportsmen with physical disabilities.

In Slovakia people really enjoy sport. They like to do sport in their leisure time or watching tournaments and competitions on TV. We are a country where people are interested in various types of sports and games, however, the most popular is ice-hockey and football. When the World Championship of ice-hockey is played, almost everyone watches it on TV, talks about it and when our team plays well the atmosphere is amazing. In the last 5 years our ice hockey team improved a lot and won gold, silver and bronze medals.

I am a big fan of ice-hockey too but my favourite sport is water-polo. I have played this sport for almost 9 years. A Water-polo team consists of 13 players but during the match only 6 players plus goalkeeper play at any one time. The real match time is 28 minutes which are divided into 4 quarters. After each 7 minutes of play time is a 2 minute break. Water-polo is a very hard game, there are lots of fights under water that can’t be seen even with 2 referees.

In the USA basketball, American football and NHL are very popular. The NHL has not only Americans players but European’s too. The NHL is the highest ice-hockey league and their players are some of the best paid sportsmen in the world.

Rugby, polo, cricket, darts, tennis, boxing were invented in the UK. The UK is famous for the Wimbledon tennis tournament, The British Open Golf Championship, horse riding, fox hunting and other sports.

Tennis is played on a tennis court

Golf is played on a golf course

Win –vyhrat

Winner - vitaz

Lose – prehrat

Loser - porazeny

Draw – remiza

Referee – rozhodca

Whistle – pistalka

The final score – konecny vysledok

Crowd - publikum

Foul - faul