Portal:Sports
The Sports Portal
Sport is a form of physical activity or game. Often competitive and organized, sports use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills. They also provide enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Many sports exist, with different participant numbers, some are done by a single person with others being done by hundreds. Most sports take place either in teams or competing as individuals. Some sports allow a "tie" or "draw", in which there is no single winner; others provide tie-breaking methods to ensure one winner. A number of contests may be arranged in a tournament format, producing a champion. Many sports leagues make an annual champion by arranging games in a regular sports season, followed in some cases by playoffs.
Sport is generally recognised as system of activities based in physical athleticism or physical dexterity, with major competitions admitting only sports meeting this definition. Some organisations, such as the Council of Europe, preclude activities without any physical element from classification as sports. However, a number of competitive, but non-physical, activities claim recognition as mind sports. The International Olympic Committee who oversee the Olympic Games recognises both chess and bridge as sports. SportAccord, the international sports federation association, recognises five non-physical sports: chess, bridge, draughts, Go and xiangqi. However, they limit the number of mind games which can be admitted as sports. Sport is usually governed by a set of rules or customs, which serve to ensure fair competition. Winning can be determined by physical events such as scoring goals or crossing a line first. It can also be determined by judges who are scoring elements of the sporting performance, including objective or subjective measures such as technical performance or artistic impression. (Full article...)
Selected articles
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The Metacomet Ridge, Metacomet Ridge Mountains, or Metacomet Range of southern New England is a narrow and steep fault-block mountain ridge known for its extensive cliff faces, scenic vistas, microclimate ecosystems, and rare or endangered plants. The ridge is an important recreation resource located within 10 miles (16 km) of more than 1.5 million people, offering four long-distance hiking trails and over a dozen parks and recreation areas, including several historic sites. It has been the focus of ongoing conservation efforts because of its natural, historic, and recreational value, involving municipal, state, and national agencies and nearly two dozen non-profit organizations.
The Metacomet Ridge extends from Branford, Connecticut, on Long Island Sound, through the Connecticut River Valley region of Massachusetts, to northern Franklin County, Massachusetts, 2 miles (3 km) short of the Vermont and New Hampshire borders for a distance of 100 miles (160 km). It is geologically distinct from the nearby Appalachian Mountains and surrounding uplands, and is composed of volcanic basalt (also known as trap rock) and sedimentary rock in faulted and tilted layers many hundreds of feet thick. In most cases, the basalt layers are dominant, prevalent, and exposed. The ridge rises dramatically from much lower valley elevations, although only 1,200 feet (370 m) above sea level at its highest, with an average summit elevation of 725 feet (221 m). (Full article...) -
Burnley Football Club (/ˈbɜːrnli/) is a professional football club based in Burnley, Lancashire, England. The club will compete in the Premier League in 2025–26 following promotion in the 2024–25 EFL Championship season. Founded in 1882, Burnley were one of the first to become professional (in 1883) and subsequently put pressure on the Football Association to permit payments to players. They entered the FA Cup for the first time in 1885 and were one of the 12 founder members of the Football League in 1888.
Burnley are one of only five sides to have won all four professional divisions of English football, and have twice been crowned champions of England, in 1920–21 and 1959–60. They have won the FA Cup once, in 1913–14, and have won the FA Charity Shield twice, in 1960 and 1973. The team have also finished as runners-up in both the First Division and FA Cup on two occasions. During the 1920–21 campaign, Burnley embarked on a 30-match unbeaten league run, setting an English record. Throughout the mid-20th century, under chairman Bob Lord, Burnley became renowned for their youth policy and scouting system, and were one of the first to set up a purpose-built training ground. The majority of the team that won the 1959–60 league title had progressed through the club's youth academy. At the time, Burnley—with a population of 80,000—became one of the smallest towns to produce an English first-tier champion. (Full article...) -
Stephen Roger Bruce (born 31 December 1960) is an English professional football manager and former player who was a centre-back in a twenty-year playing career. He is currently the head coach of EFL League One club Blackpool.
Born in Corbridge, Northumberland, Bruce was a promising schoolboy footballer but was rejected by several professional clubs. He was on the verge of quitting the game altogether when he was offered a trial with Gillingham. He was offered an apprenticeship and went on to play more than 200 games for the club before joining Norwich City in 1984, winning the League Cup in 1985. In 1987, he moved to Manchester United, with whom he achieved great success, winning twelve trophies including three Premier League titles, three FA Cups, one League Cup and the European Cup Winners' Cup. He also became the first English player of the 20th century to captain a team to the Double. Despite his success on the field, he was never selected to play for the England national team. Commentators and contemporaries have described him as one of the best English players of the 1980s and 1990s never to play for his country at full international level. (Full article...) -
The 2001–02 FA Cup third-round association football match between Cardiff City and Leeds United was played at Ninian Park, Cardiff, on 6 January 2002. The visitors Leeds went into the match as strong favourites given the gulf in divisions that separated the two teams; Leeds were leading the Premier League at the time while Cardiff were placed 10th in the Second Division, the third tier and two tiers below their opposition. Leeds entered the FA Cup in the third round, receiving byes in the opening rounds as they participated in the Premier League, while Cardiff had won their first two ties to reach this stage of the competition.
The match was played in front of more than 22,000 spectators, the largest attendance for any fixture played at Ninian Park during the season, and was refereed by Andy D'Urso. Cardiff attacked their opponents early on but Leeds took the lead in the 12th minute via a goal from striker Mark Viduka. Cardiff equalised shortly after, when Graham Kavanagh scored direct from a free-kick. Shortly before half-time, Leeds midfielder Alan Smith was controversially sent off by referee D'Urso after clashing with Cardiff's Andy Legg. In the second half, Leeds played more defensively to compensate for Smith's dismissal. With three minutes remaining, Scott Young volleyed the ball into the net from a corner to give Cardiff the lead and the eventual win. The victory was described by Henry Winter as "one of the greatest upsets in FA Cup history". (Full article...) -
John Joseph McGraw (April 7, 1873 – February 25, 1934) was an American Major League Baseball (MLB) player and manager who was for almost thirty years manager of the New York Giants. He was also the third baseman of the pennant-winning 1890s Baltimore Orioles teams, noted for their innovative, aggressive play.
McGraw was born into poverty in Truxton, New York. He found an escape from his hometown and a bad family situation through baseball, beginning a quick rise through the minor leagues that led him to the Orioles at the age of 18. Under the tutelage of manager Ned Hanlon, the Orioles of the 1890s won three National League (NL) pennants; McGraw was one of the stalwarts of the team alongside Wee Willie Keeler, Hughie Jennings, and Wilbert Robinson. The Orioles perfected the hit and run play and popularized the Baltimore chop; they also sought to win by intimidating the opposing team and the umpire. (Full article...) -
Luc Bourdon (February 16, 1987 – May 29, 2008) was a Canadian professional ice hockey defenceman who played for the Vancouver Canucks of the National Hockey League from 2006 until 2008. After overcoming childhood arthritis, he was selected third overall in the 2003 Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) draft and played for the Val-d'Or Foreurs, Moncton Wildcats, and Cape Breton Screaming Eagles, spending four seasons in the QMJHL. The Canucks drafted Bourdon with their first selection, 10th overall, in the 2005 NHL Entry Draft, and he split his professional career with the Canucks and their American Hockey League affiliate, the Manitoba Moose. Noted as a strong defenceman who could contribute on offence, Bourdon represented Canada in three international tournaments, winning two gold medals at the IIHF World Junior Championship and a silver medal at the IIHF World U18 Championship.
Bourdon died at the age of 21 near his hometown of Shippagan, New Brunswick when his motorcycle collided with a tractor-trailer. (Full article...) -
The 1983 World Snooker Championship (also known as the 1983 Embassy World Snooker Championship for the purposes of sponsorship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place between 16 April and 2 May 1983 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. This was the third and final world ranking event of the 1982–83 snooker season following the 1982 Professional Players Tournament. Sixteen seeded players qualified directly for the event, with an additional sixteen players progressing through a two-round qualification round held at the Romiley Forum in Stockport, and Redwood Lodge in Bristol. The winner of the event received £30,000, and the tournament was sponsored by cigarette company Embassy.
Alex Higgins was the defending champion, having won the 1982 championship, but he lost 5–16 to Steve Davis in the semi-finals. Davis, the 1981 champion, won the event for the second time, defeating Cliff Thorburn 18–6 in the final. A total of 18 century breaks were made during the tournament. The highest was made by Thorburn in the fourth frame of his second round match against Terry Griffiths, where he compiled a maximum break of 147 points, becoming the first player to make such a break in a World Championship match. (Full article...) -
On 11 and 12 February 1851, teams from Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) and Port Phillip District (now Victoria) played the first cricket match between two Australian colonies, recognised in later years as the inaugural first-class cricket match in Australia. It took place at the Launceston Racecourse, known now as the NTCA Ground, in Tasmania. The match was incorporated into celebrations marking the separation of the Port Phillip District from New South Wales in 1851 as the colony of Victoria.
The team representing Port Phillip, generally named "Victoria" in the press, was drawn from the Melbourne Cricket Club. The Van Diemen's Land team, designated "Tasmania" in newspapers, consisted of players from both Launceston and Hobart. The visiting team was expected to have an advantage through the use of fast overarm bowling. Cricket in Victoria was considerably more advanced than in Tasmania, whose bowlers operated underarm. The match, intended to be played to a finish with no limits on time, took place on a pitch that made batting difficult. As was usual practice at the time, overs comprised four deliveries and there was no set boundary. (Full article...) -
The UEFA Euro 2004 final was the final match of UEFA Euro 2004, the twelfth European Championship, a football competition organised by UEFA for the senior men's national teams of its member associations. The match was played at the Estádio da Luz in Lisbon, Portugal, on 4 July 2004, and was contested by Portugal, the tournament's hosts, and Greece, in a rematch of the tournament's opening game.
The 16-team tournament consisted of a group stage, from which eight teams qualified for the knockout stage. Both finalists were drawn in Group A of the tournament, and played each other in the opening game, with Greece winning 2–1 in what BBC Sport labelled a "shock defeat" for the hosts. Portugal won their other two group matches, against Russia and Spain; Greece drew with Spain and lost to Russia, leaving Portugal top of the group and Greece second. In the knockout stage, Portugal beat England on penalties in the quarter-finals, and the Netherlands in the semi-finals. Greece, meanwhile, beat defending champions France in the quarter-finals, and the Czech Republic in the semi-finals via a silver goal. (Full article...) -
The 2006 Chick-fil-A Bowl was a college football bowl game between the Georgia Bulldogs and the Virginia Tech Hokies at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia. With sponsorship from Chick-fil-A, it was the 39th edition of the game previously (and later) known as the Peach Bowl. Georgia represented the Southeastern Conference (SEC) and Virginia Tech represented the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) in the competition. The game was the final game of the 2006 football season for each team and resulted in a 31–24 Georgia victory, even though spread bettors favored Virginia Tech to win by three points. In exchange for the right to pick the first ACC team after the Bowl Championship Series selections, bowl representatives paid US$3.25 million to the ACC, while the SEC, whose fifth team was selected, received $2.4 million. The combined $5.65 million payout was the seventh-largest among all college football bowl games, and the fourth-largest non-BCS bowl game payout.
In a game that was expected to be a defensive struggle, Virginia Tech took a 21–3 lead in the first half. After halftime, Georgia answered Tech's first-half success, thanks in part to four second-half turnovers by Tech quarterback Sean Glennon. Virginia Tech's No. 1 ranked defense struggled in the second half, allowing 153 yards (of 200 total) in the final 30 minutes. As time ran out, Georgia held a one-touchdown lead, 31–24, having beaten back a last-second Tech rally. 75,406 people attended the game, making it the 10th consecutive Peach Bowl sellout, the largest crowd to ever attend an event at the Georgia Dome, and the third-largest bowl game in terms of attendance for the 2006–2007 season. Each school sold out its allotment of 18,500 tickets quickly. 31,922 people attended the Chick-fil-A "fan fest" before the game, setting a new attendance record. Virginia Tech's loss brought it to a final 2006 record of 10–3, while Georgia's final-game win earned it a record of 9–4. (Full article...) -
Lord Hawke in his playing days. He was a key figure in the captaincy debate.
The Yorkshire captaincy affair of 1927 arose from a disagreement among members of Yorkshire County Cricket Club over the selection of a new captain to succeed the retired Major Arthur Lupton. The main issue was whether a professional cricketer should be appointed to the post. It was a tradition throughout English county cricket that captains should always be amateurs. At Yorkshire, a succession of amateur captains held office in the 1920s, on the grounds of their supposed leadership qualities, although they were not worth their place in the team as cricketers. None lasted long; after Lupton's departure some members felt it was time to appoint a more accomplished cricketer on a long-term basis.
The Yorkshire committee, prompted by the influential county president, Lord Hawke, approached Herbert Sutcliffe, one of the side's leading professionals. After Sutcliffe's provisional acceptance of the captaincy, controversy arose. Some members objected to the appointment on the traditional grounds that Sutcliffe was not an amateur; others felt that if a professional was to be appointed, the post should be offered to the county's senior professional, Wilfred Rhodes, who had been playing much longer than Sutcliffe. Rhodes himself was offended that he had not been approached. When Sutcliffe became aware of the controversy, he withdrew his acceptance. No offer was made to Rhodes, and the county subsequently appointed amateur William Worsley as captain. He was respected by the team but had little personal success, lasted for just two seasons, and was followed by two further short-term leaders. In 1933 Brian Sellers, a more competent amateur, was appointed and became the long-serving captain that Yorkshire had sought. (Full article...) -
The Quietly Confident Quartet was the self-given name of the Australian men's 4 × 100 metres medley relay swimming team that won the gold medal at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. The United States boycotted the Moscow Olympics in protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and, through the 2016 Olympics, the Australian victory remains the only occasion the United States has not won the event at Olympic level since its inception in 1960. The quartet consisted of backstroker Mark Kerry, breaststroker Peter Evans, butterflyer Mark Tonelli, and freestyler Neil Brooks. The team was nominally led by its oldest member Tonelli, who was 23 and was also a spokesperson for the Australian athletes' campaign for their right to compete at the Olympics against the wishes of the Fraser government. The team was seen as an unlikely prospect to win; all four of the swimmers had clashed with swimming authorities over disciplinary issues and three experienced suspension or expulsion from the Australian team during their careers.
Australia had previously won medals in the event, but was not regarded as one of the favourites for the gold, as the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and Sweden all fielded more decorated swimmers over the component legs of the relay. After the backstroke leg, Australia was in fourth place and more than a second in arrears of the Soviet leaders. However, Evans was the fastest among the breaststrokers and moved the team into second position at the halfway point in the race; and Tonelli, a makeshift butterflyer, completed his leg in a time much faster than his previous best, allowing Australia to keep the Soviet lead reasonable. Australia's anchor swimmer Brooks overtook his more credentialled Soviet counterpart Sergey Koplyakov in the latter half of the final leg to secure a narrow victory. The quartet disbanded after the Olympics due to Tonelli's retirement, although some of the members continued to be present in the relay team at various times alongside new swimmers. By 1986, all four members of the 1980 team had retired from international competition. (Full article...) -
The 2007 Coca-Cola 600 was the 12th stock car race of the 2007 NASCAR Nextel Cup Series and the event's 48th iteration. It was held on May 27, 2007, with 175,000 spectators in attendance, in Concord, North Carolina at Lowe's Motor Speedway, an intermediate track that holds NASCAR races. Casey Mears of the Hendrick Motorsports team won the 400-lap race after starting 16th. Joe Gibbs Racing's J. J. Yeley finished second and Kyle Petty of Petty Enterprises took third.
Before the race, Jeff Gordon led the Drivers' Championship by 231 points over his Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson in second. Ryan Newman took the pole position by recording the fastest lap in the qualifying session and led the first ten laps before his Penske Racing South teammate Kurt Busch took over on lap 11. Busch led for 107 laps (the most of any driver in the race) before Brian Vickers took the lead after the first round of green-flag pit stops. Jimmie Johnson took the lead from Vickers on lap 184 and held it for 83 laps, battling for the position with Vickers and Matt Kenseth. Tony Stewart led at the race's final restart on lap 342 and held it until he made a pit stop for fuel 51 laps later. Mears took the lead after Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Denny Hamlin made similar pit stops, slowing to conserve fuel and winning. There were thirteen cautions and 29 lead changes among fifteen drivers during the race. (Full article...) -
The UEFA Euro 2020 final was an association football match that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, England, on 11 July 2021, to determine the winners of UEFA Euro 2020. It was the sixteenth final of the UEFA European Championship, a quadrennial tournament contested by the senior men's national teams of the member associations of UEFA to decide the champions of Europe. Originally scheduled for 12 July 2020, the match had been postponed along with the rest of the tournament due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe. The match was contested between Italy, in their fourth Euro final, and England, in their first ever Euro final, and just their second final at any major tournament, after the 1966 FIFA World Cup final.
In front of a crowd of 67,173, limited by COVID-19 restrictions, with an estimated global audience of 328 million, England's Luke Shaw opened the scoring in the second minute of the match, the fastest and earliest goal ever scored in a European Championship final. Leonardo Bonucci – who was later named the man of the match – scored an equaliser midway through the second half. With the score 1–1 after extra time, England gained a 2–1 advantage in the penalty shoot-out after two kicks each, but their last three takers all missed, and Italy won 3–2. (Full article...) -
The 1989 World Snooker Championship (also referred to as the Embassy World Snooker Championship for sponsorship reasons) was a professional snooker tournament that took place from 15 April to 1 May 1989 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. Organised by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association, it was the eighth and final ranking event of the 1988–89 snooker season and the thirteenth consecutive World Snooker Championship to be held at the Crucible, the first tournament at this location having taken place in 1977. There were 142 entrants to the competition.
The defending champion was Steve Davis, who had previously won the World Championship five times. He met John Parrott in the final, which was a best-of-35-frames match. Davis won the match 18–3, which remains the biggest winning margin in the sport's modern era, and meant that the final, scheduled for four sessions, finished with a session to spare. This was Davis's sixth and last world title, and his last appearance in a World Championship final. Stephen Hendry scored the championship's highest break, a 141, in his quarter-final match. There were 19 century breaks compiled during the championship. (Full article...)
Selected pictures
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Picture: Krm500Fredrik Pettersson (born 1987) is a Swedish professional ice hockey player, pictured while with Frölunda HC and now playing for HC Donbass in the Kontinental Hockey League. A right winger, Pettersson's international record includes a gold at the 2013 IIHF World Championship and bronze in 2010. -
Photo: Sport the LibraryJeremy Doyle (1983–2011) was an Australian wheelchair basketball player. Left paraplegic after a car accident, he was classified as a 1 point player. While representing his country Doyle won two gold medals, first at the 2009 Paralympic World Cup and again at the 2010 Wheelchair Basketball World Championship. -
Photo: National Photo Company; restoration: Lise Broer; crop: jjronTy Cobb (1886–1961), shown here sliding into third base on August 16, 1924, was an American Major League Baseball (MLB) outfielder. He spent twenty-two seasons with the Detroit Tigers, including six as the team's player-manager, and finished his career with the Philadelphia Athletics. During this time Cobb set ninety MLB records, though his abilities were sometimes overshadowed by his surly temperament and aggressive playing style. In 1936 Cobb was made an inaugural member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, and in 1999 editors at the Sporting News ranked him third on their list of "Baseball's 100 Greatest Players". -
Boxing is a sport where two participants of similar weight attack each other with their fists in a series of one to three-minute intervals called "rounds". Modern boxing began in 1867 with the Marquess of Queensberry rules. Currently, there are two distinct branches of boxing: Professional and Olympic, which have different rules, but are similar in execution. -
Credit: Ralf RoletschekMartin Sesaker representing Norway in curling at the 2012 Winter Youth Olympics. -
Credit: KuebiMara Friton in a handball match in the German Handball-Bundesliga. -
Credit: PierreSelim -
Photo: Bain News Service; Restoration: JujutacularLéon Georget (1879–1949) was a racing cyclist from Preuilly-sur-Claise, Indre-et-Loire, France. He was known as The Father of the Bol d'Or, having won the race nine times between 1903 and 1919 in Paris. -
Motocross is form of motorcycle or ATV racing held on enclosed off-road circuits. The tracks are often quite large, natural, terrains with very few man made jumps, unlike Supercross, a sport that was originally derived from Motocross and is executed on a smaller track with many more extreme man made obstacles. -
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Photograph credit: Savyasachi, retouched by ukexpatLaura Dekker (born 1995) is a New Zealand–born Dutch sailor who completed a solo circumnavigation of the globe in a 12.4-metre (41-foot) two-masted ketch from 2010 to 2012. Dekker was fourteen years old when she set off from Gibraltar rather than the Netherlands, because the Dutch shipping regulations did not permit anyone under the age of sixteen to skipper a boat of that size in Dutch waters. After crossing the Atlantic Ocean, she started her record-breaking attempt from Sint Maarten in the Caribbean, passing through the Panama Canal and traversing the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic Oceans before completing her circumnavigation back at Sint Maarten. This picture shows Dekker attending the 2011 Hiswa Boat Show in Amsterdam. -
Credit: Fir0002Horses race on grass at the 2006 Tambo Valley Races in Swifts Creek, Victoria, Australia. Horseracing is the third most popular spectator sport in Australia, behind Australian rules football and rugby league, with almost 2 million admissions to the 379 racecourses throughout Australia in 2002–03. -
Photo: Bolshoi SportKsenia Semenova (b. 1992) is a Russian artistic gymnast. She was the 2007 World Champion on the uneven bars. At the 2008 European Championships, she was a member of the silver-medal-winning Russian team, as well as champion on the uneven bars and the balance beam. She followed this up by winning the all-around championship at the 2009 European Championships and was part of the gold-medal Russian team at the 2010 European and 2010 World Championships. Injuries have prevented her from competing since then. -
Credit: Fernando FrazãoThe balance beam is a rectangular artistic gymnastics apparatus, as well as the event performed using the apparatus. Pictured is Daniele Hypólito in the final of the women's artistic gymnastics competition at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, where Brazil finished in 8th place. -
Photograph: Pete Souza; edit: El GrafoUS Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney posing with President Barack Obama. They are wearing the "McKayla is not impressed" expression of disappointment which became an internet phenomenon after Maroney made it upon winning a silver medal at the 2012 London Olympics. Yahoo! listed the photograph of Maroney on the podium as the most viral picture of 2012. -
Photo: Marie-Lan NguyenFencing is the sport of fighting with swords; in modern usage the word usually denotes competitive fencing, rather than classical fencing. Here, Fabian Kauter (right) hits Diego Confalonieri (left) with a flèche attack at the final of the Challenge Réseau Ferré de France–Trophée Monal 2012. -
Photograph: Fred RentschlerOfficial portrait of the 1899 Michigan Wolverines football team, an American football team which represented the University of Michigan in the 1899 season. Coached by Gustave Ferbert, the Wolverines opened the season with six consecutive shutouts, outscoring opponents in those six contests by a combined score of 109 to 0. However, they finished the season by going 2–2 in their final four games, losing against the University of Pennsylvania Quakers and a championship game against the Wisconsin Badgers. -
Photograph: Georges Scott; Restoration: Adam CuerdenAn illustration showing the Stade Français rugby union team, wearing dark blue jerseys, playing against Racing Club (now known as Racing 92) in 1906. On 20 March 1892, the two teams played in the first ever French rugby championship in a one-off game. -
Photograph credit: Kontizas DimitriosBASE jumping is the recreational sport of jumping from fixed objects, using a parachute to descend safely to the ground. The acronym stands for four categories of fixed objects from which the jumps can be made: buildings, antennae, spans, and earth (cliffs). In this photograph, a BASE jumper launches himself from the top of the Sapphire Tower in Istanbul, Turkey. -
Photo: Steven J. Weber/US NavySandboarding is a boardsport similar to snowboarding, but competitions take place on sand dunes rather than snow-covered mountains. Here, a member of the US Navy sandboards down a dune in Jebel Ali, Dubai. -
Credit: ChePriit Narusk in the qualification for the Tour de Ski cross-country skiing competition in Prague. -
Photo: Armin KübelbeckKiril Lazarov (b. 10 May 1980) is a Macedonian handball player active since 1991. He currently plays for HBC Nantes and is also the captain of the North Macedonia men's national handball team. -
Photograph credit: Platon ShilikovYekaterina Skudina (born 21 March 1981) is a Russian world champion and Olympic sailor. She was awarded the Roy Yamaguchi Memorial Trophy for winning the world championships in the women's Snipe class in 1998, and the bronze medal at the Yngling open world championships in 2007. At the 2011 World Championships, Skudina finished fourth in the Elliott 6m class. In addition, she has competed in three Olympic Games, finishing eighth in the Yngling class in 2004, sixth in the same class in 2008, and fourth in the Elliott 6m class in 2012.
This photograph of Skudina, taken in 2009, is part of a collection of 500 images of Russian sportspeople released to Wikimedia Commons by Bolshoi Sport. -
Photograph credit: Rodney EeThe pacu jawi is a traditional bull race in Tanah Datar, West Sumatra, Indonesia. In the race, a jockey stands holding on to a pair of loosely tied bulls while the bulls run across a muddy track in a rice field. Recently, it has become a tourist attraction supported by the government, and the subject of multiple award-winning photographs. Dramatic high-speed action, mud splashing, and the jockeys' distinctive facial expressions add to its aesthetic value.
Did you know...
- ... that para-alpine B2 classified visually impaired skier Gabriel Gorce (pictured) was the youngest member of the 2010 Spanish Winter Paralympic team?
- ... that Caleb Moore became the first competitor to die as a result of injuries sustained during the X Games?
- ... that professional baseball player Tony Cingrani did not expect his college team to invite him back for his senior season after he struggled as a junior?
- ... that Vahram Papazyan and Mıgırdiç Mıgıryan, the two athletes who represented Turkey in its first-ever Olympics, were both ethnic Armenians?
- ... that Manny McIntyre was a member of the first all-black line in professional hockey history and the first known Black-Canadian to play professionally in organized baseball?
Selected quote
Selected athlete
Annika Sörenstam at the 2008 LPGA Championship
Her successful amateur career included a win in the St. Rule Trophy played at St. Andrews and a runner-up finish in the Swedish national mother/daughter golf tournament. She moved to the United States to attend college at the University of Arizona. She won seven collegiate titles and in 1991, became the first non-American and first freshman to win the individual NCAA Division I Championship. She was 1991 NCAA Co-Player of the Year with Kelly Robbins, runner-up in the 1992 NCAA National Championship, 1992 Pac-10 champion and a 1991-92 NCAA All-American.
The winner of a record eight Player of the Year awards and six Vare Trophies, given to the LPGA player with the lowest seasonal scoring average; she is the only female golfer to have shot a 59 in competition. She holds various all-time scoring records including the lowest season scoring average: 68.6969 in 2004. Representing Europe in the Solheim Cup on eight occasions between 1994–2007, Sörenstam was the event's all-time leading points earner until her record was surpassed by England's Laura Davies during the 2011 Solheim Cup. (Full article...)
Selected team
Liverpool players before a Europa League qualifying match
Liverpool was founded in 1892 and joined the Football League the following year. The club has played at Anfield since its formation. Liverpool reached its first FA Cup Final in 1914, losing 1–0 to Burnley It won consecutive League championships in 1922 and 1923, but did not win another trophy until the 1946–47 season, when the club won the First Division for a fifth time. The club was relegated to the Second Division in the 1953–54 season. The club was promoted back into the First Division in 1962 and won it in 1964, for the first time in 17 years. In 1965, the club won its first FA Cup. In 1966, the club won the First Division but lost to Borussia Dortmund in the European Cup Winners' Cup final. Liverpool won both the League and the UEFA Cup during the 1972–73 season, and the FA Cup again a year later. The most successful period in Liverpool's history was the 1970s and '80s when Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley led the club to eleven league titles and seven European trophies.
The club's supporters have been involved in two major tragedies. The first was the Heysel Stadium disaster in 1985 in which charging Liverpool fans caused a wall to collapse, killing 39 Juventus supporters. In the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, 96 Liverpool supporters lost their lives in a crush against perimeter fencing. The incident remains the worst stadium-related disaster in British history and one of the world's worst football disasters. (Full article...)
In this month
- May 8, 1954 – The Asian Football Confederation, the governing body of association football in Asia, is founded
- May 15, 1908 – The International Ice Hockey Federation is founded in Paris as Ligue International de Hockey sur Glace
- May 17, 1875 – The first Kentucky Derby is held, with Aristides winning the race
- May 22, 1987 – The inaugural Rugby World Cup (2011 match pictured), co-hosted by New Zealand and Australia, begins
- May 23, 1985 – The first Games of the Small States of Europe, a multi-sport event for European microstates, begins in San Marino
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