Sports and games (Sport a hry)

Sports belong (patří) to most popular leisure time activities. This is mainly due to the fact that they help people to keep fit both physically and mentally. Sports as a form of relaxation are refreshing, can help take off some weight (zhubnout), and to make use of one’s skills and strength. (schopnosti a síla). Last but not least, during sports events one can meet a lot of new people and see how it feels to be a winner or a loser.

We can divide all sports into two groups according to where they can be practised. Indoor sports include for example gymnastics, table tennis, boxing, wrestling etc. On the other hand, among outdoor sports there are skiing (down- hill, cross-country, slalom, ski jumping) sledging, sleighing, (tobogány) hiking, rock climbing, horse riding, golf and some aquatic sports such as rowing and windsurfing. Non-professional cycling, or riding a mountain bike, which is one of the most popular activities, can be also enjoyed outdoors on the roads or paths. but most sports and almost all games can be done both indoors and outdoors. We can divide sports to winter and summer sports.

The games are usually all season activities, and they are practised both indoors and outdoors. The most numerous group of games are the ball games. Football is the most wide spread (nejrozšířenější). The purpose (účel) of this game is to kick the ball in into the opposite goal (brány).

Another sport from Great Britain is rowing. It is the sport officially since 1715. In our town we have several rowing clubs: Blesk, with seat on the right bank in the rowing island, have blue oars (vesla) Tatra-Smíchov which have their building on the left bank as Dukla, and have red oars with white bosom (klín), Dukla this club is specially for boy-rowers who don’t want to go to the army, have white oars with three red stripes, Slavia on the right bank of Vltava under the Jirásek bridge with red oars, ČVK standing beside the Blesk with white oars and Bohemia club which is near the Barrande bridge on the right bank with green oars. These colours present several clubs and on the competitions the crew (posádky) are dressed in the clothes of their colour. The regattas usually take a place in the area between the Barrande bridge and the rowing tower on Lihovar.

In Britain the best known rowing race is Oxford & Cambridge since 1829. This race is hold (pořádaný) on the Thames and it is the race of the eights with a cox (kormidelník). It is a funny rule that if you lose one or more rowers, your place is settled (platí), but if you lose your cox you are disqualified. We have similar race Primátorky. In this race it is a problem to turn in between two buoys. The Czech republic is a member of FISA (mezinárodní veslařská federace) since 1892.

In the USA most sports and games have been to a great extent (do velké míry) commercialised. The four foremost (nejhlavnějšími) proffessinonal are the American football, baseball, basketball and ice-hockey. (it has it roots in Canada, though.) These games are turned into big shows in which the sports stars make a lot of money.

Before you start to exercise it is good to do some warm-up exercise. In our school lessons of physical exercise we usually play volleyball, basketball, football, or baseball. If the weather is good we go to the playground and play some games there. But we have only two lessons a week.

Once in two years we have Olympic games, winter games and summer games. Important disciplines in winter games are: Ice-hockey, skiing downhill, cross country, slalom, ski jumping, skating, figure skating. In summer games it is: athletics, rowing,, football, cycling, ball games etc.