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Kinds of competitions

Nowadays sports and recreation have become an important feature in the people’s life. Some people prefer to watch different sports events, other choose to participate in the activity. Watching other people playing is a popular leasure activity. Large crowds attend numerous national and international occasions: millions watch sport competitions on television. Most of the important games are shown on TV. In many countries there are special TV channels that broadcast sports programmes for 24 hours. The major sporting competitions, such as the Olympic Games, are shown on the central TV channels attracting millions of people, who can be thousand of kilometers away from the events.

Among the most popular sports are football, hockey, basketball, tennis and motor racing. Many people assemble to watch these competitions. World Football, Hockey and Basketball championships attract people from all over the world who cover the great distances in order to support their favourite team. Wimbledon Championship is the most important tournament of lawn tennis, while Grand Prix is the major motor racing competitions.

There are a lot of kinds of competitions. Competitions may be of individual, team or individual-team kind. An individual competition is held to determine a champion. The compe­tition of this kind is called a championship. From time to time national, European, world, international, indoor, open championships take place. The greatest championships in sports are called the Olympic Games. They are organized every four years. 205 Olympic Commitees are working in different countries now.

There are Summer Olympic Games, revived in Greece in 1896 and Winter Olympic Games originated in 1924. They are held during the winter preceding the Summer Olympic Games. Competitions in the Sum­mer Games normally include archery, basketball, boxing, canoeing, cycling, equestrian sports, fencing, field hockey, gymnastics, judo, modern pentathlon, rowing, sailing, shooting, soccer, swimming, diving, team handball, track-and-field, volleyball, water polo, weightlifting and wrestling. Competitions in the Winter Games include biathlon, bobsleigh, speed skating, nordic combination, cross-country skiing, ski jumping, lugening (luge tobogganing), downhill slalom, figure-skating, ice hockey.

Champion is the winner of the first place or first prize in compe­tition by defeating the other contestant in his division in a contest or tournament.

Tournament is a series of games or contests that make up a single unit of competition. The most common tournament is the single elimi­nation tournament in which competitors are paired off for individual rounds, with winners advancing to the next round. Losers are eliminated until there is a single champion.

European Cup, a major team championship open to European national associations affiliated to the International Amateur Athletic Federation. First staged in 1965 at Stuttgart (men) and Kassel (women), this competition consists of a qualifying round in three groups, followed by a semifinal round and six-nation final. Each nation enters one competitor per event. The result is determined on a point-scoring basis.