Basketball And Other Ball Sports

Basketball And Other Ball Sports — page 1 — Going for Gold The Olympics is the greatest sports show on Earth More than 10,000 athletes or Olympians flock to one country where they live in an Olympic village and compete against each other during 17 days of unforgettable action The top performers win an Olympic gold silver or bronze medal for finishing in the top three of their event The women’s beach volleyball medal winners wave to the crowd at the 2008 Olympics In the center are gold medalists Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor from the United States Modern Games The modern Olympic Games began in 1896 in Athens They revived the sports contests held by the ancient Greeks at Olympia from 776 BC Today the Olympics are held during the summer every four years The host city and nation welcome thousands of spectators while hundreds of millions more watch on television Ball Sports Boom The 1896 Olympics included just one ball sport men’s tennis The winner John Pius Boland was in Greece on vacation and only decided to take part in the tennis competition at the last minute Today more than a thousand athletes take part in a range of ball sports both individually and on teams in every Olympics 4

Basketball And Other Ball Sports — page 2 — 5 China’s table tennis legend Zhang Yining triumphed in the women’s singles at the 2004 and 2008 Olympics and the team events winning the maximum possible four gold medals Zhang was ranked number one in the world from 2003 to 2010 Superstar In or Out Some ball sports that were once part of the Olympics are no longer played at the games They include cricket lacrosse croquet and polo on horseback Baseball and softball were played until 2008 but they will not be part of the 2012 or 2016 games Two ball sports The Beijing National Stadium was used for the 2008 Olympics opening ceremony athletic events and soccer ﬁnals Argentina’s Lionel Messi right runs with the ball during the ﬁnal of the men’s soccer competition against Nigeria at the 2008 games will rejoin the Olympics in 2016 golf for top professionals and a form of rugby union called rugby sevens this is a seven-a-side version of the sport The teams play on the full-sized rugby pitch which is usually used by 15-player teams FEATS AND RECORDS Did you know that the U S is the reigning Olympic rugby union champion They won the competition in 1924 the last time it was held France won silver and Romania won bronze

Basketball And Other Ball Sports — page 3 — Soccer The world’s most popular team sport has been played at the Olympics since 1900 by men and since 1996 by women At the 2008 Olympics a record 2,137,462 spectators watched the two tournaments Italy’s Giuseppe Rossi takes a penalty kick against Belgium in the quarter ﬁnals of the 2008 Olympics Rossi scored two penalty shots in this game but his team lost 3 2 Aim of the Game A soccer game lasts 90 minutes with a 15-minute break at halftime Teams play by moving the ball around the ﬁeld using any part of their bodies except their arms and hands The goalkeepers are allowed to use their hands but only inside the penalty area the box surrounding their goal The offensive team scores by shooting or heading the ball into the opponents goal The defending team tries to stop goals from being scored against it and to gain control of the ball A coach or manager decides the team’s formation This is the way the team lines up in rows of defenders midﬁelders and forwards 6

Basketball And Other Ball Sports — page 4 — Christie Rampone right about to tackle Brazil’s Renata Costa during the 2008 Olympic ﬁnal Rampone was captain of the U S team which won 1 0 and the gold medal goal penalty area penalty spot center circle Soccer ﬁelds vary in length between 295 and 395 feet 90 120 m Fields are split in half and each end has a 132 2 ft 40 3 m wide penalty area around the goal eight teams entering the knockout rounds quarter ﬁnals semi-ﬁnals and the ﬁnal In the knockout stages a tied game goes into overtime and if the scores are still tied there is a penalty shoot-out Each team takes ﬁve penalties and if neither team pulls ahead there is a sudden death shoot out Only one Olympic ﬁnal has been decided this way when Cameroon beat Spain 5 3 on penalties in 2000 Tactics can change during a game and the coach can swap up to three players with substitutes to keep the players strong It’s a Knockout Sixteen teams take part in the men’s Olympics soccer tournament and twelve in the women’s They are placed in groups of four with the top A combined Great Britain team competed in the Olympics until 1972 In 1952 they suffered an embarrassing defeat against Luxembourg 5 3 Their worst ever Olympic defeat was in the 1956 games when they lost 6 1 to Bulgaria 7

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