The Sports Portal
Sport in childhood. Association football, shown above, is a team sport which also provides opportunities to nurture physical fitness and social interaction skills.
Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, through casual or organized participation, improve one's physical health. Hundreds of sports exist, from those between single contestants, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in teams or competing as individuals. In certain sports such as racing, many contestants may compete, simultaneously or consecutively, with one winner; in others, the contest (a match) is between two sides, each attempting to exceed the other. Some sports allow a "tie" or "draw", in which there is no single winner; others provide tie-breaking methods to ensure one winner and one loser. A number of contests may be arranged in a tournament 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 such as the Olympic Games admitting only sports meeting this definition. Other organisations, such as the Council of Europe, preclude activities without a physical element from classification as sports. However, a number of competitive, but non-physical, activities claim recognition as mind sports. The International Olympic Committee (through ARISF) recognises both chess and bridge as bona fide sports, and SportAccord, the international sports federation association, recognises five non-physical sports: bridge, chess, draughts (checkers), Go and xiangqi, and limits the number of mind games which can be admitted as sports. (Full article...)
Selected articles
The 2007 Appalachian State vs. Michigan football game was a regular season college football game between the Appalachian State Mountaineers and Michigan Wolverines. It was held at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor on September 1, 2007, and was the first game of the season for both teams. The Wolverines entered the game ranked No. 5 in both major Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) polls and media outlets considered them to be preseason favorites to win the Big Ten conference championship as well as possible contenders for the national championship, while the Mountaineers were ranked No. 1 in The Sports Network's Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) poll and were preseason favorites to win their third consecutive FCS national championship.
Games between FBS and FCS teams typically result in lopsided victories for the FBS team, and the Appalachian State–Michigan game was not expected to be an exception. So confident were Las Vegas sportsbooks in Michigan's chances that no betting line was issued for the game. The game was also the first to be broadcast on the then-new Big Ten Network. It began with a strong first half for Appalachian State, who held a 28–17 lead at the end of the half. Michigan regained the lead at 32–31 in the fourth quarter, but Appalachian State took the lead for a second time on a short field goal with 26 seconds left. The Mountaineers blocked a game-winning field goal attempt from Michigan at the end of regulation to secure a 34–32 win. (Full article...)
Jesus College Boat Club is a rowing club for members of Jesus College, Oxford, one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford. The club was formed in 1835, but rowing at the college predates the club's foundation: a boat from the college was involved in the earliest recorded races between college crews at Oxford in 1815, when it competed against Brasenose College. In the early years of rowing at Oxford, Jesus was one of the few colleges that participated in races. Neither the men's nor the women's 1st VIIIs have earned the title of "Head of the River", which is gained by winning Eights Week—the main inter-college rowing competition at Oxford.
A number of college members have rowed for the university against Cambridge University in the Boat Race and the Women's Boat Race. Barney Williams, a Canadian rower who studied at the college, won a silver medal in rowing at the 2004 Summer Olympics, and participated in the Boat Race in 2005 and 2006. Other students who rowed while at the college have achieved success in other fields, including John Sankey, who became Lord Chancellor, Alwyn Williams, who became Bishop of Durham, and Maurice Jones, who became Principal of St David's College, Lampeter. Another college rower, James Page, was appointed Secretary of the Amateur Rowing Association and coached both the Oxford and Cambridge University boat clubs. (Full article...)
Thomas Kevin Beattie (18 December 1953 – 16 September 2018) was an English footballer. Born into poverty, he played at both professional and international levels, mostly as a centre-half. He spent the majority of his playing career at Ipswich Town, the club with which he won both the FA Cup and the UEFA Cup. He was also named the inaugural Professional Footballers' Association Young Player of the Year at the end of the 1972–73 season, and featured in the film Escape to Victory alongside many of his Ipswich teammates.
Beattie's playing career took him from rags to riches, but according to The Daily Telegraph he was "cursed by being both injury and accident prone". His playing career included some controversy, notably when he went missing after being selected for England's under-23 team. After retiring from playing he descended into unemployment and alcohol abuse, and contemplated suicide, before finding purpose once more and a new career in later life, as a football commentator on television and radio. (Full article...)- The 2008 UAW-Dodge 400 was the third stock car race of the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. It was held on March 2, 2008, before a crowd of 153,000 in Las Vegas, Nevada, at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, an intermediate track that holds NASCAR races. The 267-lap race was won by Carl Edwards of the Roush Fenway Racing team, who started from second position. Hendrick Motorsports driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished second and Edwards's teammate Greg Biffle was third.
Kyle Busch, the pre-race Drivers' Championship leader over Ryan Newman, won the pole position with the fastest overall lap time in the qualifying session. Busch led the first twenty laps until he was passed by Edwards. He held the lead until the first green-flag pit stops and regained the position after the stops ended. Busch retook the lead on lap 81 and held it until he was passed by Matt Kenseth. Jeff Gordon took over the lead on lap 163, before Earnhardt became the leader on the 181st lap and maintained this position until Edwards regained it 14 laps later. The race was stopped for 17 minutes when Gordon crashed on lap 262, and car parts were strewn into the path of other drivers, requiring officials to clean the track. Edwards maintained the lead at the restart and held it to win the race. There were 11 cautions and 19 lead changes by nine different drivers during the race. (Full article...)
Turf Moor is an association football stadium in Burnley, Lancashire, England, which has been the home of Burnley F.C. since 1883. This unbroken service makes Turf Moor the second-longest continuously used ground in English professional football. The stadium is situated on Harry Potts Way, named after the manager who won the 1959–60 First Division with the club, and has a capacity of 21,944.
The Turf Moor site has been used for sporting activities since at least 1843, when Burnley Cricket Club moved to the area. In 1883, they invited Burnley F.C. to use a pitch adjacent to the cricket field. The first grandstand was not built until 1885, while terraces were also added to each end of the ground in the same year. Between the mid-1950s and mid-1970s, all stands were rebuilt. Turf Moor underwent further refurbishment during the 1990s, when the Longside and the Bee Hole End terraces were replaced by all-seater stands following the recommendations of the Taylor Report. The ground comprises four stands: the Bob Lord Stand, the Cricket Field Stand, the North Stand and the Jimmy McIlroy Stand. (Full article...)
Iginla with the Calgary Flames in 2008
Jarome Arthur-Leigh Adekunle Tig Junior Elvis Iginla (/dʒəˈroʊm ɪˈɡɪnlə/; born July 1, 1977) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey winger. He played over 1500 games in the National Hockey League (NHL) for the Calgary Flames, Pittsburgh Penguins, Boston Bruins, Colorado Avalanche and Los Angeles Kings.
As a junior, Iginla was a member of two Memorial Cup winning teams with the Kamloops Blazers and was named the Western Hockey League (WHL) Player of the Year in 1996. He was selected 11th overall by the Dallas Stars in the 1995 NHL Entry Draft, but was traded to Calgary prior to making his NHL debut. Nicknamed "Iggy", he led the NHL in goals and points in 2001–02, and won the Lester B. Pearson Award as its most valuable player as voted by the players. In 2003–04, Iginla led the league in goals for the second time and captained the Flames to the Stanley Cup Finals, leading the playoffs in goals. (Full article...)
Abraham "Abe" Waddington, sometimes known as Abram Waddington (4 February 1893 – 28 October 1959), was a professional cricketer for Yorkshire, who played in two Test matches for England, both against Australia in 1920–21. Between 1919 and 1927 Waddington made 255 appearances for Yorkshire, and in all first-class cricket played 266 matches. In these games, he took a total of 852 wickets with his left arm fast-medium bowling. Capable of making the ball swing, Waddington was admired for the aesthetic quality of his bowling action. He was a hostile bowler who sometimes sledged opposing batsmen and questioned umpires' decisions, behaviour which was unusual during his playing days.
Waddington first played for Yorkshire after the First World War, when the team had been weakened by injuries and retirements. He made an immediate impression in 1919, his first season; he took 100 wickets and was largely responsible for Yorkshire's victory in the County Championship that year. After a similarly successful season in 1920, he was selected for the 1920–21 Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) tour of Australia, during which he appeared in two of the five Tests. However, the England team were outclassed; used in an unfamiliar tactical role, Waddington took just one wicket and never played for England again. He continued to be effective for Yorkshire, particularly against the weaker counties, but was often inconsistent. His reputation as an uncompromising opponent was cemented when he was found guilty of dissent and inciting the crowd in a game against Middlesex. A succession of injuries reduced his effectiveness and he retired from first-class cricket in 1927. He continued to play league cricket and worked for the family business, a fat-refining firm, but maintained his connection with Yorkshire cricket. (Full article...)
Morris Berg (March 2, 1902 – May 29, 1972) was an American catcher and coach in Major League Baseball, who later served as a spy for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. Although he played 15 seasons in the major leagues, almost entirely for four American League teams, Berg was never more than an average player and was better known for being "the brainiest guy in baseball." Casey Stengel once described Berg as "the strangest man ever to play baseball".
A graduate of Princeton University and Columbia Law School, Berg spoke several languages and regularly read ten newspapers a day. His reputation as an intellectual was fueled by his successful appearances as a contestant on the radio quiz show Information Please, in which he answered questions about the etymology of words and names from Greek and Latin, historical events in Europe and the Far East, and ongoing international conferences. (Full article...)
The First Test of the 1948 Ashes series was one of five Tests in the Ashes cricket series between Australia and England. The match was played at Trent Bridge in Nottingham from 10 to 15 June with a rest day on 13 June 1948. Australia won the match by eight wickets to take a 1–0 series lead.
The Australians started the match as firm favourites, having won the previous series against England 3–0; in the lead-up to the 1948 series, they had won 10 of their 12 tour matches in England, mostly by large margins. This included a crushing innings defeat in a match over the Marylebone Cricket Club—a team consisting almost entirely of Test-capped and current England players. England captain Norman Yardley won the toss and elected to bat on a cloudy day. After the first morning was interrupted by inclement weather, the Australian fast bowlers quickly made inroads into the English batting. Despite the loss of leading Australian paceman Ray Lindwall with a groin injury, the hosts had difficulty against his colleagues and fell to be 74 runs for the loss of eight wickets (74/8). However, a rearguard action by tail-enders Alec Bedser and Jim Laker saw England reach 165, Bill Johnston taking five wickets for 36 runs (5/36) for Australia, while compatriot Keith Miller took 3/38. Laker top-scored for the hosts with 63. The tourists then reached 17 without loss by stumps. (Full article...)
John Barton "Bart" King (October 19, 1873 – October 17, 1965) was an American cricketer, active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. King was part of the Philadelphia team that played from the end of the 19th century until the outbreak of World War I. This period of cricket in the United States was dominated by "gentlemen cricketers"—men of independent wealth who did not need to work. King, an amateur from a middle-class family, was able to devote time to cricket thanks to a job set up by his teammates.
A skilled batsman who proved his worth as a bowler, King set numerous records in the continent of North America during his career and led the first-class bowling averages in England in 1908. He successfully competed against the best cricketers from England and Australia. King was the dominant bowler on his team when it toured England in 1897, 1903, and 1908. He dismissed batsmen with his unique delivery, which he called the "angler", and helped develop the art of swing bowling in the sport. Sir Pelham Warner described Bart King as "one of the finest bowlers of all time", and Donald Bradman called him "America's greatest cricketing son." (Full article...)- Peter Maxwell Evans (born 1 August 1961) is an Australian breaststroke swimmer of the 1980s who won four Olympic medals, including a gold in the 4×100 m medley relay at the 1980 Moscow Olympics as part of the Quietly Confident Quartet. He also won consecutive bronze medals in the 100 m breaststroke at the 1980 Olympics and the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.
The son of prominent Western Australian businessman and politician Max Evans, Evans had a late start to his swimming career, making his debut at the Australian Championships in his hometown of Perth, aged 17. Despite placing second in the 100 m breaststroke, he was not selected for Australia, and instead travelled to the United Kingdom to train under David Haller. During this period, he quickly improved his times and rose from outside the top 200 into the top 25 in the world rankings. Evans returned to Australia in 1980 and qualified for the Olympics in both the 100 m and 200 m breaststroke. A sprinter, he won the 100 m in an Australian record time and showed a preference for shorter events, which required less training mileage. Evans gained a reputation for often doing fewer training laps than his coach asked of him. Having rebuffed Australian government pressure to boycott the Moscow Olympics in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Evans won bronze in the 100 m breaststroke. His career peak came in the 4 × 100 m medley relay, when he outsplit his opponents in the breaststroke leg of the relay, bringing Australia into contention for its eventual win, which remains the only time that the United States has not won the event at Olympic level. (Full article...) 
Wembley Stadium in London, before the final
The UEFA Euro 2020 Final was a football match between England and Italy that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, England, on 11 July 2021 to determine the winner of UEFA Euro 2020. It was the 16th 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.
In front of a crowd of 67,173, limited by pandemic restriction, with an estimated global average audience of 328 million, Italy won their second European Championship, beating first-time finalists England 3–2 in a penalty shoot-out following a 1–1 draw after extra time. England's Luke Shaw opened the scoring in the second minute of the match, the fastest goal ever scored in a European Championship final, only for Leonardo Bonucci – who was later named the man of the match – to equalise midway through the second half. England had a 2–1 advantage in the shoot-out after two kicks each, only for their last three takers to miss; Italy came back to win 3–2. (Full article...)
John Richard Owens (7 January 1956 – 4 November 1980) was a Welsh professional boxer who fought under the name Johnny Owen. His seemingly fragile appearance earned him many epithets, including the "Merthyr Matchstick" and the "Bionic Bantam". He began boxing at the age of eight and undertook a long amateur career, competing in more than 120 fights and representing Wales in competitions. He turned professional in September 1976 at the age of 20, winning his debut bout against George Sutton. Owen beat Sutton again in his sixth professional fight to win his first title, the vacant bantamweight title in the Welsh Area.
Owen challenged for the British bantamweight title in his tenth professional fight in 1977. He defeated champion Paddy Maguire in the eleventh round to win the title, becoming the first Welshman in more than 60 years to hold the belt. Owen recorded five further victories, including a defence of his British title against Wayne Evans, before meeting Paul Ferreri for the Commonwealth bantamweight title. He defeated the experienced Australian on points to claim the Commonwealth title and challenged Juan Francisco Rodríguez for the European title four months later. The fight in Almería, Spain, was shrouded in controversy and Owen suffered his first defeat in a highly contentious decision. (Full article...)
Bourdon with Canada in 2005
Joseph 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, tenth 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 U20 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 2008 FedEx Orange Bowl was a post-season college football bowl game between the Virginia Tech Hokies and the Kansas Jayhawks on January 3, 2008, at Dolphin Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida. Spread bettors favored Virginia Tech by three points, but in a game dominated by defensive and special teams play, Kansas defeated Virginia Tech 24–21. The game was part of the 2007–08 Bowl Championship Series (BCS) of the 2007 NCAA Division I FBS football season and was the concluding game of the season for both teams. This 74th edition of the Orange Bowl was televised in the United States on Fox and was watched by more than eight million viewers.
The game between the fifth-ranked ACC champion Virginia Tech Hokies and the eighth-ranked Kansas Jayhawks from the Big 12 Conference (Big 12) was played at neutral-site Dolphins Stadium. Tech served as the home team in the contest. Virginia Tech automatically qualified for the Orange Bowl by virtue of the ACC's tie-in with the bowl, while the Orange Bowl selected Kansas over West Virginia, which had been upset by then 4–7 Pittsburgh, and conference rival Missouri. Two weeks after Kansas's selection, controversy erupted when a deal was revealed to put 4th-ranked Oklahoma against Virginia Tech. The deal was vetoed by BCS commissioners, and the selection of Kansas was upheld. (Full article...)
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Selected pictures
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: Carlos DelgadoRichèl Hogenkamp (born 16 April 1992) is a professional tennis player from the Netherlands. Her highest WTA singles ranking is 94, which she reached on 24 July 2017. On the ITF Women's World Tennis Tour, she has won 16 singles and 14 doubles titles. This photograph depicts Hogenkamp competing at the 2015 Madrid Open.
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.
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.
Photo: Keith AllisonPanamanian baseball pitcher Mariano Rivera has spent his entire 16-year Major League Baseball career with the New York Yankees. An 11-time All-Star and five-time World Series champion, Rivera has accumulated 559 saves, the second-most in MLB history, and he holds Major League postseason records for saves and earned run average, among other records.
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.
Credit: KuebiMara Friton in a handball match in the German Handball-Bundesliga.
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.
Credit: Ralf RoletschekMartin Sesaker representing Norway in curling at the 2012 Winter Youth Olympics.
Iris Pruysen, an athlete with an artificial leg, competes in the long jump at the 2014 Athletics Paralympic Meeting in Stade Sébastien Charléty, Paris, France.
Disabled sports, also known as parasports, are sports played by persons with a permanent or temporary disability, be it physical or intellectual. Many disabled sports are based on existing able bodied sports, modified to meet the needs of persons with a disability. However, several sports have been specifically created for persons with a disability.
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 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.
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.
Restoration: Lise BroerA late 1930s Federal Art Project poster advertising the bobsled track in Lake Placid, New York, United States, which had been used in the 1932 Winter Olympics. The village is located in the Adirondack Mountains and is known as a tourist destination for winter sports, mountain climbing, and golf. It is one of the three places to have twice hosted the Winter Olympic Games and the first location in North America to host two Olympic games.
Photograph: Pierre-SelimWheelchair basketball is basketball played by people in wheelchairs and is considered one of the major disabled sports practiced. Depicted here is a game from the first round of the 2012 Euroleague tournament, showing players from Toulouse (in red) and Roma (in white).
Credit: ChePriit Narusk in the qualification for the Tour de Ski cross-country skiing competition in Prague.
Dale Earnhardt, Jr.'s Hendrick Motorsports pit crew execute a pit stop at a Sprint Cup Series competition at Darlington Raceway, South Carolina, in May 2008. In motor sport, pit stops are when the racing vehicle gets more fuel, new wheels, repairs, mechanical adjustments, a driver change, or any combination of the above.
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.
Photo: Pavel.ryclTony Estanguet (b. 1978) is a French slalom canoeist who has competed since the mid-1990s. Before announcing his retirement, he competed in four Olympic Games and, with his win at the 2012 London Games, became the first French Olympian to win three gold medals in the same Olympic discipline.
Photo credit: Fir0002Two racers cross the finish line of the 250cc class at the 2007 Swifts Creek lawn mower races. In this motorsport, competitors race modified lawn mowers, usually of the ride-on or self-propelled variety. Original mower engines are retained but blades are removed for safety. Lawn mowers have also been used in kart racing, a different sport.
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: 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.
Credit: PierreSelim
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Did you know...
- ...that Leyton F.C. had to win a High Court action in order to call itself the oldest football club in London?
- ...that the Iowa Cornets made it to the Women's Professional Basketball League championship in both of its seasons in the league, and lost both times?
- ...that in 1994, Horace Dove-Edwin became the first medalist in athletics for Sierra Leone, but lost it due to a positive doping test?
- ...that Sabeena Saleem is the first mother to compete alongside her daughter at the Asian Games in Indian bowling history?
- ...that Jaime Navarro (pictured) was the opposing and winning pitcher for the inaugural Texas Rangers game at The Ballpark in Arlington in 1994?
Selected quote
Selected athlete
Sid Barnes
Barnes helped create an enduring record when scoring 234 in the second Test against England at Sydney in December 1946; exactly the same score as his captain, Don Bradman, in the process setting a world-record 405 run fifth wicket partnership.
He made his first-class début at the end of the 1936–37 season when selected for New South Wales and was later included in the team for the 1938 Australian tour of England, making his Test début in the final international of the series.
On the resumption of Test cricket after the war, Barnes was picked as the opening partner to Arthur Morris. He was a member of The Invincibles, the 1948 Australian team that toured England without losing a single match. Retiring from cricket at the end of that tour, Barnes attempted a comeback to Test cricket in the 1951–52 season that was ultimately and controversially unsuccessful.
Barnes was a shrewd businessman who used the opportunities afforded by cricket to supplement his income through trading, journalism and property development. Increasing paranoia brought about by bipolar disorder saw Barnes lose many of the friends he had made through the game, as he sought treatment for his depression. On 16 December 1973, he was found dead at his home in the Sydney suburb of Collaroy; he had ingested barbiturates and bromide in a probable suicide. (Full article...)
Selected team
Members of the Colorado Avalanche in 2010
The Avalanche were founded in 1972 as the Quebec Nordiques as a member of the rival World Hockey Association. The Quebec Nordiques were one of the World Hockey Association's original teams when the league began play in 1972. The Nordiques became members of the NHL in 1979 with the NHL–WHA merger. Following the 1994-95 season, the Nordiques were sold to the COMSAT Entertainment Group of Denver and relocated there, where they were renamed the Avalanche.
In their first year in Denver, the Avalanche won the Pacific Division and went on to sweep the Florida Panthers in the Finals, becoming the first NHL team to win the Stanley Cup in the season following a relocation. Among teams in the four major American professional sports leagues, only the National Football League's Washington Redskins had also accomplished the feat. This was the first major professional sports championship a Denver based team would bring to the city.
In the 2001 Stanley Cup Finals, the Avalanche defeated the New Jersey Devils 4–3 to win their second and most recent championship. The 2000–01 season was the best season the team has ever had, with the team finishing the regular season with a 52–16–10–4 record for 118 points.
The Avalanche have won eight division titles and they qualified for the playoffs in each of their first ten seasons in Denver; the streak ended in 2007. (Full article...)
In this month
- August 3, 1949 – The Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League merge to form the National Basketball Association
- August 7, 1983 – The inaugural World Championships in Athletics competition begins in Helsinki, Finland
- August 14, 2010 – The inaugural Youth Olympic Games (opening ceremony pictured) multi-sport event begins in Singapore
- August 18, 1915 – The first game of the Japanese High School Baseball Championship, the largest scale amateur sport event in Japan, takes place
- August 28, 1982 – The inaugural Gay Games, originally called the Gay Olympics, open in San Francisco, California
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