Gymnázium J.G. Tajovského, Tajovského 25, 974 01 Banská Bystrica
Sports
Ján Moravčík
III.D
19.05.2011
CONCENTS
1. collective sports
1.2 ice hockey
2. individual sports
2.1 adrenaline sports
2.1.1 sky-diving
2.1.2 base-jumping
2.1.3 mountain biking
2.1.3.1 freeride
2.1.3.2 downhill
2.1.3.3 fourcross
2.1.4 offroad motor biking
2.1.4.1 motocross
2.1.4.2 country cross
2.1.4.3 enduro
2.1.4.4 freestyle motocross
3. football vs. enduro
PROLOGUE
Nowadays, majority of human population ignore their own bodies and needs of physical activity. That’s why many of them suffer by civilisation diseases as overweight, obesity, cancer, diabetes etc… I haven’t chosen this theme because I’m some extra sportsman or sport fan, but because it was the most acceptable theme from the offered ones, and also because I think it has some worth to make an effort with so important theme as sport and human health that provides it.
1. collective sports
These sports should be based on “team spirit“ and coordination of many players, who are able to achieve huge success if they connect together and play as one compact, well trained unit. Unfortunately, it isn’t always the truth. There are many corruption scandals, and non-fair-play is also very, very common.
Most of them are played with a ball, I don’t want to devote them because I have never
felt sympathies to them, it’s just state of mind. I can even tell I HATE football, but I will focus on this problem later. The only exception from collective sports is for me ice hockey.
1.2 ice hockey
Everyone knows it, so I won’t describe rules, success or failures of our representation. But the magic of this sport is in the fact it connect people all over the country, no matter if they are rich or poor, from East or West, stupid or intelligent… It is able to evoke mass hysteria in the positive meaning. The Holy grail of season is the World Championship played for about two weeks and this two weeks are like Christmas for everyone with patriotic feelings. Why? Because if you wave with flag of your country in this time, you are marked like normal fan, it isn’t nothing extraordinary. But when you do this in other parts of the year, you are automatically extremist, racist, neo-Nazi or I don’t know what else. That’s what makes me angry.
2. individual sports
These sports are based on the skills of only one person, whose envoi is to make his best and pay interest on what has he learned and what has he trained for. When you once start, there is no one to help you, no one to advise you, no one to save you. There are only you, your skills and your reflexes. Well, it pays for adrenaline sports, I have nearly forgotten on recreational sports as well as golf.
2.1 adrenaline sports
2.1.1 sky-diving
Sky-diving, or parachuting, is one of the sports I would like to try one day. I know it’s extremely dangerous, but that feeling of absolute freedom must be satisfied enough for that risk. The only disadvantage, if I forget the hazard with instant death, is the financial side of this sport. You need expensive equipment, but even bigger problem is to pay for flights of the plane which gets you in the sky. That’s why incepted the next sport.
2.1.2 base-jumping
This sport has a lot of common with sky-diving, but the difference is in the fact that you don’t jump from the plane, but from anything high enough to open your parachute. From the beginning, very popular were cliffs and canyons, but for some people it was just too easy and not dangerous enough. So they started to jump from skyscrapers, telecommunication towers and high statues. In spite of the fact it’s illegal, people do it, because it’s much bigger experience.
An innovation came with special suits made from windproof materials with membranes between your legs and arms, so you can glide for much longer distances. This is very popular in Swiss and French Alps, where these crazy guys ‚fly‘ only few meters from the rocks, it’s probably the most dangerous version of jumping with parachute.
2.1.3 mountain biking
There are many types of mountain biking, some are good also for recreation with your family, some definitely not. I will pay attention to the second group of biking, in fact only three of them.
2.1.3.1 freeride
The name of this sport tells everything… You don’t need special closed and arranged tracks, you just take your bike, get on the hill and enjoy your ride to the endless depths. It depends only on you where will you go, how will you get there and how will you get back. It’s freedom on wheels. But you need special bike, the best choice is full suspension, and some protective equipment, because it really hurts when you don’t know how to fall and hit the ground, or even worse, some tree or rock.
2.1.3.2 downhill
It’s also based on riding down the hill (as the name says), but this time you will need special designed track. In this bike division isn’t the most important thing feeling of freedom and pleasure of riding, but your final time in the finish. These tracks are created to check up yours skills to the limit, there are many steep sections with free rocks, roots of the trees, a lot of mud, big jumps and everything you can imagine. Protective equipment isn’t on the World Championship compulsory, but everyone with normal thinking will wear it. I have ridden downhill when I was younger and believe me, it’s nothing comfortable to lie in a bed with your body in bandage and plaster…
2.1.3.3 fourcross
This sport is very attractive for the audience, because the track for 4x is nearly every time built on the ski slope, so people can stand by the sides and watch all the performance like on the palm. Track is also very interesting, there are many jumps and sloped curves and that is what people want to see. The riding style is very aggressive, there are four riders on the track at the same time and everyone wants to get to the finish before the others, because from every run there are only two riders who proceed to the next round. We could say it’s some sort of “play-off” in the bike world.
2.1.4 offroad motor biking
Most people think, that when you ride on a motorbike, you just sit and don’t do nothing extremely difficult on your physical condition. But why we sweat then? Why are we sometimes unable to catch up breath, why are we shaking by the exhaustion…?
This thinking is really false, offroad riding is training for your entire body. We sit on the seat only fraction of the time, because you need to use your legs as auxiliary suspension and when you stand on your bike, you can control it much better, the handling reacts faster and more precise. But just try to stand in knee-bend for about ¾ hour by the motocross, 2 hours by the country cross, or even more, about 5-8 hours by the enduro! It’s nothing easy.
And what about your arms…? It makes a huge effort on your wrists, palms and forearms to hold over 110 kg of wild unleashed monster all the time as well as on your triceps by the braking. Only one small absent-mindedness is enough to cost you your health or even life, in so high speed in dangerous terrain can failure be fatal… After almost every race the riders have bloody blisters on their hands. You need also quite strong back to stand kickers, breast not to fall over the bars by the braking, shoulders by the turning,… and I could continue… It’s just all-body training.
2.1.4.1 motocross
Motocross is the best known division of offroad riding. It’s based on the riding on the closed, arranged tracks about 3 km long, with cumulative start of all 30 racers from the falling ramps with their engines started. They ride two runs, each lasts 45 minutes + 2 laps. On the track there are many so called “bench-jumps”, double- and triple-jumps, roulettes, steep climbings and fallings. Rules are quite simple – the first racer in the finish wins.
2.1.4.2 country cross
Country cross is on the half way between motocross and classic enduro. In this sport is the track guided through all kinds of terrain, you can find there narrow section between trees, sometimes there are also parts in the creek, on the fields or grass fields, stone pits… Deep mud and climbings with naked roots of trees, really hard to handle, are very common and popular between audience. This time riders start also cumulative, but their engines must be turned off and they don’t start from the ramps, but on the signal given by the track marshal. They ride only one run, but it lasts 2 hours + two laps. Track is longer, about 12-15 km, but rules are very similar and again, the first racer in the finish wins.
2.1.4.3 enduro
Enduro is probably the most exhausting division of the offroad riding with much longer track and even much more complicated rules. So – track is from 40-90 km long and you ride many laps. It guides through everything, really everything you can imagine. On the World Enduro Championship there is a rule, that prevents organizers from shorter than 7 hours of riding. This time, every rider has his own time of start and exact time to get into each of many time controls on the track. If is he too soon or too late, he gets penalty. On the track there are few measured sections, where you have to go on your limits, because the time you will achieve here is the most important for good ranking. The final ranking consists of summary times achieved on all measured sections + your penalties.
When you get to the depo, you have only 15 minutes to wash your bike, to fix everything you have broken, to make ordinary maintenance and to change both your tires (!). One very strict rule says, that if anyone helps you, even pushes you bike or takes it from the ground when you fall down, you will be disqualified.
2.1.4.4 freestyle motocross
And finally something, that evokes mass hysteria between thousands and thousands of fans on the overcrowded tribunes of stadiums. This sport is absolutely spectacular, riders aren’t only motorcyclists, they have to be also gymnastic athletes. The tricks they made are really hard to do on the stable ground, not even in the mid-air.
Rules aren’t united, but for most of the events riders have limited time to show what they know and then one final jump for double points. Winner is the rider with the highest score.
3. football vs. enduro
Football is for me the most useless game in the world. I don’t want to dishonest it, I know that most people love it, but when I’m looking on some match only for a few minutes, I get really sick and often also angry. The filming, the non-fair-play… it’s just something awful. And the fans?! They have absolutely no culture, the hooligans don’t go to the match to watch some spectacular game, they go there just to scuffle, to destroy public property… they are ordinary wranglers and no fans.
But when you look to our fans, these guys go to the race to drink some fine beer with community of same-thinking friends, to laugh on our suffering in the mud, to have a nice day outdoors. They eat some sausages and go home. No violence. And racers? We help each other when we can, if you get stucked in the mud, when you get injured or what, someone will stop and pulls you from it, because he knows you will do it the same for him the next time. Rivalry is off course very big, but in the rules of fair-play and some men honour…
EPILOGUE
I do know I haven’t written too much about problem of sport, health etc., but time limit of 20 minutes for presentation restricted content of my project. So, If you like it if not, I did what I could, I reported you about some of my favourite sports and I hope I wasn’t for you absolutely useless…
ADDITIONS
enduro FMX
football “culture” FMX 2
CC enduro Brezno 2010
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- none
11