Word: sport
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...what impresses the world's top swimmer the most? All Phelps could talk about after his historic achievement was the fact that two of his races were broadcast live, at a baseball stadium and in a football arena, back home. "I want to raise the bar for the sport of swimming as high as it can get in the U.S.," he said. "We've come a long way; I heard that in Ravens stadium [in Baltimore, Phelps' hometown], they were watching the 400 medley relay live with 70,000 people. I heard that at the Cincinnati Reds game yesterday, they...
Badminton was introduced as an Olympic sport at the 1992 Barcelona Games. Asians have dominated the sport's medal tally, which is perhaps fitting since the modern version of the game was popularized by British military officers stationed in colonial India. Indonesia and South Korea initially claimed the majority of medals, but by the 2000 Olympics, China had won four golds. At the Beijing Games, China has won three out of the five available gold medals, a sub-par performance for a team that expects nothing short of utter domination...
...success so far in women's Olympic tennis - coming close on the heel's of Zheng's strong performance at this year's Wimbledon - is a relatively recent phenomenon. In China's more vehemently socialist days, tennis was frowned upon, viewed as a marker of capitalist excess. (Any sport in which a major tournament has English nobility sampling strawberries and cream on the sidelines hardly bespoke of communist equality.) But China has changed, and a decent backhand is now considered de rigueur among many progeny of the Chinese elite. There's also the matter of international glory: Like dozens...
Chinese tennis players may be making their mark globally, but the sport's finicky etiquette was still a mystery to many of the Chinese fans who won a ticket lottery to watch Olympic tennis this month. Before a match at the tennis venue, an Olympic volunteer wandered through the crowd, explaining to Chinese audience members that they should not clap during points and that flash photography was not permitted. (Foreign fans were not treated to a refresher course in tennis manners...
...that decision couldn't have come any sooner. "One one hundreth of a second is the smallest margin of victory in our sport," Phelps said with a grin. "It's pretty cool. That's all I can say." For his part, Cavic was philosophical. "It's a complete miracle to me that I am here," he said. "I retired a year and a half ago, so I'm enjoying this moment from my heart. I know I had a long finish and Michael Phelps had a short finish. I'm not angry...