Word: sport
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...their most idealistic, the Olympics are supposed to unite the world through sport. Yet any witness to the international medal race knows different--governments take these prizes seriously. So do their athletes. As American four-time discus champion Al Oerter once put it, "These are the Olympics. You die before you quit...
Australian Sport Given that our unofficial national motto is "Too much sport is not enough," I am surprised that Australia and its games did not score in your "Games People Play" issue [June 30-July 7]. Polocrosse, a wild fusion of lacrosse and polo, has horses fitter than polo ponies and far more bruising action. Australian Rules, a cross between rugby league and Gaelic football, requires the utmost fitness, as there are virtually no stoppages and minimal reserves of replacement players. As for equestrian competition, when the Australian team won the Three-Day Event over the killer course...
There will be around 10,500 athletes competing in Beijing this month; fewer than 100 are internationally famous. In this era of sports as primetime entertainment, where American basketball stars or European footballers can expect gazillion-dollar ad contracts and the adulation of millions of fans, it's easy to forget that most top-flight athletes are normal folks who fly economy and have time to help a kid locate his duckie. Most toil in their designated sports in hours squeezed between, say, school or factory shifts. Weightlifting, in particular, may be one of the Olympics' most fundamental pursuits...
Kids sometimes get in trouble for breaking a window or an arm while playing a sport, but they rarely cause controversy for their choice of sport itself. Not so with Franco-Mexican boy Michel Lagravère Peniche, 10. Twice over the past weekend, officials in the south of France stopped Lagravère from taking part in his favorite pastime. Such a prohibition might be odd were the kid a soccer or rugby champ. But Lagravère's precocious gift is for bullfighting...
...with losing players dead and their ears and other appendages cut off as trophies, that comparison doesn't quite hold. And given Michelito's proven talents as a precocious slayer of bulls, his supporters' claims that he's just a little kid being denied the innocent pleasures of sport will probably be a fairly tough sell as well...