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Showing posts with label gazzetta. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gazzetta. Show all posts

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Water Sports - Surfing




Surfing is a kind of water sports where the surfer is carried along by a breaking wave towards the shore. Apart from surfboards body boards, kneeboards, surf skis and kayaks can be also used to surf. Various sports involving surfing are sea kayaking, paddle boarding, kite surfing and windsurfing. The first two do not require waves and winds, while the other two does. Surfing has become more of a profession by turning into a multi-billion dollar industry.
Initially the sport began when people used to lie down on hard wood boards and surf in Hawaii. Lieutenant James King who wrote journals on Captain Cook and completed them after his death set the first record. The surfboards were made out of huge and heavy wood, which were difficult to maneuver. They were substituted by lighter balsa wood surfboards in 1940s and were relatively easy to maneuver by the surfer. The boards were later made out of polyurethane foam, polyester resin and fiberglass cloth with multiple layers of wooden strips. The latest technology in surfboards now is the epoxy or carbon fiber surfboard. To surf in colder regions, its advisable to wear wetsuits, boots, gloves and hood to protect from cold-water temperatures, which can sometimes lead to hypothermia. There are different styles of boards like egg or the long board style short board, fish or short and wide board with a split tail and gun with a long pointed board meant for big waves.

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Tennis Legends: Martina Navratilova



Tennis Legends: Martina Navratilova


Martina Navratilova is an ex-World number 1 female Tennis Player. Born on October 18, 1956 in Czechoslovakia, she became the citizen of America in 1981.Her stepfather Miroslav Navratil was her first coach. Martina won the Czech republic national tennis championship at the age of fifteen. At the age of seventeen, she got her very first professional singles title when she played the match in Orlando, Florida. She became a professional tennis player in 1975.
In 1975’s Grand Slam singles tournaments, she was one of the finalist in both the Australian Open and French Open, but she lost in both the finals to Evonne Goolagong Cawley and Chris Evert, respectively. The same year, she even lost in the semi finals of the US Open the same year after which she made her mind to get the green card of United States. In 1978, Navratilova got her first victory in the Grand Slam singles at Wimbledon and at the same she acquired the world number 1 rank after defeating Chris Evert.  
Navratilova was a women of great power and aggression because of which she raised the level of competition. Initially she was on the heavier side and she had to struggle a lot to get into shape for tennis. In this regard Nancy Lieberman, a basketball player, helped her. She underwent severe levels of fitness and exercising which finally got her into shape. She even learned the technique to use graphite racquets, which made her one of the most dominant tennis player.
She again beat Evert in the 1981 Grand Slam singles, in Australia Open. The next year she won the French and Wimbledon Open. In 1983, she won in three out of four Grand Slam events. She had scored the best ever-professional winning percentage as a tennis player. She retaliated back by winning the French Open Grand Slam of the year 1984, which she had lost in 1983. This superb victory was called the Grand Slam by the president of the International Tennis Federation, Philippe Chatrier. From 1982-1984, she lost only six of the singles matches.
Navratilova won women’s doubles titles in all the four Grand Slams of 1984. From 1985-1987, she won six out of eleven women’s singles final Grand Slam tournaments. Steffi Graff started to play in 1987 and from the beginning she gave a tough competition to Martina Navratilova. Graff defeated her in her first Grand slam in the finals of French Open. Navratilova gained back her title by defeating Graff in the 1987 Wimbledon Open. Navratilova’s won her final Grand Slam singles in 1990. Her name was included in the International Tennis Hall of Fame in the year 2000. 
The left-handed athlete was known to be the greatest tennis player, be it singles, doubles or mixed doubles. She was the second best female athlete of the twentieth century according to Steve Flink. From 1965 to 2005, she was named as the greatest female tennis player by Tennis magazine.  In her career, she won a total of thirty one Grand Slam women’s doubles titles, which is also a world record, eighteen Grand Slam singles titles, ten Grand Slam mixed doubles titles and nine Wimbledon women’s singles titles. She has won one hundred and sixty seven single tournaments and one hundred and seventy seven doubles tournaments, which is an open era record. Navratilova won seventy-four matches consecutively, which is the third longest winning streak in women’s tennis history. Along with Margaret Smith Court and Maureen Connolly Brinker, Navratilova holds the record for the maximum consecutive Grand Slam singles tournament championships.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Problems faced by Olympic Games


The Olympics have seen both its good and bad days during its journey from early B.C. to this day.  Some of the major issues, which caused problems, were political involvement, doping, boycotting and violence.
The most famous political involvement was by the German Nazis, in the 1936 Berlin’s Summer Olympics. They used it as a platform to spread their ideas. Until the 1952 Helsinki’s Summer Olympics, The Soviet Union didn’t participate in the Olympics and had conducted international games event of their own named Spartakiads, since 1928. Many associations made by communists didn’t participated in the Olympics and instead opted for the Spartakiads and some of the athletes belonging to these associations, who wished to participate were barred from the Olympics.
In the 1968 Summer Olympics, which was held in Mexico City, another political controversy took place involving two African Americans, John Carlos and Tommie Smith, winners of the two hundred track and field races. They performed the black power salute on the victory stand. This angered the IOC’s autocratic president Avery Brundage and he ordered the USOC to either send the two athletes back home or to withdraw the whole team of track and field. And because of this the athletes were send back home. Iran had ordered their athletes not to participate in any Olympic heat, semi finals or finals, which had participants from Israel. An Iranian judo wrestler didn’t participate in the Olympic hear because there was an Israeli wrestler participating in it, in the 2004 Olympics.
Performance enhancing drugs and doping are other major threats to the smooth running of the Olympic

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Michael Jordan: A short bio

Michael Jordan: A short bio


Michael Jeffrey Jordan is the most respected name in the world of basketball. Jordan was born on February 17, 1963, in New York, which is responsible for the National Association of Basketball NBA or the famous 1980 and 1990. Is the fourth child of his parents, James R. Jordan, Deloris Jordan's father.
Developed his interest in basketball and baseball in high school Emsley A. I Wilmington. Initially rejected because its length is not enough. Jordan grew up an hour from 6 am to 5'' '11'' '3 several months of intensive training for the basketball team to help. In 1981 he won a scholarship basketball, University of North Carolina because of its impressive records in the schools. In NCAA Championship game in 1982, the game winning jump shot, which he described as the major turning point in his career as a basketball athlete.
He began his career in 1984 by joining the NBA Chicago Bulls. I was immediately aware of the public image of himself and jumping ability. Only a month later to join him, Jordan was featured on the front page of the magazine Sports illustrated by the title of "the birth of a star." Air Jordan was nicknamed after his joy when it was known as Slam Dunk free throws. Won the NBA Defensive Player of the Tournament for the first time in 1991 and became known after that. NBA hat trick by winning three in a row from 1991-1993.
In October 1993, he temporarily retired basketball, his interest in baseball also pursue and because it lost interest in basketball by the murder of his father in the same year after year in 1995. The trick to winning the NBA championship 1196-1998. Taking a break again in 1999 and returned in 2001 to then return again, but