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On theme: Winter sport and The Olympic games

Winter sports.
All sports are both entertaining and good for health. They help people to stay in good shape and good mood. It’s almost impossible to list all kinds of modern sports as there are too many. However for better understanding people divide them into two groups: winter sports and summer sports. Most of the sport disciplines are included in the list of Olympic Games. It’s an established truth that winter sports are more spectacular. Indeed, it is more than exciting to watch the pairs dance on the ice or athletes go down the snow-covered hills. Winter sports can be divided into three groups: skiing, skating and sledding.
One of the most spectacular and highly demanded sports in modern society is skiing. People spend large sums of money for ski training lessons. It’s a competitive sport that uses skis to glide on snow, which is likely to have originated in Scandinavia centuries ago. However, there is an opinion that people practiced it in ancient China as early as in 600 B.C. All in all, there are three types of skiing: Alpine, Nordic and Telemark. They are subdivided into various disciplines, some of them being included in Winter Olympics. For example, backcountry skiing is a type of Alpine skiing which involves out-of-area skiing on unmarked or unpatrolled territory.
Sports that use sleds to go down the ice tracks are in the sledding group. It’s a widespread winter activity which became the basis of three Olympic sports: bobsledding, luge and skeleton. The first one is presented by the teams of two or four which make timed runs down narrow and complicated ice tracks. Surprisingly, modern tracks are made of concrete being simply coated with ice. This winter sport can be rather dangerous. There were several cases of fatal accidents. Luge is a one- or two- athlete competition on a small sled. Most tracks for luge are artificially designed. They tend to be very smooth with banked curves and walled-in straights. There are four disciplines in this type of sledding: Men’s singles, Women’s singles, Doubles (mixed event) and Team Relay. Skeleton is another winter sliding sport which involves going down a frozen track on a small sled while lying face down.
And the last group involves the act of skating. It can occur on the indoor or outdoor ice rink using the ice skates. This sport is not only for professionals. Many people go skating with friends on frozen lakes or rivers. However, in that case they should be extra careful for the bodies of frozen waters can be dangerous at times. The most popular and eye-catching type of skating is figure-skating. It’s a competitive event which takes place every winter as a part of national championship and once every four years as an Olympic discipline. The games practiced on ice also include ice-hockey, curling, speed skating or short-track speed skating, etc. At the same time many of these disciplines can be practice in wheelchairs and those winter sports are included in the Paralympic Games’ list.
The Olympic Games are the largest international sports competitions, featuring winter and summer sports. They take place every four years at different locations. Thousands of athletes, presenting more than 200 nations, participate in this global sporting event. The tradition was inspired by the idea of Olympic Games, which were held in Ancient Greece from 8BC to 4AD. The city of Games was situated near Mount Olympus, which is how they got their name. The history of modern Olympic Games started in 1894. The person, who revived this ancient tradition, was Baron Pierre de Coubertin. Since then, every four years, excluding the period of World Wars, the Olympic Games are held.
The Games were initially held only in summer. The city of the event changed each time. So the first Summer Olympic Games took place in Athens (Greece), in 1896. The second capital for Games was Paris – the native city of Pierre de Coubertin. First Winter Olympic Games were also held in France, in 1924. They took place in mountainous region Chamonix. If in Ancient Greece the event had religious implication and was held in honor of Zeus, modern competition is mostly run for friendship of nations and new achievements. The official motto of the Olympic Games is “Citius, Altius, Fortius”, which is translated from Latin as “Faster, Higher and Stronger”. It is notable that women were not allowed to participate in this major international sports event until 1910. The first sport they competed in was golf. Starting from 1988 every Olympic Games are followed by Paralympic event, which is established for athletes with a range of disabilities.
The variety of sports practiced in the Olympics is amazing. Summer sports include archery, football, cycling, canoeing, field hockey, etc. Winter sports are even more spectacular. They are skiing, bobsleigh, curling, ice hockey, figure skating, luge, skeleton, biathlon and other sports. And this is not all. The list of sports is constantly updating. Perhaps, the most impressive part of the Olympic and Paralympic Games are the opening and closing ceremonies. The opening ceremony is usually followed by a range of artistic displays, country presentations, host country’s national anthem, and the athletes’ parade. The closing ceremony introduces all the athletes again without national distinction and the IOC president, who makes the closing speech. Medal presentation is another ceremonial part. It is held after each competition. The winners get gold, silver and bronze medals, depending on their performance.