3×3 basketball (pronounced 3 on 3 or 3×3) is a form of the game played three a side on one basketball hoop. According to an ESSEC Business School study commissioned by the International Olympic Committee, 3×3 is the largest urban team sport in the world. This basketball game format is currently being promoted and structured by FIBA, the sport’s governing body. Its primary competition is an annual FIBA 3X3 World Tour, comprising a series of Masters and one Final tournament, and awarding six-figure prize money in US dollars. The FIBA 3×3 World Cups for men and women are the highest tournaments for national 3×3 teams.
Artistic gymnastics is a discipline of gymnastics in which athletes perform short routines (ranging from about 30 to 90 seconds) on different apparatus, with less time for vaulting. The sport is governed by the Federation Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG), which designs the code of points and regulates all aspects of international elite competition. Within individual countries, gymnastics is regulated by national federations, such as Gymnastics Canada, British Gymnastics, and USA Gymnastics. Artistic gymnastics is a popular spectator sport at many competitions, including the Summer Olympic Games.
Synchronised swimming, referred to by international governing body FINA as artistic swimming since 2017, is a hybrid form of swimming, dance, and gymnastics, consisting of swimmers performing a synchronised routine (either solo, duet, trio, mixed duet, free team, free combination, and highlight) of elaborate moves in the water, accompanied by music. Artistic swimming is governed internationally by FINA, and has been part of the Summer Olympics programme since 1984.
Synchronised swimming demands advanced water skills, requires great strength, endurance, flexibility, grace, artistry and precise timing, as well as exceptional breath control when upside down underwater.
Competitors show off their strength, flexibility, and aerobic endurance required to perform difficult routines. Swimmers perform two routines for judges, one technical and one free, as well as age group routines and figures. Synchronized swimming is both an individual and team sport. Swimmers compete individually during figures, and then as a team during the routine. Figures are made up of a combination of skills and positions that often require control, strength, and flexibility. Swimmers are ranked individually for this part of the competition. The routine involves teamwork and synchronisation. It is choreographed to music and often has a theme.
Yoga is a set of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines that originated in ancient India and aims to control and stabilize the mind, recognizing a separate witness consciousness untouched by the mind and worldly suffering. Yoga in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism has a wide variety of practices and goals, and traditional and modern yoga is practiced around the world. Two general theories exist on the origins of yoga. The linear model assumes that yoga originated in the Vedic period, as reflected in the Vedic texts, and influenced Buddhism. This model is mainly supported by Hindu scholars. According to the synthesis model, yoga is a synthesis of non-Vedic and Vedic elements; This model is favored in Western scholarship. Yoga is first mentioned in the Rigveda and is mentioned in several Upanishads.
Badminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are “singles” (with one player per side) and “doubles” (with two players per side). Badminton is often played as a casual outdoor activity in a yard or on a beach; formal games are played on a rectangular indoor court. Points are scored by striking the shuttlecock with the racquet and landing it within the opposing side’s half of the court.
Each side may only strike the shuttlecock once before it passes over the net. Play ends once the shuttlecock has struck the floor or if a fault has been called by the umpire, service judge, or the opposing side. The shuttlecock is a feathered or plastic projectile which flies differently from the balls used in many other sports. In particular, the feathers create much higher drag, causing the shuttlecock to decelerate more rapidly. Shuttlecocks also have a high top speed compared to the balls in other racquet sports. The flight of the shuttlecock gives the sport its distinctive nature.
Boxing is a combat sport in which two people wearing protective gloves throw punches at each other for a predetermined set of time in a boxing ring. Amateur boxing is both an Olympic and Commonwealth Games sport and is a common fixture in most international games—it also has its own World Championships. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of one- to three-minute intervals called rounds. The result is decided when an opponent is deemed incapable to continue by a referee, is disqualified for breaking a rule, resigns by throwing in a towel, or is pronounced the winner or loser based on the judges’ scorecards at the end of the contest. In the event that both fighters gain equal scores from the judges, the fight is considered a draw (professional boxing).
In Olympic boxing, due to the fact that a winner must be declared, in the case of a draw – the judges use technical criteria to choose the most deserving winner of the bout. The result is decided when an opponent is deemed incapable to continue by a referee, is disqualified for breaking a rule, or resigns by throwing in a towel. If a fight completes all of its allocated rounds, the victor is determined by judges’ scorecards at the end of the contest. In the event that both fighters gain equal scores from the judges, professional bouts are considered a draw. In Olympic boxing, because a winner must be declared, judges award the contest to one fighter on technical criteria.
While humans have fought in hand-to-hand combat since the dawn of human history, the earliest evidence of fist-fighting sporting contests date back to the ancient Near East in the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC. The earliest evidence of boxing rules date back to Ancient Greece, where boxing was established as an Olympic game in 688 BC. Boxing evolved from 16th- and 18th-century prizefights, largely in Great Britain, to the forerunner of modern boxing in the mid-19th century with the 1867 introduction of the Marquess of Queensberry Rules.
Fencing, also called Olympic fencing, is a sport in which two competitors fight using ‘rapier-style’ swords, winning points by making contact with their opponent. Based on the traditional skills of swordsmanship, the modern sport arose at the end of the 19th century, with the Italian school having modified the historical European martial art of classical fencing, and the French school having later refined the Italian system. There are three forms of modern fencing, each using a different style of weapon and different rules, and as such the sport is divided into three competitive scenes: foil, épée, and sabre. Most competitive fencers choose to specialise in only one weapon.Competitive fencing is one of the five activities which have been featured in every modern Olympic Games, the other four being athletics, cycling, swimming, and gymnastics.
Handball (also known as team handball or Olympic handball) is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outfield players and a goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands with the aim of throwing it into the goal of the other team. A standard match consists of two periods of 30 minutes, and the team that scores more goals wins.Modern handball is played on a court of 40 by 20 metres (131 by 66 ft), with a goal in the middle of each end.The goals are surrounded by a 6-meter (20 ft) zone where only the defending goalkeeper is allowed; goals must be scored by throwing the ball from outside the zone or while “diving” into it.
The sport is usually played indoors, but outdoor variants exist in the forms of field handball and Czech handball (which were more common in the past) and beach handball. The game is fast and high-scoring: professional teams now typically score between 20 and 35 goals each, though lower scores were not uncommon until a few decades ago. Body contact is permitted, the defenders trying to stop the attackers from approaching the goal. No protective equipment is mandated, but players may wear soft protective bands, pads and mouth guards.
Hockey is a widely played team sport of the hockey family. The game can be played on grass, watered turf, artificial turf or synthetic field, as well as an indoor boarded surface. Each team plays with ten field players and a goal keeper. Players commonly use sticks made out of wood, carbon fibre, fibre glass or a combination of carbon fibre and fibre glass in different quantities (with the higher carbon fibre stick being more expensive and less likely to break) to hit a round, hard, plastic hockey ball. The length of the hockey stick is based on the player’s individual height, the top of the stick usually comes to the players hip, taller players typically have taller sticks.The sticks have a round side and a flat side only the flat face of the stick is allowed to be used, if the other side is used it results in a foul.Goalies often have a different kind of stick, however they can also use an ordinary field hockey stick.
The specific goal-keeping sticks have another curve at the end of the stick, this is to give them more surface area to save the ball. The uniform consists of shin guards, shoes, shorts or a skirt, a mouthguard and a jersey.Today, the game is played globally, mainly in parts of Western Europe, South Asia, Southern Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, and parts of the United States.
Judo was created as a physical, mental and moral pedagogy in Japan, in 1882, by Jigoro Kano. It is generally categorized as a modern martial art which later evolved into a combat and Olympic sport. Its most prominent feature is its competitive element, where the objective is to either throw or takedown an opponent to the ground, immobilize or otherwise subdue an opponent with a pin, or force an opponent to submit with a joint lock or a choke. Strikes and thrusts by hands and feet as well as weapons defenses are a part of judo, but only in pre-arranged forms (kata) and are not allowed in judo competition or free practice . A judo practitioner is called a judoka.
The philosophy and subsequent pedagogy developed for judo became the model for other modern Japanese martial arts that developed from koryū (古流, traditional schools). Judo also spawned a number of derivative martial arts across the world, such as Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Krav Maga and Sambo.
rate (空手) (/kəˈrɑːti/; Japanese pronunciation: [kaɾate] (listen); Okinawan pronunciation: [kaɽati]) is a martial art developed in the Ryukyu Kingdom. It developed from the indigenous Ryukyuan martial arts (called te (手), “hand”; tii in Okinawan) under the influence of Kung Fu, particularly Fujian White Crane. Karate is now predominantly a striking art using punching, kicking, knee strikes, elbow strikes and open-hand techniques such as knife-hands, spear-hands and palm-heel strikes. Historically, and in some modern styles, grappling, throws, joint locks, restraints and vital-point strikes are also taught. A karate practitioner is called a karateka (空手家). The Ryukyu Kingdom was annexed by Japan in 1879. Karate was brought to the Japanese archipelago in the early 20th century during a time of migration as Ryukyuans, especially from Okinawa, looked for work in Japan.
It was systematically taught in Japan after the Taishō era. In 1922, the Japanese Ministry of Education invited Gichin Funakoshi to Tokyo to give a karate demonstration.In 1924 Keio University established the first university karate club in mainland Japan and by 1932, major Japanese universities had karate clubs.In this era of escalating Japanese militarism, the name was changed from 唐手 (“Chinese hand” or “Tang hand”) to 空手 (“empty hand”) – both of which are pronounced karate in Japanese – to indicate that the Japanese wished to develop the combat form in Japanese style. After World War II, Okinawa became an important United States military site and karate became popular among servicemen stationed there.The martial arts movies of the 1960s and 1970s served to greatly increase the popularity of martial arts around the world, and in English the word karate began to be used in a generic way to refer to all striking-based Asian martial arts. Karate schools began appearing across the world, catering to those with casual interest as well as those seeking a deeper study of the art.Shigeru Egami, Chief Instructor of Shotokan Dojo, opined that “the majority of followers of karate in overseas countries pursue karate only for its fighting techniques … Movies and television … depict karate as a mysterious way of fighting capable of causing death or injury with a single blow … the mass media present a pseudo art far from the real thing.”Shōshin Nagamine said, “Karate may be considered as the conflict within oneself or as a life-long marathon which can be won only through self-discipline, hard training and one’s own creative efforts.”
On 28 September 2015, karate was featured on a shortlist along with baseball, softball, skateboarding, surfing, and sport climbing to be considered for inclusion in the 2020 Summer Olympics. On 1 June 2016, the International Olympic Committee’s executive board announced they were supporting the inclusion of all five sports (counting baseball and softball as only one sport) for inclusion in the 2020 Games.Web Japan (sponsored by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs) claims there are 50 million karate practitioners worldwide, while the World Karate Federation claims there are 100 million practitioners around the world.
Kumite is the part of karate in which a person trains against an adversary, using the techniques learned from the kihon and kata.
Kumite can be used to develop a particular technique or a skill (e.g. effectively judging and adjusting one’s distance from one’s opponent) or it can be done in competition.
The modern pentathlon is an Olympic sport that comprises five different events; fencing (one-touch épée), freestyle swimming (200 m), equestrian show jumping (15 jumps), and a final combined event of pistol shooting and cross country running (3200 m). This last event is now referred to as the laser-run, since it alternates four legs of laser pistol shooting followed by an 800 m run (for 3200 m in total). The event is inspired by the traditional pentathlon held during the ancient Olympics; as the original events were patterned on the skills needed by an ideal Greek soldier of the era, the modern pentathlon is similarly patterned on events representing the skills needed by cavalry behind enemy lines.
The sport has been a core sport of the Olympic Games since 1912 despite attempts to remove it.A world championships for modern pentathlon has been held annually since 1949.Originally the competition took place over four or five days; in 1996 a one-day format was adopted in an effort to be more audience-friendly] Modern pentathlon, despite its long Olympic history, has had to justify its inclusion in the modern Olympic Games several times. On February 11, 2013 in Lausanne, the IOC confirmed modern pentathlon once again as one of the 25 core sports of the Olympic program through to 2020. The governing body, Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne (UIPM), administers the international sport in more than 90 countries.
Rhythmic gymnastics is a sport in which gymnasts perform on a floor with an apparatus: hoop, ball, clubs, ribbon or rope. The sport combines elements of gymnastics, dance and calisthenics; gymnasts must be strong, flexible, agile, dexterous and coordinated. Rhythmic gymnastics is governed by the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG), which first recognized it as a sport in 1963. It became an Olympic sport in 1984, with an individual all-around event. The group all-around competition was added to the Olympics in 1996. At the international level, rhythmic gymnastics is a women-only sport. The most prestigious competitions, besides the Olympic Games, are the World Championships, World Games, European Championships, European Games, the World Cup Series and the Grand Prix Series. Gymnasts are judged on their artistry, execution of skills, and difficulty of skills, for which they gain points. They perform leaps, balances, pivots, and flexibility movements, along with tossing, catching, rolling and otherwise manipulating the apparatus.