WINTER GAMES AND SPORTS

1. WINTER GAMES AND SPORTS Autor: RangaMihaicls VI A Coordonator : RaduGeorgeta

2. Skiing is a recreational activity and competitive sport in which the participant attaches skis to boots or shoes on the feet and uses them to travel on top of snow. Aside from recreation and competition, skiing has been used for military purposes and travelling in areas that experience heavy snowfall. Until about 1860 skiing was primarily used for practical transport purposes in snow-rich areas, from around 1860 skiing for recreation, exercise and competition was introduced.[1] Many types of competitive skiing events are recognized by the International Olympic Committee, and the International Ski Federation.

3. The oldest and most accurately documented evidence of skiing origins is found in modern day Norway and Sweden. The earliest primitive carvings circa 5000 B.C. depict a skier with one pole, located in Rødøy in the Nordland region of Norway. The first primitive ski was found in a peat bog in Hoting, Sweden which dates back to 4500 or 2500 B.C.[2][3] Joel Berglund reported in 2004 the discovery of a primitive ski, or "85cm long piece of wood", carbon tested by researchers in 1997 while excavating a Norse settlement near Nanortalik, Greenland. The primitive ski dated back to 1010, and is thought to be Greenland's oldest ski brought by Norsemen circa 980 A.D.[4] • The word "ski" itself is one of a handful of words Norway has exported to the international community. It comes from the Old Norse word "skíð" which means "split piece of wood or firewood".[5][6] • The first Australian recreational ski club was formed in 1861 at Kiandra,[7] where the first documented international downhill carnival was also held.[8] Military ski races were held in Norway during the 18th century.[9] The first public skiing competition ("betting race") was held in Tromsø, Norway on March 19, 1843. It was also the first skiing competition reported in a newspaper.[10]

4. Ice skating is moving on ice by using ice skates. It can be done for a variety of reasons, including exercise, leisure, traveling, and various sports. Ice skating occurs both on specially prepared indoor and outdoor tracks, as well as on naturally occurring bodies of frozen water, such as lakes and rivers.Rising popularity and first clubs[edit]The Skating Minister by Henry Raeburn, depicts a member of the Edinburgh Skating Club in the 1790s.Ice skating was brought to England from the Netherlands, where James II was briefly exiled in the 17th century. When he returned to England, this "new" sport was introduced to the British aristocracy, and was soon enjoyed by people from all walks of life.The first organized skating club was the Edinburgh Skating Club, formed in the 1740s, (some claim the club was established as early as 1642).[2][3][4]An early contemporary reference to the Club appeared in the second edition (1783) of the Encyclopædia Britannica:The metropolis of Scotland has produced more instances of elegant skaters than perhaps any country whatever: and the institution of a skating club about 40 years ago has contributed not a little to the improvement of this elegant amusement.[2]From this description and others, it is apparent that the form of skating practiced by club members was indeed an early form of figure skating rather than speed skating. For admission to the club, candidates had to pass a skating test where they performed a complete circle on either foot (e.g., a figure eight), and then jumped over first one hat, then two and three, placed over each other on the ice.[2]On the Continent, participation in ice skating was limited to members of the upper classes. Emperor Rudolf II of the Holy Roman Empire enjoyed ice skating so much, he had a large ice carnival constructed in his court in order to popularise the sport. King Louis XVI of France brought ice skating to Paris during his reign. Madame de Pompadour, Napoleon I, Napoleon III, and the House of Stuart were, among others, royal and upper class fans of ice skating. As far afield as China, ice skating was practised during the Song dynasty and became

5. Ski jumping • Ski jumping is a sport in which skiers go down a take-off ramp, jump, and attempt to impress judges, who give points for style. The skis used for ski jumping are wide and long (260 to 275 centimetres (102 to 108 in)). Ski jumping is predominantly a winter sport, performed on snow, and is part of the Winter Olympic Games, but can also be performed in summer on artificial surfaces – porcelain or frost rail track on the inrun, plastic on the landing hill. Ski jumping belongs to the nordic type of competitive skiing.

6. Ski jumping as a sport originated in Norway. Norwegian lieutenant Olaf Rye was the first known ski jumper.[citation needed] In 1809, he launched himself 9.5 meters in the air in front of astounded soldiers. By 1862, ski jumpers were facing much larger jumps and traveling longer. The very first recorded public competition was held at Trysil, Norway, on 22 January 1862. At this first competition, judges already awarded points for style ("elegance and smoothness"), participants had to complete three jumps without falling and rules were agreed upon in advance.[1] It is clear from the news report published in Morgenbladet that the ski jumping in Trysild was entertainment, but also a national, competitive sports event. The first known female ski jumper participated at the Trysil competition in 1863.[2] Norway's SondreNorheim jumped 30 meters over a rock without the benefit of poles. His record stood for three decades.[citation needed] In 1866, the first skiing event held in Christiania near Old Aker Church was a combined cross country, slalom and jumping competition, and attracted an audience of some 2,000 people. SondreNorheim won his first competition in Christiania in 1868.[2] The first widely known ski jumping competition was the Husebyrennene, held in Oslo in 1879, with Olaf Haugann of Norway setting the first world record for the longest ski jump at 20 meters.[3] Explorer Fridtjof Nansen was a skilled skier and was number 7 in the 1881 competition at Huseby.[2] Until 1884–1886 jumping and cross-country was a single integrated competition: In 1886 at Huseby cross-country and jumping were held on separate days, and final results were calculated from the combined achievements (similar to present nordic combined).[2] The annual event was moved to Holmenkollen from 1892, and Holmenkollen has remained the pinnacle of ski jumping venues. To distinguish ski jumping competition only from nordic combined, it is still referred to as "spesielthopprenn" in Norwegian (ski jumping only). • According to the International Olympic Committee's site:[4]

7. ICE HOCKEY History bas relief c.600 BC, in the National Archaeological Museum of Athens Games played with curved sticks and a ball can be found in the histories of many cultures. In Egypt, 4000-year-old carvings feature teams with sticks and a projectile, hurling dates to before 1272 BC in Ireland, and there is a depiction from c.600 BC in Ancient Greece where the game may have been called kerētízein or kerhtízein (κερητίζειν) because it was played with a horn or horn-like stick(kéras, κέρας)[4] In Inner Mongolia, the Daur people have been playing beikou, a game similar to modern field hockey, for about 1,000 years.[5] Most evidence of hockey-like games during the Middle Ages is found in legislation concerning sports and games. Similar to Edward's proclamation was the Galway Statute enacted in Ireland in 1527, which banned certain types of ball games, including hockey.

8. British soldiers and immigrants to Canada brought their stick-and-ball games with them and played them on the ice and snow of Canadian winters. In 1825, John Franklin wrote "The game of hockey played on the ice was the morning sport" on Great Bear Lake during one of his Arctic expeditions. A mid-1830s watercolour portrays New Brunswick lieutenant governor Archibald Campbell and his family with British soldiers on skates playing a stick-on-ice sport. Captain R.G.A. Levinge, a British Army officer in New Brunswick during Campbell’s time, wrote about "hockey on ice" on Chippewa Creek (a tributary of the Niagara River) in 1839. In 1843 another British Army officer in Kingston, Ontario wrote, "Began to skate this year, improved quickly and had great fun at hockey on the ice."[6] An 1859 Boston Evening Gazette article referred to an early game of hockey on ice in Halifax that year.[7] In the same era, the Mi'kmaq people, a First Nations people of Nova Scotia, also had a stick-and-ball game. Canadian oral histories describe a traditional stick-and-ball game played by the Mi'kmaq in eastern Canada, and Silas Tertius Rand (in his 1894 Legends of the Micmacs) describes a Mi'kmaq ball game known as tooadijik. Rand also describes a game played (probably after European contact) with hurleys, known as wolchamaadijik.[8] Sticks made by the Mi'kmaq were used by the British for their games. Stick-and-ball games date back to pre-Christian times. In Europe, these games included the Irish game of hurling, the closely related Scottish game of shinty and versions of field hockey (including "bandie ball," played in England). IJscolf, a game resembling colf on an ice-covered surface, was popular in the Low Countries between the Middle Ages and the Dutch Golden Age. It was played with a wooden curved bat (called a colf or kolf), a wooden or leather ball and two poles (or nearby landmarks), with the objective to hit the chosen point using the least number of strokes. A similar game (knattleikr) had been played for a thousand years or more by the Vikings, as documented in the Icelandic sagas.

9. Snowboarding or board snowing is a winter sport that involves descending a slope that is covered with snow while standing on a board attached to a rider's feet, using a special boot set into a mounted binding. The development of snowboarding was inspired by skateboarding, sledding, surfing and skiing. It was developed in the United States in the 1960s and became a Winter Olympic Sport in 1998. In the early 1970s, Poppen organized snurfing competitions at a Michigan ski resort that attracted enthusiasts from all over the country. One of those early pioneers was Tom Sims, a devotee of skateboarding (a sport born in the 1950s when kids attached roller skate wheels to small boards that they steered by shifting their weight). As an eighth grader in Haddonfield, New Jersey, in the 1960s, Sims crafted a snowboard in his school shop class by gluing carpet to the top of a piece of wood and attaching aluminum sheeting to the bottom. He produced commercial snowboards in the mid 70s. During this same time, DimitrijeMilovich—an American surfing enthusiast who had also enjoyed sliding down snowy hills on cafeteria trays during his college years in upstate New York—constructed a snowboard called "Winterstick," inspired by the design and feel of a surfboard. Articles about his invention in such mainstream magazines as Newsweek helped publicize the young sport.

10. During the 1970s and 1980s as snowboarding became more popular, pioneers such as DimitrijeMilovich, Jake Burton Carpenter (founder of Burton Snowboards from Londonderry, Vermont), Tom Sims (founder of Sims Snowboards), Chuck Barfoot (founder of Barfoot Snowboards) and Mike Olson (founder of Gnu Snowboards) came up with new designs for boards and mechanisms that slowly developed into the snowboards and other related equipment that we know today.[8] Also during this same period, in 1977, Jake Burton Carpenter, a Vermont native who had enjoyed snurfing since the age of 14, impressed the crowd at a Michigan snurfing competition with bindings he had designed to secure his feet to the board. That same year, he founded Burton Snowboards in Londonderry, Vermont. The "snowboards" were made of wooden planks that were flexible and had water ski foot traps. Very few people picked up snowboarding because the price of the board was considered too high at $38, but eventually Burton would become the biggest snowboarding company in the business.[3] In the spring of 1976 Welsh skateboarders Jon Roberts and Pete Matthews developed a Plywood deck with foot bindings for use on the Dry Ski Slope at the school camp, Ogmore-by-Sea, Wales. UK. Further development of the board was limited as Matthews suffered serious injury while boarding at Ogmore and access for the boarders declined following the incident. The 'deck' was much shorter than current snow boards. Bevelled edges and a convex, polyurethane varnished bottom to the board, allowed quick downhill movement, but limited turning ability.