Top: Sports (32077)
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Overview |
A sport is a game, played as a recreational activity or professionaly as employment. It is usually played for enjoyment, but it always involves some form of competition and usually improves the health and fitness of participants. Sports usually require physical skill, as opposed to many other games which require luck or mental skill.
Many sports are considered to grow character and life skills, although the environment that sport takes place in is very different from that of normal life. Participating and spectating sports have continued to be popular in almost all cultures at almost all points of recent history, although the sports in question have been different and have reflected the attitudes and characteristics of society at the time.
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Definition |
Sport: Noun
- A competitive game.
- An game that involves physical activity.
- A competitive game that is physically-demanding.
- A physical activity that is a form of recreation.
- A person who accepts defeat and the rules. A good sport.
- An organism that mutates and looks different from normal.
- (Informal) Someone who gambles.
- Something that someone makes fun of.
Derivatives: Sportful, Sportfulness, Sportfully
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Life Skills and Simulations |
Many sports use the skills humans first developed as survival skills. These sports may actually simulate survival situations, but the essential difference is that sports are ultimately recreational and any competition is not for survival but rather for enjoyment.
Examples inlude:
- target sports, which use skills that were originally for hunting food
- yachting/cycling/motorised sports/etc., which are forms of transport undertaken as sports
- combat sports, which developed as forms of defence
- weightlifting, which involves heavy objects solely for the purposes of muscle development
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Sportsmanship |
Sportsmanship is the attitude that all participants and spectators in sports are there to enjoy themselves. However, with the pressures of competition many participants and spectators forget to uphold the value of sportsmanship by making the sport less enjoyable for themselves or others.
Examples of sportsmanlike conduct could inlcude:
- playing fairly and not cheating
- treating all participants and spectators with consideration, genoristy and respect
- giving one's full effort into every activity with the intention of winning or doing one's best
- being willing to lose and congradulate the winning team or individual
- not acting aggressively or offensively against other participants and spectators
Most sports now have official governing bodies that enforce strict rules and regulations for their sporting code to ensure all participants do play fairly and play the sport properly.
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Professionalism |
Sport has become a form of entertainment and it dominates the mass media around the world. As a result, many sports have moved from competitive recreation intended for leisure time to professional employment. Sometimes the income has become the most important factor in playing sports and some major sports personalities are profitable brands in themselves.
Professionalism in sports has lead to increased pressure on sports players to perform, leading to unfair tactics and cheating. The use of performance-enhancing drugs in sports is one of the most notable results of the increased competitiveness. Many teams have become commercial franchises dependent on a good performance. Official regulatory bodies have been set up to ensure cheating does not take place.
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