Results for tag and article content "olympics"
If any one sport made history this year it was the sport of boxing. Women competing for the first time in the Olympics and the sport exploding as a recreational pastime amongst ordinary people.
Beyond all the hype, all the marketing, all the corporate positioning and patriotism, the London Olympics turned out to be one of the more successful Games of the modern era. Take a bow Britain, a job very well done.
So the fat lady of the London Olympics 2012 is clearing her throat. We’ve suffered sling and arrows of the fickle British Summer, we’ve seen some heroic competition, and some historic achievements. What better way to cap it all of than the closing ceremony which kicks off on August 12th at 21:00 (GMT).
At this rate the IOC will be wondering why it took until 2012 to have women’s boxing in the Olympics. In fact it wasn’t until the 1997 that the British Boxing Association first sanctioned bouts between women, Sweden, the bastion of gender equality was the first to do so in 1988.
So you’re enjoying the Olympics yeah? Inspirational? You haven’t seen anything yet. The Paralympics kicks off on the 29th of August and if you thought that watching the Olympics was motivational, wait til you get a load of these guys. In the first Paralympic Games to ever sell out, Swide picks ten awesome Paralympic Athletes to watch out for.
It has always been one of the most popular events in the Olympics and one of the very core disciplines that dates back to the original Olympic Games in ancient Greece. For over 70 years in the modertn era the high jump remained unaltered with athletes executing a scissors jump to cleat the horizontal. That was until American Dick Fosbury revolutionised the sport with his ‘Fosbury Flop’, backwards bendy jump, a technique that is still used today.
It has been a ‘drumroll’ of a week. The mammoth event that is the London Olympics and Paralympics 2012 is now live and in full effect here in LONDON! And I’m taking every opportunity to get into the spirit and you should too especially if you’re in London during the games. It’s time to soak up this momentous occasion.
The 100m final at the Olympics is probably the tournament’s marquee event. Bolt sensationally stormed to the double gold in the 100m and 200m in Beijing and is widely tipped to do the same in London on the 5th of August 21.50(GMT).
What is it that truly defines a winner? Is it about being the best, doing your best or besting the others? The Olympic games of course are all about the second: no matter how you rank, all that matters is the spirit of sportsmanship. Of course one would prefer to win, but already getting to compete in such an event is a victory in itself.
So the giant Olympic countdown clocks ticks down to zero, only hours to go before the biggest and most important event to happen in London for over 50 years gets underway. If you’ve got plans for this evening – cancel them, because this is shaping up to be something very special indeed.
The Seoul Olympics in 1988 was a combination of unprecedented athletic achievement and the controversy of performance enhancing drugs in sport at the highest level. One name that will forever be associated with the former as well as tainted by allegations of the latter is American Florence Griffith-Joyner who had gone from being a good sprinter to becoming a world-beating unstoppable speed machine in the space of only a few months.
Team China are the Olympic Gold medallists, but the USA are the world champions, while Russia have a lot to prove this time round. As always, the major Olympic superpowers will challenge for medals. The Women’s Team Final takes place on 31st of July at 16:30 (GMT).