Athletics Blog

In Ancient Greece, the pentathlon was an athletic event in the Olympics and other Panhellenic Games. From the word penta, which means five, pentathlon was derived from Greek words for �five competitions.� There were events which are held separately like the stadion or a short foot race and wrestling. Events that were not held as separate events were the long jump, javelin throw and the discus throw. During those ancient times, pentathletes were considered as the most skilled athletes. Each of these five events was thought to be useful in battle and thus part of their military training.

When we were kids we always dream about possessing super powers. One of our heroes we dream about is Clark Kent possessing super strength. Superman doesn�t just exist in animation and comic books. There are real supermen that conquered in the world of athletics. They are men of steel who can compete in five different athletic events, some even ten track and field events. These events really test human strength, agility and endurance. There we�re heroes who competed in decathlons and pentathlons and one of them is Jim Thorpe. In the next entries, we will discuss these various events and the life of Jim.

The title �World�s Greatest Athlete� began when King Gustav V of Sweden told Jim Thorpe after Jim won� the decathlon� at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, �You sir, are the World�s Greatest Athlete.� Jim Thorpe was of mixed Native American and white ancestry. Despite struggling with racism for most part of his life, Jim excelled as an athlete. He won Olympic gold medals in the pentathlon and decathlon, played collegiate and professional American football and also played professional baseball and basketball. He was so great that he was given his own national holiday in 1978 which is celebrated every May 28 the day he was born.

Whenever engaging in any form of sport, it’s always best to warm up first as warming up helps your mind and body prepare to engage in strenuous activity. Warming up helps the blood flow to the various parts of the body, warming both the body’s core temperature and muscle temperature, which minimizes the chances for a sprain of injury to happen.

It is suggested to first do some light exercises like before the main event. These general warm up exercises will make your body be more prepared to handle whatever sport through elevating the heart and respiratory rate and facilitates the muscles of the body in receiving the proper nutrients. Stretching then follows, with various light tension exercises to even prepare your muscles more. Stretching gives you a bigger range of movement.

They have come and gone with records that are still to be broken, much has been gained by the many impoverished African states that have produced some of the best runners in the world. Why then does the continent produce some of the best runners if they have more pressing issues to address such as war, famine and many more in the war-torn continent? The people are more on the lean side of humanity with more muscle pound per pound compared to people from other nations. Africans have evolved into some of the best runners in the world not only to show off their raw and pure talent at sports but to show off the prowess of their nation and the continent whom they represent. They want to hear their fellow athletes on the top instead of the dismal news of conflict here and there which makes them proud of being who they are.
Compared to other athletes, these people train under the most extreme environments that would cause many of our own people to quit long before they have ever gotten warmed up. The extreme temperature may have cooked out the fat in their body leaving tough and powerful tissue that is well suited for the sport. More power to you people as you carry your countries into the record books becoming heroes of your people and the world.

With the Olympics a few month’s past, scandals and intrigue still plague the winners and losers. There were straightforward cases of banned substance use and there were muddled cases of mistaken identity whereas drugs were seen as another. These events have stripped many athletes of their medals in history but these medals being hard-earned, cheated or not are not always returned. As it turns out, the results of these contests are rarely revised once they have gone into the record books and the medals that are sure to come with them as well. Many deserving track and field athletes have lost pride and face due to accusations of wrong though they have denied all accounts and evidence has never been actually been sound.
A case with the sprinters of the past Olympics where two of the top athletes were stripped of their final scores due to erroneous steps, their stories have gone up and down as they go down in history as disqualified, their honor and hard-earned medals with the deemed winners. One case had an athlete disqualified then re-awarded the medal, not by the Olympic committee but by the opposing athlete who was given the medal who admits also having committed the same error as him. The damage is done, the medals are lost and the official record books not corrected.

画像転載元: thenastyboys.files.wordpress.com

ゼネラルマネージャーのジム・ヘンドリー氏がさらに4年間カブズとの契約を延長することになりました。契約はカブズの新しいオーナーがクラブを引き継いだ後、2012年まで続くことになります。 このニュースが届いたのは、ちょうどカブズが60年ぶりの好成績を記録した時でした。 最近、同チームは2つのNLセントラルのタイトルを獲得し、さらにリーグ史上最高の成績をおさめました。その直後、2年連続でプレーオフに破れました。 ヘンドリーを再びクラブに迎えるという決断は、チームの売却が決定しているさなかとはいえ、それほど困難なことではなかったようです。 クラブ代表のクレイン・ケニー氏によれば、当時の状況非常に異例のことだったといいます。 しかし、クラブのオーナーであるサム・ゼル氏がヘンドリーを呼び戻す決断をしたことで、転機が訪れました。 クラブ を売りに出している最中にも関わらず、リッチ・ハーデン氏とカルロス・ザンブラーノ氏を獲得したのです。 ケニー氏は、重要な決断が下されたとき、最も問題になるのはその長期的な効果であると述べています。

写真提供: graphics8.nytimes.com

スポーツを始めるのが一番良い時は若くて元気な時だとよく言われます。 ダラ・トレスに関してはこの格言を超越しました。 彼女にとって年齢は関係なく、元気があるというのは選択です。

現在41歳のトレスは2歳の娘がおり、閃光と突進と呼ばれる50メートルフリースタイルのオリンピックの水泳選手です。 競争的で強迫的な彼女の最近の努力は、彼女の年季が入った身体への綿密な注意の上に築かれています。 彼女は自分の体を車好きな人が自分の車を偏執的にチューンアップするように扱います。 彼女の体のプロポーションはどちらかというと長い逆三角形のようです。 幅広い肩、長い胴、スリムなヒップ、長い腕、そして引き締まった筋肉のカーブなどです。 あなたがトレスの顔と肩を注意して見てみれば、40プラスの年齢が少々見えるでしょう。 しかし、13の小さな膝の手術の後がなければ、ひじ、肩、手、指など彼女の体はほとんど欠点がありません。

12－20歳年下の他の7人の彼女の競争相手の中にいても、トレスはより背が高く、元気に見えます。

Image Source: sportsnob.wordpress.com

Rafael Nadal, Spain’s pride disappointed his countrymen when he announced that he would not be able to compete in the Davis Cup finals against Argentina because of a knee injury. He received the test results from his tendinitis on his right knee. It was a difficult decision to make for him as he knows that the two events, namely the Davis Cup and Shanghai Masters are the two most important objectives for this year. He said, he did all possible things to make it but he just could not make it. The Davis Cup will be held on this week in Mar del Plata, Argentina. This came as good news for Argentina as it was hoping to win this year’s title. It is really a point in their favor according to skipper Alberto Mancini.

Image Source: thenastyboys.files.wordpress.com

General manager Jim Hendry will continue to serve the Cubs for another four years til 2012 long after the Cubs’ new owners take over the club. The news came at the time of the Cubs’ best season in more than 60 years. They recently won their 2 NL Central title and scored the league’s best record ever before they lost in the play offs for two straight years. The decision to invite Hendry back to the club was a very easy decision to make, apparently, inspite of the fact that it is on sale. It was quite an odd situation, as the Cubs’ chairman Crane Kenney recalls. But the decision of the club owner, Sam Zell, to get Hendrey was the turning point. Amidst the pending sale, the Cubs brought in Rich Harden and Carlos Zambrano. It is always about the long term consequences that we are all concerned about thats why these important decisions were made, says Kenney.