Heads up: two of the quarter finals of the Under 17 Women’s World Cup are at Westpac Stadium this Saturday (being tomorrow, the 8th of November) at 1pm and 4pm. For just $7 (if you’re under 17 – it’s a whole $10 if you’re not) you get to watch the might of Denmark take on the best the Korea Republic has to offer, closely followed by football powerhouse Germany up against Canada (who beat New Zealand in pool play). Sounds like a good time. Visit the stadium website for time and ticket info. For all the news, views and statistics go to FIFA.com.
Tag: Sport
More free-running news!
The world’s first free-running championships took place in London last Wednesday. Contestants had to complete a course (and provide their own soundtrack) and were judged for their ‘flow’ by other free-runners. The BBC have a brief video interview with the organiser of the event. The winner was American Gabe Nunez (who can be seen in this 3 Doors Down music video), while second and third places were won by Britons.
I don’t think the 2012 London Olympics have a demonstration sport picked out yet …
If you read our post on parkour and free running last month and are keen to further your interest, check out Parkour New Zealand, the NZ Parkour portal. It has videos taken around the country, and a forum for like-minded people. The Wellington subforum has the most posts, which is a good sign!
It’s a matter of hours before the Opening Ceremony of this year’s Beijing Olympics. The modern Olympics have been captured on film for almost a century! The official Olympic website’s history archive has a clip from every Olympic Opening Ceremony since the 1912 Opening Ceremony in Stockholm.
From midday each day over the next two weeks, TV One will be offering extensive coverage of the Olympics. Those of you with easy access to hi-speed connections and plenty of bandwidth may want to watch online via TVNZ’s website; they will have four channels streaming live.
There are 302 events scheduled for this year’s Olympic games. If you had to list them all you would struggle to come up with a tenth of the entire list. Some are variations of a sport, like running, rowing, or swimming. But some are delightfully different from the rest, and many people don’t realise they’re Olympic sports at all.
So here’s a list (we like lists).
Modern pentathlon – this is a series of five (hence the ‘penta-‘ prefix) events; shooting, with an air pistol; fencing (sword-fighting); swimming; horse riding; and finally running. These were chosen by the founder of the modern Olympics in 1912 as the five things a 19th-century infantryman would need to do behind enemy lines. Which makes it a very cool sport indeed.
Synchonised swimming – also known as ‘water ballet’, this sport comes from Canada. Think of it as dancing to music in a pool. New Zealand has a duet competing this year.
Tug of war – to be fair, this was only an Olympic sport between 1900 to 1920. But what a sport! Unfortunately New Zealand never entered a team – we would have cleaned up the medals.
Wushu – at each Olympics a ‘demonstration sport’ is chosen, usually by the host country, to promote the sport and to add a little flavour to the games. At the Beijing Olympics Wushu is to be on display (though not officially as a demonstration sport). Wushu (武術) was created in China in 1949 in an effort to nationalise the various martial arts. Sparring one another is part of the sport, and performing a routine, like gymnastics, is also a large part of it – instead of throwing a ribbon and ball about, competitors perform 720 degree jump kicks and backflips while wielding a sword. Awesome.
Trampolining – Competitors bounce and do flips and so on (but without swords). The last time I used a trampoline – at high school – I dislocated a toe, ending any Olympic dreams I had.
Handball – this sport was first in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, as Hitler was a fan. It was re-introduced in the 70s. Handball is a bit like football, but competitors can only use their hands. Sort of like volley ball or netball, I guess. But without nets. Well, sure, there are nets, but like hockey goals. I hope that explains it to you.
So maybe your 2007 rugby demons are beginning to be exorcised? With recent results everyone should be feeling better about our national game. The Super 14 title is back in New Zealand and the U-20s have won the World Cup. The NZ Maori team are undefeated in the Pacific Nations Cup so far and the All Blacks have won three in a row and looked better each game. Even if the prospect of the Tri-Nations is a bit daunting it still feels good to thrash two different English teams in the same weekend.
Keep up with all our teams and world rugby in general through the All Blacks website.
Sporting expert, Jack, has compiled a Top 10 5 list of sport websites. If you can add any, leave a comment!
- cricinfo.com – All the goings-on in the world of cricket. Includes all the latest results, news, blogs, opinions and the most comprehensive archived statistics section I’ve ever seen. It even has a games section packed full of fun flash based mini-games to try. If cricket is your sport, then this should be your homepage!
- www.stuff.co.nz/sport – Everything you need to get up to speed on what’s happening in New Zealand and international sport. From Rugby to Running, Bowls to Basketball, it’s all covered here with articles from national newspapers, opinion pieces, videos and blogs.
- espn.com – If you follow any of the major American sports (Football, Basketball, Baseball, Ice Hockey, Nascar etc.) or just want an American perspective on the world of sport then this should be your first port of call. The site includes all the latest news, results, statistics and opinions, but that is just scratching the surface. There are also podcasts by leading sports journalists and highlights videos sourced from the ESPN network. There certainly are a lot of options here!
- allblacks.com – Rugby is New Zealand’s national sport and this is the website for our national team. Keep up to date with the Tri-Nations, Super 14 and Air New Zealand cup competitions with all the latest news, results and fixtures. Also download desktop wallpapers and watch videos all while pretending the 2007 World Cup never happened!
- motorsport.com – Whether you enjoy cars going around in circles very quickly (Nascar, Indycar), cars flying through snow and mud very quickly (World Rally Championship), motorbikes going around in circles very quickly (superbikes) or some other sort of really fast motorised vehicle (F1, drag-racing) it’s almost certainly on here. Keeping up to date on the fast (haha!) world of motorsport is made easy with motorsport.com’s sheer amount of up to the minute news and results. Other more specialised sites may go deeper, but none have a scope quite this wide.
The Uganda Skateboard Union is “setting out to combat idleness and boredom among the youth of Uganda by providing a new, positive and fun outlet for them. This outlet is Skateboarding. The Organisation will focus on teaching and training Ugandan youth how to skateboard.” Their blog has many cool photos of kids grinding, kickflipping, McTwisting, and varial heel flipping.
The library holds a few skateboarding magazines in the Young Adult section: Transworld Skateboarding (website) and New Zealand Skateboarder. By the way.
