Word: sporting
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...muddied bog snorkelers going for the gold. For, as J.R. Daeschner relates in his obsessive, down-and-dirty travelogue, True Brits (Arrow Books; 340 pages), they're the kind of thing that passed for "physical culture" among the Anglo-Saxons of yore. And what's more, such ancient sports and kindred traditions are very much alive and, er, kicking in 21st century Britain. The Cotswold "Olimpicks" - events included cudgel fights and bearbaiting - survived until the intervention of tut-tutting vicars, landowners and justices of the peace in 1852. The sport of shin kicking, a variant of wrestling - with heavy boots...
There are certain things Australians take for granted when they turn their minds to sport: footballers behave badly on trips, cricketers say harsh things on the field to their opponents and Ian Thorpe wins every time he hits the water in a race. But last Saturday the nation was reminded that the 21-year-old swimmer is, after all, only human. In a 400-m freestyle heat at Australia's Olympic trials in Sydney, the world-record holder and Olympic champion tumbled into the pool before the starter's signal - and was disqualified for a false start. Swimming...
...that, aged 16, one of the most talented swimmers of all time walked away from the sport, rarely to be seen by the public for 25 years. Comebacks seldom work. Typically, the retired athlete, deprived of the thrills of his prime, returns full of hope, only to be promptly reminded why he left: his body doesn't work like it used to. What Gould is doing amounts to a comeback: on April 1, aged 47, she'll crouch on the blocks beside teen-agers to contest the 50-m butterfly at the Australian Olympic Team Swimming Trials in Sydney...
...Melbourne at 14 to link with a new coach, Rohan Taylor. Miatke's on a scholarship at Carey Baptist Grammar School, lives with 17 other children at a nearby boarding house and looks adults she's just met square in the eye. Funded by the Victorian Institute of Sport, she has free, year-round access to masseurs, physiotherapists and psychologists. Though separated by distance from her family, she seldom wants for reassurance. Sometimes this comes from coach Taylor, who's determined not to rush her. "The plan is to prepare her for a career in the sport," he says. Still...
...lined face tells of toil and distress. Three years after Munich she married an older man, Neil Innes, a fundamentalist Christian contemptuous of competitive sport. They drove across the continent to Western Australia, where they bought land and practiced subsistence farming while raising four children...