Portal:Sports
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The Sports Portal
Sport is a form of physical activity or game. Often competitive and organized, sports use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills. They also provide enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Many sports exist, with different participant numbers, some are done by a single person with others being done by hundreds. Most sports take place either in teams or competing as individuals. Some sports allow a "tie" or "draw", in which there is no single winner; others provide tie-breaking methods to ensure one winner. A number of contests may be arranged in a tournament format, producing a champion. Many sports leagues make an annual champion by arranging games in a regular sports season, followed in some cases by playoffs.
Sport is generally recognised as system of activities based in physical athleticism or physical dexterity, with major competitions admitting only sports meeting this definition. Some organisations, such as the Council of Europe, preclude activities without any physical element from classification as sports. However, a number of competitive, but non-physical, activities claim recognition as mind sports. The International Olympic Committee who oversee the Olympic Games recognises both chess and bridge as sports. SportAccord, the international sports federation association, recognises five non-physical sports: bridge, chess, draughts, Go and xiangqi. However, they limit the number of mind games which can be admitted as sports. Sport is usually governed by a set of rules or customs, which serve to ensure fair competition. Winning can be determined by physical events such as scoring goals or crossing a line first. It can also be determined by judges who are scoring elements of the sporting performance, including objective or subjective measures such as technical performance or artistic impression. (Full article...)
Selected articles
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![Image 1 The 1876 association football match between the national teams representing Scotland and Wales took place on 25 March 1876 at Hamilton Crescent, Partick, the home ground of the West of Scotland Cricket Club. The match was the first game ever played by the Welsh side. It was also the first time than Scotland had played against a team other than England. The fixture[discuss] was organised by Llewelyn Kenrick, who had founded the Football Association of Wales (FAW) only a few weeks earlier in response to a letter published in The Field. Advertisements were placed in several sporting journals asking for Welsh players, or those with more than three years residence in the country, to come forward and the Welsh team was selected after trial matches were held at the Racecourse Ground in Wrexham. The FAW selected the side and Kenrick was appointed captain for the fixture. (Full article...)](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d2/Blank.png)
The 1876 association football match between the national teams representing Scotland and Wales took place on 25 March 1876 at Hamilton Crescent, Partick, the home ground of the West of Scotland Cricket Club. The match was the first game ever played by the Welsh side. It was also the first time than Scotland had played against a team other than England.
The fixture[discuss] was organised by Llewelyn Kenrick, who had founded the Football Association of Wales (FAW) only a few weeks earlier in response to a letter published in The Field. Advertisements were placed in several sporting journals asking for Welsh players, or those with more than three years residence in the country, to come forward and the Welsh team was selected after trial matches were held at the Racecourse Ground in Wrexham. The FAW selected the side and Kenrick was appointed captain for the fixture. (Full article...) -
Sandra Anne Morgan (born 6 June 1942), also known by her married name Sandra Beavis, or as Sandra Morgan-Beavis, is an Australian former freestyle swimmer who was part of the gold medal-winning team in the 4×100-metre freestyle relay at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne. At the age of 14 years and 6 months, she became the youngest Australian to win an Olympic gold medal, a record that still stands.
Morgan began serious training in early 1956 and won Olympic selection for the relay team as well as the 400-metre freestyle. Morgan's selection in the final quartet raised controversy because of her inexperience in top-level racing and her history of false starts. During the final, she lifted her head out of the water and saw her American opponent ahead of her, prompting her to regain the lead with a late burst in the third leg. Australia went on to win the relay in world record time. In her only individual event, Morgan came sixth in the 400-metre freestyle. (Full article...) -
Ian William Geddes Johnson, CBE (8 December 1917 – 9 October 1998) was an Australian cricketer who played 45 Test matches as a slow off-break bowler between 1946 and 1956. Johnson captured 109 Test wickets at an average of 29.19 runs per wicket and as a capable lower order batsman made 1,000 runs at an average of 18.51 runs per dismissal. He captained the Australian team in 17 Tests, winning seven and losing five, with a further five drawn. Despite this record, he is better known as the captain who lost consecutive Ashes series against England. Urbane, well-spoken and popular with his opponents and the public, he was seen by his teammates as a disciplinarian and his natural optimism was often seen as naive.
Aged 17, Johnson made his first-class cricket debut for Victoria in the 1935–36 season but did not establish a permanent place in the team until 1939–40. His career was interrupted by the Second World War; he served with the Royal Australian Air Force as a pilot and later as a flight instructor. He returned to cricket after his discharge and was selected to tour New Zealand with the Australian team, making his Test debut. Johnson was part of Don Bradman's Invincibles team; undefeated on tour in England in 1948. He was a regular member of the national side until poor form saw him left out of the Australian squad for the 1953 tour of England. (Full article...) -
The 2012–13 Michigan Wolverines men's basketball team represented the University of Michigan during the 2012–13 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. The team played its home games in Ann Arbor, Michigan, at the Crisler Center. This season marked the team's 96th consecutive year as a member of the Big Ten Conference, and it is occasionally referred to as "Team 96". The team was led by sixth-year head coach John Beilein.
As the defending 2011–12 Big Ten Conference men's basketball season regular season co-champions, the Wolverines finished fourth in the conference in 2012–13 and as National Runner-up in the 2013 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament after losing in the championship game to Louisville. Louisville's win was later vacated due to the 2015 University of Louisville basketball sex scandal. The team achieved a 31–8 record, the most wins by the program in 20 seasons. (Full article...) -
The 1986 World Snooker Championship (also referred to as the 1986 Embassy World Snooker Championship for the purposes of sponsorship) was a professional snooker tournament that took place between 19 April and 5 May 1986 at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England. It was the sixth and final ranking event of the 1985–86 snooker season and the 1986 edition of the World Snooker Championship, first held in 1927. The total prize fund was £350,000 with £70,000 awarded to the winner and was sponsored by cigarette manufacturer Embassy.
The defending champion was Dennis Taylor, who had defeated Steve Davis 18–17 in the 1985 World Snooker Championship final to win his first world title. In defence of his title, Taylor lost in the first round of the event 6–10 to Mike Hallett. Joe Johnson the world number 16 defeated Davis 18–12 in the final to win his sole ranking event. Prior to the competition, the bookmakers' odds for a Johnson victory were 150/1. There were 20 century breaks compiled in total during the tournament, the highest of which was a 134 made by Davis in the opening frame of his quarter-final win. (Full article...) -
Hobart Amory Hare "Hobey" Baker (January 15, 1892 – December 21, 1918) was an American amateur athlete of the early twentieth century. Considered the first American star in ice hockey by the Hockey Hall of Fame, he was also an accomplished American football player. Born into a prominent family from the Philadelphia area, he enrolled at Princeton University in 1910. Baker excelled on the university's hockey and football teams, and became a noted amateur hockey player for the St. Nicholas Hockey Club in New York City. He was a member of three national championship teams, for football in 1911 and hockey in 1912 and 1914, and helped the St. Nicholas Club win a national amateur championship in 1915. Baker graduated from Princeton in 1914 and worked for J.P. Morgan Bank until he enlisted in the United States Army Air Service. During World War I he served with the 103rd and the 13th Aero Squadrons before being promoted to captain and named commander of the 141st Aero Squadron. Baker died in December 1918 after a plane he was test-piloting crashed, hours before he was due to leave France and return to America.
Baker was widely regarded by his contemporaries as one of the best athletes of his time and is considered one of the best early American hockey players. When the Hockey Hall of Fame was founded in 1945, Baker was named one of the first nine inductees, the only American among them. In 1973, he became one of the initial inductees in the United States Hockey Hall of Fame. He was also inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1975, and is the only person to be in both the hockey and college football halls of fame. (Full article...) -
Villa Park is a football stadium in Aston, Birmingham, with a seating capacity of 42,640. It has been the home of Premier League club Aston Villa since 1897. The ground is less than a mile from both Witton and Aston railway stations and has hosted sixteen England internationals at senior level, the first in 1899 and the most recent in 2005. Villa Park has hosted 55 FA Cup semi-finals, more than any other stadium, and it is the 10th largest in England.
In 1897, Aston Villa moved into the Aston Lower Grounds, a sports ground in a Victorian amusement park in the former grounds of Aston Hall, a Jacobean stately home. The stadium has gone through various stages of renovation and development, resulting in the current stand configuration of the Holte End, Trinity Road Stand, North Stand and Doug Ellis Stand. (Full article...) -
The 1982 Drivers' Championship winner was Keke Rosberg
The 1982 FIA Formula One World Championship was the 36th season of FIA Formula One motor racing. It included two competitions run over the course of the year, the 33rd Formula One World Championship for Drivers and the 25th Formula One World Championship for Constructors. The season featured sixteen rounds between 23 January and 25 September. The Drivers' Championship was won by Keke Rosberg and the Constructors' Championship by Scuderia Ferrari.
The Championship started with a drivers' strike at the season opener in South Africa and saw a partial race boycott as part of the ongoing FISA–FOCA war at the San Marino Grand Prix. Two drivers died during 1982: Gilles Villeneuve during qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix and Riccardo Paletti at the start of the Canadian Grand Prix. Championship front-runner Didier Pironi also suffered a career-ending accident while qualifying for the German Grand Prix. These incidents and several other major accidents led to regulation changes to increase driver safety for the 1983 season. Motorsport journalist Nigel Roebuck later wrote that 1982 was "an ugly year, pock-marked by tragedy, by dissension, by greed, and yet, paradoxically, it produced some of the most memorable racing ever seen". (Full article...) -
The 1924 Rose Bowl was a postseason American college football bowl game played between the independent Navy Midshipmen and the Washington Huskies, a member of the Pacific Coast Conference (PCC). The game took place on January 1, 1924, at the Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena, California, closing the 1923 college football season. The game opened in front of approximately 40,000 people and ended in a 14–14 tie. It was the first post-season bowl game for both teams. The 1924 game was the tenth edition of the Rose Bowl, which had first been played in 1902. Following the inaugural game's blowout score, football was replaced with chariot races until 1916. The Rose Bowl stadium had been constructed in 1923, making this edition the second game played in the arena.
The game's organizers had previously selected a team from the East Coast and the West Coast, and asked the Washington Huskies to represent the West Coast. Washington requested that the Navy Midshipmen be their opponents, and Navy accepted. Washington selected Navy in favor of several teams from the east which had amassed better records. Both teams had suffered only a single loss during the season, but Washington had won eight games compared with Navy's five, although Navy had also amassed two ties. Predictions gave Washington a slight advantage in the game due to the weight difference between the teams: the Washington players were on average 10 pounds (4.5 kg) heavier than those of Navy. (Full article...) -
Suzanne Rachel Flore Lenglen (French pronunciation: [syzan lɑ̃ɡlɛn]; 24 May 1899 – 4 July 1938) was a French tennis player. She was the inaugural world No. 1 from 1921 to 1926, winning eight Grand Slam titles in singles and twenty-one in total. She was also a four-time World Hard Court Champion in singles, and ten times in total. Lenglen won six Wimbledon singles titles, including five in a row from 1919 to 1923, and was the champion in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles at the first two open French Championships in 1925 and 1926. In doubles, she was undefeated with her usual partner Elizabeth Ryan, highlighted by another six titles at Wimbledon. Lenglen was the first leading amateur to turn professional. She ranked as the greatest women's tennis player from the amateur era in the 100 Greatest of All Time series on the Tennis Channel in 2012.
Coached by her father Charles throughout her career, Lenglen began playing tennis at age 11, becoming the youngest major champion in history with her 1914 World Hard Court Championship title at age 15. This success, along with her balletic playing style and brash personality, helped make Lenglen a national heroine in a country coping with the aftermath of World War I. After the war had delayed her career four years, Lenglen was largely unchallenged. She won her Wimbledon debut in 1919 in the second-longest final in history, the only one of her major singles finals she did not win by a lopsided scoreline. Her only post-war loss came in a retirement against Molla Mallory, her only amateur match in the United States. Afterwards, she began a 179-match win streak, during which she defeated Helen Wills in the high-profile Match of the Century in 1926. Following a misunderstanding at Wimbledon later that year, Lenglen abruptly retired from amateur tennis, signing to headline a professional tour in the United States beginning that same year. (Full article...) -
The 1987 Giro d'Italia was the 70th edition of the bicycle race. It began on 21 May with a 4 km (2.5 mi) prologue in San Remo, and concluded on 13 June with a 32 km (19.9 mi) individual time trial in Saint-Vincent. A total of 180 riders from 20 teams entered the 22-stage, 3,915 km (2,433 mi)-long race, which was won by Irishman Stephen Roche of the Carrera Jeans–Vagabond team. Second and third places were taken by British rider Robert Millar and Dutchman Erik Breukink, respectively. It was the second time in the history of the Giro that the podium was occupied solely by non-Italian riders. Roche's victory in the 1987 Giro was his first step in completing the Triple Crown of Cycling – winning the Giro d'Italia, the Tour de France, and the World Championship road race in one calendar year – becoming the second rider ever to do so.
Roche's teammate and defending champion Roberto Visentini took the first race leader's maglia rosa (English: pink jersey) after winning the opening prologue, only to lose it to Breukink the following stage. Roche took the overall lead after his team, Carrera Jeans–Vagabond, won the stage three team time trial. Visentini regained the lead for a two-day period after the stage 13 individual time trial. The fifteenth stage of the 1987 Giro has been recognized as an iconic event in the history of the race because Roche rode ahead of teammate Visentini, despite orders from the team management, and took the race lead. Roche successfully defended the overall lead from attacks by Visentini and other general classification contenders until the event's finish in Saint-Vincent. (Full article...) -
Easy Jet (1967–1992) was a racing champion American Quarter Horse. He was one of only two horses to have been a member of the American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA) Hall of Fame as well as being an offspring of members. Easy Jet won the 1969 All American Futurity, the highest race for Quarter Horse racehorses, and was named World Champion Quarter Race Horse in the same year. He earned the highest speed rating awarded at the time—AAAT. After winning 27 of his 38 races in two years of racing, he retired from the race track and became a breeding stallion.
As a sire, he was the first All American Futurity winner to sire an All American Futurity winner, and went on to sire three winners of that race, and nine Champion Quarter Running Horses. Ultimately, his ownership and breeding rights were split into 60 shares worth $500,000 each—a total of $30 million. By 1993, the year after his death, his foals had earned more than $25 million on the racetrack. (Full article...) -
The 1921–22 season was the 21st season of competitive football played by Cardiff City F.C. and the team's first in the First Division of The Football League. Cardiff had won promotion the previous season by finishing as runners-up in the Second Division, becoming the first Welsh team to reach the top tier of English football.
Cardiff had a difficult start to the season, losing the first six matches of the campaign. They eventually saw results improve and finished in fourth place. The club entered the FA Cup in the first round and progressed to the fourth, before being defeated by Tottenham Hotspur after a replay. Cardiff went on to win the Welsh Cup for the third time in the club's history after defeating Ton Pentre 2–0 in the final, having scored seventeen goals and conceded only one during their cup run. (Full article...) -
During the 1993–94 English football season, Gillingham F.C. competed in the Football League Third Division, the fourth tier of the English football league system. It was the 62nd season in which Gillingham competed in the Football League, and the 44th since the club was voted back into the league in 1950. Prior to the season, Glenn Roeder resigned as the club's manager and was replaced by Mike Flanagan. The team struggled in August and September, and did not win a Third Division match until the eighth league game of the season. A week later, Gillingham won away from home in the Football League for the first time in 18 months. Gillingham's form remained inconsistent and, although they climbed to 10th in the 22-team league table in October, the team spent most of the season in the bottom half and finished 16th.
Gillingham also competed in three knock-out competitions. The team reached the second round of the FA Cup but failed to progress beyond the earliest stage of the Football League Cup or Football League Trophy. The team played a total of 49 competitive matches, winning 14, drawing 17, and losing 18. Nicky Forster was the team's top goalscorer, with 18 goals, all scored in the Football League. He also made the most appearances, playing in 46 of the team's 49 competitive matches. The highest attendance recorded at the club's home ground, Priestfield Stadium, was 4,573, for a game against Northampton Town. (Full article...)
![Image 1 The 1876 association football match between the national teams representing Scotland and Wales took place on 25 March 1876 at Hamilton Crescent, Partick, the home ground of the West of Scotland Cricket Club. The match was the first game ever played by the Welsh side. It was also the first time than Scotland had played against a team other than England. The fixture[discuss] was organised by Llewelyn Kenrick, who had founded the Football Association of Wales (FAW) only a few weeks earlier in response to a letter published in The Field. Advertisements were placed in several sporting journals asking for Welsh players, or those with more than three years residence in the country, to come forward and the Welsh team was selected after trial matches were held at the Racecourse Ground in Wrexham. The FAW selected the side and Kenrick was appointed captain for the fixture. (Full article...)](/wiki/File:Blank.png)
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Selected pictures
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Photo: Marie-Lan NguyenFencing is the sport of fighting with swords; in modern usage the word usually denotes competitive fencing, rather than classical fencing. Here, Fabian Kauter (right) hits Diego Confalonieri (left) with a flèche attack at the final of the Challenge Réseau Ferré de France–Trophée Monal 2012. -
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Credit: KuebiMara Friton in a handball match in the German Handball-Bundesliga. -
Photograph: Pierre SelimA line-out at a rugby union match between Stade Toulousain and Lyon OU. When a player puts the ball out of the field of play, the opposing team is awarded a line-out; in the case of a penalty kick, the team that was awarded the penalty throws into the resulting line-out. A line-out is also awarded if a player in possession of the ball crosses or touches the touch-line while still in possession of the ball. -
Photograph: Agência Brasil FotografiasSimone Biles (born March 14, 1997), after receiving the gold medal for the all-around event at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. Biles also won golds in the vault and the floor events in Rio, a bronze medal on the balance beam, and a gold in the team all-around event as part of a U.S. team dubbed the "Final Five". -
Motocross is form of motorcycle or ATV racing held on enclosed off-road circuits. The tracks are often quite large, natural, terrains with very few man made jumps, unlike Supercross, a sport that was originally derived from Motocross and is executed on a smaller track with many more extreme man made obstacles. -
Dale Earnhardt, Jr.'s Hendrick Motorsports pit crew execute a pit stop at a Sprint Cup Series competition at Darlington Raceway, South Carolina, in May 2008. In motor sport, pit stops are when the racing vehicle gets more fuel, new wheels, repairs, mechanical adjustments, a driver change, or any combination of the above. -
Photo: Sport the LibraryJeremy Doyle (1983–2011) was an Australian wheelchair basketball player. Left paraplegic after a car accident, he was classified as a 1 point player. While representing his country Doyle won two gold medals, first at the 2009 Paralympic World Cup and again at the 2010 Wheelchair Basketball World Championship. -
Photograph: Pierre-SelimWheelchair basketball is basketball played by people in wheelchairs and is considered one of the major disabled sports practiced. Depicted here is a game from the first round of the 2012 Euroleague tournament, showing players from Toulouse (in red) and Roma (in white). -
Credit: Ralf RoletschekMartin Sesaker representing Norway in curling at the 2012 Winter Youth Olympics. -
Credit: Fernando FrazãoThe balance beam is a rectangular artistic gymnastics apparatus, as well as the event performed using the apparatus. Pictured is Daniele Hypólito in the final of the women's artistic gymnastics competition at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, where Brazil finished in 8th place. -
Photograph credit: Koen Suyk; restored by Adam CuerdenCynthia Woodhead (born February 7, 1964) is an American former competitive swimmer, world champion, Olympic medalist, and former world-record holder. At the age of fourteen, she won three gold medals at the 1978 World Aquatics Championships, and set seven world records during her career. -
Boxing is a sport where two participants of similar weight attack each other with their fists in a series of one to three-minute intervals called "rounds". Modern boxing began in 1867 with the Marquess of Queensberry rules. Currently, there are two distinct branches of boxing: Professional and Olympic, which have different rules, but are similar in execution. -
Photo credit: Nick WiebeCongo national football team goalkeeper Destin Onka (right) prevents Austrian forward Rubin Okotie (left) from scoring a goal at the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup. In association football, the goalkeeper is the only player who is permitted to touch the ball with his hands or arms in open play. -
Photograph: Аркадий ЗарубинBalzhinima Tsyrempilov is a World Cup-winning and former world number-one archer from Russia. He has competed in both the 2004 and 2008 Summer Olympics, though he has not medalled. -
Restoration: Lise BroerA late 1930s Federal Art Project poster advertising the bobsled track in Lake Placid, New York, United States, which had been used in the 1932 Winter Olympics. The village is located in the Adirondack Mountains and is known as a tourist destination for winter sports, mountain climbing, and golf. It is one of the three places to have twice hosted the Winter Olympic Games and the first location in North America to host two Olympic games. -
Photograph credit: Rodney EeThe pacu jawi is a traditional bull race in Tanah Datar, West Sumatra, Indonesia. In the race, a jockey stands holding on to a pair of loosely tied bulls while the bulls run across a muddy track in a rice field. Recently, it has become a tourist attraction supported by the government, and the subject of multiple award-winning photographs. Dramatic high-speed action, mud splashing, and the jockeys' distinctive facial expressions add to its aesthetic value. -
Photograph: Marie-Lan NguyenNikolay Kovalev (R) attacks Áron Szilágyi (L) in the semi-finals of the men's sabre event at the 2013 World Fencing Championships. Although Kovalev won, he lost in the final against Veniamin Reshetnikov.
Held in Budapest, Hungary, from 5 to 12 August, the 2013 Championships saw 827 fencers from 101 countries compete. Russia won the most medals (11), followed by Italy (6) and Ukraine (4). -
Credit: Fir0002Horses race on grass at the 2006 Tambo Valley Races in Swifts Creek, Victoria, Australia. Horseracing is the third most popular spectator sport in Australia, behind Australian rules football and rugby league, with almost 2 million admissions to the 379 racecourses throughout Australia in 2002–03. -
Photo: Keith AllisonPanamanian baseball pitcher Mariano Rivera has spent his entire 16-year Major League Baseball career with the New York Yankees. An 11-time All-Star and five-time World Series champion, Rivera has accumulated 559 saves, the second-most in MLB history, and he holds Major League postseason records for saves and earned run average, among other records. -
Photo: Bain News Service; Restoration: JujutacularLéon Georget (1879–1949) was a racing cyclist from Preuilly-sur-Claise, Indre-et-Loire, France. He was known as The Father of the Bol d'Or, having won the race nine times between 1903 and 1919 in Paris. -
Photo: National Photo Company; restoration: Lise Broer; crop: jjronTy Cobb (1886–1961), shown here sliding into third base on August 16, 1924, was an American Major League Baseball (MLB) outfielder. He spent twenty-two seasons with the Detroit Tigers, including six as the team's player-manager, and finished his career with the Philadelphia Athletics. During this time Cobb set ninety MLB records, though his abilities were sometimes overshadowed by his surly temperament and aggressive playing style. In 1936 Cobb was made an inaugural member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, and in 1999 editors at the Sporting News ranked him third on their list of "Baseball's 100 Greatest Players". -
Credit: PierreSelim -
Credit: ChePriit Narusk in the qualification for the Tour de Ski cross-country skiing competition in Prague.
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Did you know...
- ...that Leyton F.C. had to win a High Court action in order to call itself the oldest football club in London?
- ...that the Iowa Cornets made it to the Women's Professional Basketball League championship in both of its seasons in the league, and lost both times?
- ...that in 1994, Horace Dove-Edwin became the first medalist in athletics for Sierra Leone, but lost it due to a positive doping test?
- ...that Sabeena Saleem is the first mother to compete alongside her daughter at the Asian Games in Indian bowling history?
- ...that Jaime Navarro (pictured) was the opposing and winning pitcher for the inaugural Texas Rangers game at The Ballpark in Arlington in 1994?
Selected quote
Selected athlete
Magdalena Neuner in 2011
Neuner started biathlon when she was nine years old and won five junior world championship titles from 2004 to 2006. She made her World Cup debut in 2006 and won her first World Cup race in January 2007. One month later, she claimed three gold medals in her first appearance at the Biathlon World Championships. In the 2007–08 season, Neuner won the Overall World Cup and once more claimed three titles at the 2008 World Championships. After a less successful winter in 2008–09, she participated in her first Winter Olympic Games in 2010, winning the gold medal in both the pursuit and the mass start, and silver in the sprint race. Neuner also claimed the 2009–10 Overall World Cup title. At the 2011 World Championships, she won three more gold medals. In her final winter on the World Cup tour, Neuner won two more titles at the 2012 World Championships and claimed the Overall World Cup for a third time. Neuner was known as one of the fastest cross-country skiers in biathlon. She had been noted for her volatile shooting performances in the standing position, particularly in the early years of her career, often at the expense of better results.
Since winning three world championship gold medals in 2007, Neuner has become one of her home country's most popular female athletes. She was named German Sportswoman of the Year in 2007, 2011 and 2012. (Full article...)
Selected team
The 1904 French national rugby union team
Rugby was introduced to France in 1872 by the British, and on New Year's Day 1906 the national side played its first Test match — against New Zealand in Paris. France played sporadically against the Home Nations until they joined them to form a Five Nations tournament (now the Six Nations Championship) in 1910. France also competed in the rugby competitions at early Summer Olympics, winning the gold medal in 1900 and two silver medals in the 1920s. The national team came of age during the 1950s and 1960s, winning their first Five Nations title outright in 1959. They won their first Grand Slam in 1968.
Since the inaugural World Cup in 1987, France have qualified for the knock-out stage of every tournament. They have reached the final three times, losing to the All Blacks in 1987 and 2011 and to Australia in 1999. France hosted the 2007 Rugby World Cup, where, as in 2003, they were beaten in the semi-finals by England.
French international matches are played at several venues across the country; the Stade de France in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis is used for their games during the Six Nations, and they have a formidable home record at the Stade Vélodrome in Marseille where they have only lost twice, to Argentina in 2004 and to New Zealand in 2009. (Full article...)
In this month
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- June 6, 1946 – The Basketball Association of America, a predecessor to the National Basketball Association, is founded
- June 14, 1900 – The only game of Basque pelota (pictured) ever played in the Olympics takes place at the 1900 Summer Olympics
- June 15, 1909 – The international governing body of cricket, the International Cricket Council, is founded
- June 20, 1904 – Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile, the federation in charge of Formula One and World Rally Championship, is founded
- June 23, 1894 – Pierre, Baron de Coubertin founds the International Olympic Committee, the organizers of the Olympic Games and Youth Olympic Games
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