Самостоятельная работа студентов с учебно-методической

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The History Of The Olympic Games

The Olympic Games were originally an ancient Greek religious festival in honour of Zeus, held in Olympia near Mount Olympus, the mythical home of the gods. An athletic festival with competitions in music and poetry was held every four years on the island of Peplos in Southern Greece. The period between the games was called an Olympiad.

The initial date for the beginning of the Games was 776 B.C. They were held every four years, in the middle of the summer, and lasted five days; the main condition of the festival was that there should be peace throughout Greece. The festival became a symbol of peace and friendship.

The ceremonies included contests in oratory, poetry, music and art, as well as in athletic skills like wrestling, boxing, horse and chariot racing, throwing the javelin and running.

The Olympic Games were an exclusively male festival, open to young men from all the Greek cities. Women were not allowed to compete in the Olympic Games, or even to attend and watch them, though there are legends of girls having done so in disguise. The winners were given laurel wreaths in the temple of Zeus. To be a victor in the classical Olympic Games was a great honour not only for the athlete but for his city too.

The Olympic Games were held for nearly twelve centuries. Factionalism and controversies over the status of competitors became so fierce and disruptive in later years that the Games were finally abolished by the Roman Emperor Theodosius in 392 A.D. as a disturbance of Roman peace.

The Olympic Games were revived only at the end of 19-th century due to Baron Pierre de Coubertin. In 1894 he addressed the International Congress of Athletes and pointed out the importance of sports in the peoples' life.

The first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens in 1896 to signify the succession of the tradition. In 1896 311 athletes, competing in nine sports represented 13 countries in the Olympic Games. Since then, except in 1916, 1940 and 1944, the Olympic Games have been held every leap-year in different countries of the world. The International Olympic Committee is responsible for the programme, the number of participants, and the city-host for the Games.

At first the modern Games were limited to men. Women first competed in the Games in 1910, playing golf, but real women's participation only began in Paris in 1924 with the inclusion of women's athletics in the programme. In recent Olympiads the women's programme has been greatly extended.

Winter sports were brought into the Olympic programme through the organization of special Winter Games, first held in France at Chamonix in 1924, with competitions in ice hockey, speed skating, figure skating and skiing. These are still the basic events of the winter programme, with the addition of bobsleigh and toboggan races.

Each Olympiad the size of the Olympic Games has been growing in the scale of competition, number of competitors, and size of the audience watching them.

Nowadays the Olympic Games have become a wonderful tradition which helps to bring people closer together.

Sports In Great Britain

Whenever you strike up a conversation in Britain maybe at the barber's, in the street or on a train journey, you inevitably get around to two subjects -- the weather and sport, which are as much part of English life as roast beef and the Houses of Parliament.

English people are fond of all kinds of sports. England is a sports-loving nation. Sports in England take many forms: organized competitive sports, which attract huge crowds to encourage their favorite team to victory, athletic games played for recreation and others.

The British are proud that many sports originated in their country and then spread throughout the world. The national British sports are: football, golf, cricket, table tennis, lawn tennis, snooker, steeplechase, racing, and darts.

The game peculiarly associated with England is cricket. Cricket is an English game. Not many Scots, Irish or Welsh play it. Many other games that are English in origin have been accepted with enthusiasm in other countries; cricket has been seriously and extensively accepted only in the Commonwealth, particularly in Australia, India, and Pakistan.

Cricket is played in schools, colleges, universities. Test matches with other countries are held regularly. Cricket is slow, and a spectator, sitting in the afternoon sun after his lunch, may be excused for having a little sleep for half an hour. Cricket is making no progress in popularity. Most popular is football.

Football, the most popular game in the world, is of two kinds in Britain: association football (soccer) and rugby. Soccer played almost in all countries remains one of the most popular games in Great Britain. It is the national sport and British club teams are often successful in Europe.

The football season in Britain lasts from late summer (end of August) to late spring (early May). Football, or soccer, as it is sometimes called to distinguish it from rugby football, is the most popular sport. Most young lads begin by kicking a tennis ball or tin-can up and down the street, and some of them end by playing for their town club. Football clubs in England are based on towns like Manchester, Birmingham, Portsmouth, and all have nicknames -- Norwich are the Canaries, because of their yellow shirts, Portsmouth -- the Sailors, because the town is a port, Wolverhampton -- the Wolves, and so on. The big event of the week usually begins at 3 o'clock on Saturday afternoon, when most matches are played. Many footballers in England are fulltime, professionals -- they are paid by their club and work only in football. Nearly 40 million spectators each year attend matches between the great professional teams organized by the Football League. The biggest event in England is the Cup Final played at the Empire Stadium, Wembley, in a London suburb. But British football today has a bad name at home and abroad because of the violence of some groups of supporters.

The next popular sport after football is rugby, which is largely an amateur game. Rugby football (or rugger) has existed in Britain since the beginning of the 19th century, when a teacher at Rugby school, while playing football, decided that it would be better to pick up the ball and run with it. Rugby is especially popular in Wales and the north of England. It is played with an oval shaped ball on a field by teams of 15 men.

Swimming is also very popular and there are many public swimming baths. Rowing and canoeing are practiced less because there are not so many facilities. The annual Boat Race between Oxford and Cambridge universities on the river Thames is, however, one of the most popular sporting events of the year. It first started in 1820 and has been held almost every spring since 1836. A lot of people come to watch it. Other popular water sports are water skiing and surfing.

Winter sports such as ice-hockey, skiing and ice-skating are generally impossible in Britain (except in Scotland) because of the climate, they have no great following because of the lack of ice and snow, but many people spend winter holidays on the Continent in order to take part in them.

Englishmen like all kinds of racing. Horse-racing, motor-car racing, boat-racing, dog-racing, donkey-racing are very popular in England. The interest in such sports as horse-racing and dog-racing can be explained by the Englishman's fondness for gambling. Anyway, most Englishmen have some interest in at least one kind of sport.

Air Jordan

Michael Jordan is one of the most talented athletes in history. He's won six NBA titles, he's had sports shoes named after him, he's even starred in a Hollywood movie. Jordan is an international superstar. But success for Michael Jordan was never a matter of luck. It was always a matter of talent and hard work.

Michael Jordan was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1963. He was the fourth of five children, so he learned to compete young. As a child, Michael was very athletic. He played baseball, basketball and football, but his favorite sport was baseball. However, this soon changed when he started playing basketball with his older and taller brother Larry. Larry kept on beating Michael when they played one-to-one. Unsurprisingly, Michael didn't like losing, so he worked hard to become a better player.

Jordan's basketball gradually improved, but in 1978 he suffered a big disappointment. He was dropped from his High School basketball team! However Michael didn't give up. Instead he trained harder and longer, and as a result was soon playing again. `The better I got, the better I wanted to become,' he said later. Nobody knew then that Jordan would become the greatest player of all time.

Today Michael Jordan has scored over 30,000 points in basketball games all over the world. Over 50% of American children have voted him their idol. However it's not just his basketball skills that have made Jordan popular; it's his courage, determination and positive approach to life. 'I can accept failure,' he once said, 'but I can't accept not trying.'

Changing places

Julie Willis is an artist from San Francisco who moved to London in 1988.We asked her to compare life in San Francisco and London. Here's what she told us.

The cities

San Francisco is a lovely city in a beautiful bay. It's got lots of great buildings and places. It's smaller and much more modern than London, but it's less interesting. London has a lot more theatres and museums. The Americans are usually more interested in money than culture! The architecture in London is incredible and very stimulating, and the parks and markets are wonderful. London isn't as dangerous as San Francisco, and it's less violent. I feel much safer living here - nobody carries a gun, not even the police!

The cost of living

People have a higher standard of living in the States because generally, it's much less expensive than Finland. For example, petrol is less than half the price and things like food, clothes, and cameras are much cheaper. It's a shopper's paradise and I always spend a fortune when I go back! It's a bit more expensive to rent a flat in London and my bills are much bigger than they were in San Francisco. So, although my salary in London is about the same as it was in the States, I have to work harder to get the same quality of life as I had before.

Public transport

In San Francisco you can walk everywhere because it's a small city. There's less traffic than in London, and public transport is great. There are cable-cars to go up all the hills and electric buses which make the city much cleaner. Public transport in London is terrible and really expensive. It takes me an hour to get to work and the journey is usually stressful. London's dirtier too and much more polluted. The traffic is awful, because there are too many cars and the streets are narrow. But English drivers aren't as aggressive as American drivers!

The food

Food in the States is generally much better. It's fresher, cheaper, and there's much more choice. Restaurants aren't as expensive as in London and the service is much better. In some restaurants they put a clock on the table when you arrive, and if they haven't served your meal in five minutes, they'll give you the food free! I'm usually disappointed when I eat out in London, although the Indian restaurants are excellent.

An unusual community

The Amish live in Pennsylvania, USA. They came from Switzerland and Germany in the eighteenth century and live together on farms. Although they live just 240 kilometers from New York City, their lifestyle hasn't really changed in the last 250 years. They've turned their backs on modern materialism: cars, high technology, videos, fax machines, etc. and they have very strict rules which they all have to follow.

They can't use electricity, so they have to use oil lamps to light their houses. They're allowed to use banks and go to the doctor's but they can't have phones in their houses. They use horses for transport because they aren't allowed to fly or drive cars or tractors. They can play baseball and eat hot dogs but they can't have TVs, radios, carpets, flowers, or photos in their houses. Although the Amish don't have churches they're very religious.

Amish women have to cover their heads all day. They can't curl or cut their hair. They can't wear buttons or jewellery, wedding rings or watches, but they can wear glasses. The men can't have pockets on their shirts, or belts or zips on their trousers. Single men can't have beards. If an Amish marries somebody from outside the community, he or she has to leave. Children leave school at thirteen or fourteen because the Amish don't believe in higher education.

For the Amish the family is very important, and everybody helps their neighbor. They live in an old-fashioned way because they think that modern technology and habits have destroyed community life. There are now more than 100,000 Amish, and the number is growing every year.

The world's longest mail run

Every Saturday morning a small plane flies from Port Augusta on the South Australian coast into the outback. It carries letters and parcels to people who live in the loneliest and most dangerous part of Australia. Writer Dan Middleton hitched a lift on the world's longest mail run.

'It was 8.30 am and 30 C when we took off from Port Augusta. It was hot and it was going to get hotter as we headed towards the great Australian outback.

For hours we flew across the bush, landing every now and then at a cattle station or a small town. In places the landscape looked exactly like the moon, and was just as empty. Some cattle stations, with their small homes in the middle of nowhere, seemed like the loneliest places on earth.

Our last stop was at Birdsville, a small town on the edge of the desert. After Birdsville, you are literally 'on your own'. The town has a population of 70, and in the summer the temperature reaches an incredible 50 C. But this doesn't seem to worry the local people. The people I talked to were proud of Birdsville, with its primary school, its pub and its Flying Doctor service. Many of them worked for the cattle stations in the area.

After Birdsville we headed back to Port Augusta and civilization. The mail run had been an exciting experience. The dry, beautiful landscapes, the wide open spaces and the interesting people are just some of the things that make the Australian outback unique.'