Review
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You'll appreciate this beautiful book... Whatever your sport, you'll find it in this excellent book
and you'll enjoy learning something new. (Books in Canada)
A valuable classroom resource. Coaches will find it helpful. All sports fans will find it interesting and exciting.
Highly recommended. (Thomas F. Chambers Canadian Materials for Librarians 2003-11-28)
This book is designed to provide the reader with the history, rules, strategies, and equipment for 127 sports played
worldwide. A combination of graphics, concise text, and photos enables the reader to quickly find visual guidelines and
information about a variety of sports, including the classic Olympic events. Each category (Track and Field, Snow
Sports, Ball Sports, etc.) is subdivided into individual events, featured on two or three colorful pages. Traditional as
well as less traditional athletics are covered, such as BMX racing, inline skating, snowboarding, and skateboarding. The
format is easy to use and complete with a detailed table of contents and index. A good, up-to-date reference source for
public and school libraries. (Larry R. Little Library Journal 2000-07-01)
True sports fans know the rules to their favorite games and they will scream or even throw things at a TV set if they
think a bad call has been made. But even these die-hard aficionados can't be familiar with the rules for every sport
played around the world. This illustrated encyclopedia details more than 100 sports, including all the Olympic
competitions as well as motor sports, rock climbing and in-line skating. For each sport there are diagrams, photographs
and drawings showing the technique, practice location, tactics, equipment, modifications and other details (such as a
typical training schedule). While many fans may not need this reference volume for their favorite sport, this book would
enhance almost anyone's viewing of the Olympics, where there are so many events with different rules. Intriguing details
and descriptions abound. For example, there is a sport known as apnea freediving. In this event, divers first perform
special respiratory exercises in order to take in as
much oxygen as possible. Then, the divers hold their breath before descending to the designated depth and then
resurfacing. Other interesting facts: handball originated in Egypt and was later played by the Romans. Leonardo da Vinci
recognized the principle of parachuting, but the first parachute fall was not recorded until 1797. The illustrations are
excellent; the step-by-step figures of the different techniques and routines enable readers to perfectly visualize the
moves as if they were watching someone perform in front of them. (Publishers Weekly 2000-09-11)
This volume delivers with flair. Promising to cover the "evolution of each sport into its current form," it looks at 127
mainstream and extreme sports -- from lawn ing and apnea freediving to fencing and rock climbing. Know a student
interested in BMX competitions? Choose from half pipe, street, or flatland. Have trouble understanding the scoreboard of
a particular sport? Look no further. Entries under color-coded categories such as racket, equestrian, ball, nautical,
and motor, cover the rules of the game, scorekeeping, and technological and equipment changes over time. Court/playing
surfaces, sizes and types, the correct form and training regimens of elite athletes, safety equipment, history, and the
responsibilities of the umpire or referee are also discussed. The thousands of full-color and black-and- white
illustrations, photographs, and diagrams of the physical environment, equipment, and techniques are the back of this
title. The detailed table of contents and accurate
index facilitate access. This is a stunning visual guide packed with information that will provide answers to reference
questions and hours of browsing pleasure. (Michael McCullough School Library Journal 2000-11-01)
Impressive book ... the quality of illustrations in Fortin's book are superior. This book should be popular for fans of
the Olympics. (J.A. Badics Choice 2001-02-01)
A sure winner for any sports reference collection. (American Libraries 2001-05-01)
This book is perfect both for open-minded young people who have yet to decide on their sport of choice and adults who
still can't follow Australian-rules football and curling. (Chicago Tribune 2000-12-10)
Attractive illustrations and the inclusion of many newer and extreme sports make this volume highly recommended for
purchase for both reference and circulating collections in school and public libraries. (Booklist 2000-12-01)
This book is great, fun, and easy to read; the perfect lap reference. (Wayne Janes Toronto Sun 2000-09-17)
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About the Author
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Francois Fortin heads the editorial group that created the Firefly Visual Dictionary. Creating Sports spanned five
years by a creative team of 40 editors, writers and illustrators.
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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
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Introduction
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Pushing the limits of one's abilities is both a personal undertaking and an experience common to all sporting
endeavors. There could therefore be as many definitions of "sports" as there are athletes. All sports, however, share
one need: rules that establish a fair framework within which to place performances. This basic principle is the only
connection between Olympiads of Antiquity, which had an essentially religious nature, and the "physical culture" of the
19th century, considered a form of training and education. The notion of pleasure, without which today's athletes --
including professionals -- could not reach the highest levels, gradually came to the fore over the course of the 20th
century.
A number of factors led to the emergence of modern sports. The British were largely responsible for setting structures;
the modernization of performance measurement led to the creation and keeping of records; and the birth of the Olympic
movement was a key event in popularizing sports and games. In more recent times, the social and economic impact of sport
has grown considerably thanks to an explosion in media coverage. A massive infusion of money has encouraged the
circulation of funds from organizations to team owners, and finally to the athletes themselves. In the current sports
environment, the interests of athletes, sponsors, and broadcasters are tightly linked and dependent on viewer ratings.
***
In the late 19th century, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, an active proponent of the benefits of physical exercise, decided
to bring the modern Olympics to life. The Games were to be founded on a democratic search for perfection -- a concept
inherited from the ancient games. De Coubertin was responsible for the creation of the International Olympic Committee
(IOC) by the Congrès de Paris in June 1894, and the first Games of the modern era were played in 1896 in Athens, Greece.
Although special stamps were issued along with government funding, it took the assistance of a Russian millionaire
(George Avenarius) for the stadium to be finished on time. The opening ceremonies took place before an audience of
70,000 -- public enthusiasm was spectacular -- and 311 athletes from 14 countries competed in nine events.
De Coubertin played a major role in the Olympic organization. He chaired the IOC until 1925, writing the Olympic
Charter and Protocol, the athletes' oath, and the protocol for the opening and closing ceremonies. He took part in all
decisions and devoted all his energy to developing the spirit of the modern Olympics according to his ideals. For him,
the athletes' commitment to convey, through competition, "their concept of honor and impartiality regarding sport to the
same degree as their physical training" provided an example of the kind of harmony that would transcend narrow
nationalism and individual glory.
The Olympic symbols and ceremony protocols that de Coubertin created include:
* The Olympic motto: Citius (swifter), altius (higher), fortius (stronger). Borrowed from a French cleric, the words
refer to the struggle to outdo oneself, the desire and courage needed in competition, and the three basic activities in
track and field: running, jumping, and throwing.
* The Olympic emblem, which appears on the Olympic . There are five interlacing rings, which symbolize the five
continents and the friendship that unites all people on Earth. Each nation has at least one of the colors of the Olympic
on its own .
***
Today, sport is an international cultural phenomenon, conveying the social values of fame and success. Many commercial
brands try to take advantage of the Olympics' prestigious image. Sports, broadcast live throughout the world, have gone
beyond national borders by transforming their financing from gate receipts to revenues from television and sponsors.
This globalization has resulted in a consolidation of structures to form a complex network linking sports institutions,
athletes' agents, commercial partners (usually manufacturers), and broadcasters. The two major currents of modern sport,
amateurism (exemplified by the Olympics) and professionalism, have merged. Seeking larger audiences, and thus a source
of greater revenues, many sports are changing to make broadcasting easier. The choices of sites and dates and
competition formats are being changed to adapt to laws of the marketplace, and the Olympic movement has not escaped this
transformation.
The 1960 Olympics marked a turning point, with the sale of television rights. Since then, the number of competitions
has grown steadily, audiences have expanded considerably, and private sponsors seeking greater visibility have been
increasingly attracted to the Games. The ever-growing popularity of professional sports has meant record-setting in the
professional arena where, in many cases, the athletes are the best. The Olympics officially abandoned amateurism in
1981, and commercial exploitation of the Olympic symbols was authorized in 1986. These two decisions by the IOC led to
an explosion in revenues, and other events of global interest (World Cup soccer, Formula 1 racing, and tennis and golf
tournaments, to name a few) followed suit. The biggest sports events are now retransmitted to more than 200 countries,
have viewers numbering in the billions, and generate revenues in the many hundreds of millions of dollars.
***
This full-scale entry of sport into the world of showbiz and high performance has not been without its problems. The
use of doping substances to improve performances is just one example. The public's identification with athletes is based
on the principle of transparency: exploits are achieved in front of a huge number of spectators. For viewers, this
corresponds, legitimately, to a guarantee of truth and reality, but it places athletes in a contradictory position.
Their income is based on the marketability of their results: as long as they are a profitable investment, the sky's the
limit. The objective of the athlete's employers or sponsors is to reduce the uncertainty associated with athletic
endeavor so that they can predict the economic returns. Athletes must therefore provide reliable performances, even
though the constant increase in effort required pushes them ever closer to the natural limits of the human body.
Forced to stake out a clear position, international authorities count on anti-doping controls to settle questions of
contested performances. Beyond this official and dominant current of thought, however, there have been a few notable
initiatives in different directions. The International Powerlifting Federation, for instance, keeps sets of records in
two categories: with drug testing, and without drug testing.
Nevertheless, a new type of elite athlete seems to have sprung up precisely to defy the constraints of contemporary
sport; these athletes can both meet the obligation to produce results and handle media pressure. Alain Prost in Formula
1, Michael Jordan in basketball, Wayne Gretzky in ice hockey, and Greg Norman in golf, for example, in spite of the
enormous expectations placed upon them, became legendary for their ability to stay at the top of their game over
exceptionally long careers. By accumulating the most prestigious titles in their sports, they became models whose
influence extends beyond sport.
Meanwhile, there has been spectacular growth in the popularity of -"extreme" sports. The highly acrobatic aspects of
these newcomers is indicative of a desire for discovery of new forms of self-expression and independence from the
established models. Even at the elite level, the new events are performed in a spontaneous and risk-taking style. The
objective is less to guarantee a result than to provide entertainment. To a great extent the oldest disciplines --
including track and field -- have profited from this iconoclastic movement. They have thus managed to attract new
viewers who appreciate the pure beauty of motion a
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