99 Words

Jai Alai, earned its moniker as the fastest game on earth by the Basques. A variant of pelota, jai alai is played on a three-walled court (cancha) with a goatskin ball (pelota) that bounces off ruthlessly. The ball is caught with a hook-shaped baskets (cestas) and hurled against the wall in one smooth motion. If the team cannot catch the ball, the point goes to the opponent. The first to score seven to nine (7 to 9) points is declared the victor. In some countries, Jai Alai is considered as a gamble by parimutuel betting. Jai Alai is popular in Mexico and in Florida, USA.

Polo is an outdoor sport where players in a team ride on a horseback with an object to score goals against an opposing team. The riders use a white wooden or plastic ball, driving the ball into the opposing team’s goal using a long-handled mallet. Goals are counted and considered valid if the scoring rider is mounted. Outdoor polo is composed of four players, while indoor polo is composed of three players in a team. The game is divided into chukkers or periods of seven minutes each. The horses used in the sport requires years of training to develop a speedy, maneuverable polo “pony” ,which is often a horse of Thoroughbred breeding with racetrack experience. Polo has sprung into different variations like Segway polo, bike polo, arena polo and snow polo.

Wrestling is the act of physical contact and engagement between two people in which each wrestler aims to get an advantage over the opponent. It is considered a sport using physical techniques like clinching, holding, locking and leverage, thus scoring a fall and winning the match. Wrestling follows the basic principles that closely resemble to those of military hand-to-hand combat or self-defense systems. Amateur wrestling has been an Olympic sport for over a hundred years, while professional wrestling is a famous form of entertainment as well as an art form. Wrestlers compete in weight classes and all matches are under the supervision of an official, who enforce the rules.

Tai chi chaun is a Chinese form of physical exercise characterized by a series of soft, slow and deliberate balletic movements. It is classified as Wudangquan or an internal Chinese martial art. Popularly known as Tai chi, the exercise is practiced for a variety of reasons like demonstrations and competitions and health and longevity. Tai chi is practiced by groups of people that practice together every morning in parks around the world, particularly in China.

The name literally translates as “supreme ultimate fist, “boundless fist” or “great extremes boxing”. There are five major styles of tai chi, each named after the Chinese family from which it came from: Chen style, Yang style, Wu or Wu/Hao style of Wu Yu-hsiang, Sun style, Wu style of Wu Ch’uan-yu.

Said to be second most popular sport in the world, next to football, Cricket is a ball and bat sport that comprises of two opposing teams each with eleven players. It is played on a wide grass field, in the center of which there is a flat strip of ground 22 yards long called a cricket pitch. A wicket is placed at each end of the pitch.

The origins of this sport can be traced way back the 16th century but it may have started earlier. This game was said to be invented by children of the farming and metalworking communities in the Weald between Kent and Sussex during the medieval period.

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport that is played between two teams with nine players in each team. The goal of the game is to score runs by hitting a ball that is thrown by a bat and touching the 4 bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot square.

It is called the national pastime of the United States and is played throughout the world by people of all ages. Baseball is one of the popular and oldest spectator sports. In North America, professional Major League Baseball teams are separated into the National League and the American League.

Soccer is a free-flowing game that requires few rules and little equipment. It is played by two teams on any rectangular field, in which players attempt to knock a ball using any body part, except the hands, through the opponent’s goal. The goalkeeper is the only player that is allowed to touch the ball, he is the one guarding their team’s goal. In Canada and United States this sport is called soccer but in other places, mostly in South American countries this popular sport is called football. It’s official name is association football, the name soccer is a slang of the abbreviation assoc.

The World Cup is an international competion held every four years gathering national teams from 32 counties to compete with each other. The World Cup is organized by FIFA, Federation Internationale de Football Association, the world wide governing body of soccer.

Ice hockey is a game played by two opposing teams on an ice rink. There are five players and one goaltender per team, each of whom is on ice skates. The objective is to drive a hard, rubber disk, called the puck, into the opponent’s goal with the use of sticks that are curved at the end. Because it is a rough contact game, protective equipment is enforced. It is a fast-paced game played primarily in winter in cold regions such as Europe and North America. The game originated in Canada and is the country’s national game.