MICHAEL PHELPS INTERVIEW

In this text we are going to show you the interview with Michael Phelps, the famous Olympic-swimmer that had won 16 Olympic medals. He told us his story and his job and he talk also about a couple of anecdotes in his life.

The interviewer asked Michael Phelps if his accomplishments had set in. Phelps agreed, and he explained that his adventures in Peking 2008 had changed his life forever.

Then he was asked if he knew that his first event in Athens was special, and the swimmer answered that he had tried not to think in that. He said that each event, one at a time had been his approach and it had worked out.

The interviewer asked him if his experience in the 2000 Olympic Games when he was 15 had groomed him for what was to come in Athens. Phelps agreed with him and he said that he had been a little less nervous because he had had a better idea of what competing on that grand stage would be like.

Then the interviewer asked Michael if Aqua-man was his favorite super hero, and the athlete told him that he didn’t have a favorite and that he had been asked this question a lot of times.

Back to the main topic, the interviewer asked Phelps if he swam every day and he answered that he had used to swim every day, but in that time he just swam six days a week, and he clarified that those six days were pretty intense. He told them too that he was in the pool from two to five hours a day and that after that time his hands and feet got really prune-like.

By Mauro Fernández

SHORT STORY

It was the first day at the Africa’s Olympic chanllenge, the first event was the weightlifting one. I was really nervious I had to do it as good as I could, the podium was my object I would do everything to get it. I wanted to be the champion, the number one, everybody would be proud of me but if I would not won I would be absolutlely destroyed, all my work would be wasted. Before entering I checked that everything was in order, my red sneakers, my white shorts, everything was ok. The record would be mine, I was absolutely secure. A few minutes before entering to the event one of my fans entered to my locker room with my pet, my little dog, it was ill. I was sat in the only chair of the room having an apple juice, it wasn’t good for me the incident of my dog but I did it as good as I could. I dedicate that event to him and I won, It was the happiest moment of my whole life.

Rocío Mosquera

OPINION

If the Olympic Games were here, It will provides a tremendous boost for the improvement of infrastructure in the city where the event is hosted, such as road facilities,new hotels for boarding and lodging, swimming pools,communication facilities. That too at the international standard, besides providing an impetus for the growth of sports..It also promotes tourism in the host country through which more foreign currency is earned too.

On the other hand, Some times the government may take over the lands of some private citizens for the mega event and so they get displaced from their area and Normal and routine life of the residents is affected.

All in all, I think the host country earns in millions by selling ticket sales for the events, telecast rights etc.

Belén Roibás

FAMOUS ATHLETES 


Roger Bannister is a ingles farmer athlete known for running the first mile in less than 4 minutes. He was born in Harrow, England in 1929. His most important feat was win the mile in an incroyable way.
The athletics track was the ash and the conditions were really different than nowadays.
Running a mile in under four minutes was one of athletics' greatest milestones.
The first man to break the almost mythical barrier was him, with a time of 3 minutes 59.4 seconds at Iffley Road Track, Oxford, on 6 May 1954.
The 25-year-old medical student's achievement has not diminished with time - not least because he was the last amateur athlete to break such a significant record.
Bannister - now Sir Roger - retired from athletics shortly after his Iffley Road success to pursue a career in medicine.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uz3ZLpCmKCM

Belén Roibás

GENDER DISCRIMINATION

The first concessions made at the 1900 Paris games, to participate in golf and tennis, and four years later in archery, programme for women at the Olympics has suffered a considerable progress. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has said  that all new sport has to include a female test to have the possibility of being added to the Olympic program.

It has not been easy.

It was in Amsterdam, in 1928, where he finally took place real women Olympic early with 300 athletes more or less - almost 10 per cent of the total - and especially with their participation in sport King, the athletics.

At the Olympic Games "there are many more men, while women have a salary and lower premia". Aguiar, who prepares a report on female discrimination in sport, pointed out that the media present the athletes as "products", whose merits are the be "sexy" and "beautiful".

The Sydney games of 2000 marked a major step towards equality between women and men in the Olympic Games, after the progress already made in Atlanta.

Women participated in 36 disciplines against 37 for men. Women could not participate in the skills of boxing, fight or baseball. But reserved them, on the other hand, the exclusive in rhythmic gymnastics, softball and synchronized swimming.

Many names of women have left a mark in the history of the games: from the British Charlotte Cooper, first female gold medal, passing by Mildred Didrickson, the first star of women's athletics, or the Moroccan Nawal El Moutawakil, first individual champion African and Muslim until the Romanian Nadia Comaneci, the first gymnast women in obtaining the perfect note of "10" in gamesthe Montreal 1976.
Rocío Mosquera

HISTORY OF OLYMPIC GAMES

The Olympic Games were a series of competitions which took place in kingdoms and city-states of the Ancient Greece. During the Olympic Games all the wars that they had were postponed until the games were finished. 

One of the most popular myths of why these games started shows Heracles and his father Zeus as the progenitors of the Games. According to this, it was Heracles who called them Olympic Games and established the custom of having them every four years. Another myth associates the first Games with the ancient Greek concept of Olympic truce. The most widely accepted date for the inception of the Ancient Olympics is 776 BC; this is based on inscriptions, found at Olympia, of the winners of a footrace held every four years starting in 776 BC.  The Ancient Games featured running events, a pentathlon (a jumping event, discus and javelin throws, a foot race and wrestling), boxing, wrestling, and equestrian events.

The Olympics were very important events because they had a religious influence, featuring sporting events with ritual sacrifices honoring Zeus and Pelops.  

The Modern Olympic Games started in 1896 after Baron Pierre de Coubertin founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1894. These Games brought to Athens (the seat of the 1896 Olympic Games) 241 athletes who competed in 43 events.

The Games should show different values such as collaborative work, honesty, humility…

The Sports that are played in the Modern Games are a lot. They include archery, athletics, badminton, basketball, boxing, canoeing, cycling, diving, equestrian, fencing, field hockey, football, gymnastics, handball, judo, modern pentathlon, rowing, sailing, shooting, swimming, synchronized swimming, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, triathlon, volleyball, water polo, wrestling and weightlifting.
Mauro Fernández