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<DIV><STRONG>NEW ENCYCLOPEDIA OF WORLD SPORTS in ENGLISH</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG>see it at <A
href="http://www.sportencyclopedia.com">www.sportencyclopedia.com</A></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG>How many sports are there in the world?<BR><BR></STRONG>Well, after
years of research, we have to admit that we do not know, or - to be more precise
- we do not know exactly. The first difficulty comes when we try to define what
is and what is not a sport. In this book we consider sport as a form of human
activity the outcome of which is determined by the physical, more than the
intellectual, effort. This distinction rules out competitiveness as the sole or
even principal element defining sport and is responsible for the fact that such
acivities as board games (e.g. chess) or card games (e.g. bridge) are not
included here, even though they have enjoyed the status of sports for a long
time. After all, we have chess olympiads and bridge world championships, the
participants of which compete against one another in order to determine the
winner. Their 'intellectual' (as opposed to 'physical') nature and their immense
number calls for further research and a separate publication. And yet, despite
this restriction, we have compiled in this encyclopedia well over <FONT
color=#cc0000><STRONG>3,000 (!)</STRONG></FONT> sports from all over the world.
Although the sheer number may raise a few eyebrows, even this exhaustive effort
is a compromise, because even as we struggle to 'finalize' our list, we discover
that there are many, many more...<BR><BR>This encyclopedia is quite different
from all international encyclopedias written so far, which focused mainly on
well-known, major or international sports, barely noticing or completely
neglecting the incredible cultural richness and great multitude of traditional,
historical, regional, and folk sports and games of various nations, peoples,
ethnic minorities, or tribes, many of which are fascinating not only for their
differences, but, as often as not, their similarities. Who, outside of the local
audience, has ever heard of the Indian CHUNGKE, Japanese HAGOITA, Polish
CZOROMAJ, African ZUAR, Basque AIZKOLARIS, Mongolian BUZKASHI, Mayan POKYAH,
Danish LANGBOLD FRA ANHOLT, Maori POI WAKA, Chinese CRICKET FIGHTS, Mexican
PELOTA PURHEPECHA ENCENCIDA, Greek Orthodox CROSS DIVING, English ETON WALL
GAME, Flemish KRULBOL, Vietnamese VOVINAM, Turkish MILAKIA or CAMEL WRESTLING,
Germanic AGNON TOSS, Taiwanese WOODBALL, Hindu POT BREAKING, Thai KITE FIGHTING,
Finnish PESAPALLO, Scottish CABER TOSSING, Hindu KABADDI, Portuguese JOGO DO
PAU, French JEU DE FER, Italian GIOCO DEL PONTE, Irish IOMAINT, Pakistani GULI
DUNDA, Korean GILSSAMNORI, Swedish GGET, Breton GALOCHE BIGOUDENE, and Spanish
CASTELS, just to name a few. And what about the extinct sports of ancient Egypt,
Greece and Rome? The medieval chivalric sports like QUINTAIN or RUNNING AT THE
RING? The multitude of animal sports like BEAR BAITING, QUAGGA, GOAT and PIGEON
RACES? The splendid ancient equivalents of well-known modern international
sports, such as JIQIU (Chinese POLO), ACROTERI PUNCHING (ancient Greek BOXING),
JEU DE LA PAUME (French ROYAL TENNIS), BAZHIG KAMM (Mongolian WRESTLING)? Most
of us associate HIGH JUMP with a horizontal bar, while in the Scottish HITCH AND
KICK the object is to touch a suspended tambourine with one's foot.<BR><BR>This
encyclopedia is full of breath-taking stories which present an endless richness
of human sporting activity from pre-historical to modern times, including such
relatively recent sporting extravaganzas as B.A.S.E. JUMPING, UNDERWATER
FOOTBALL, SANDBOARDING, KITE SKIING, ZORBING, HORSEBALL, among many others. The
result of years of research of a renowned sports historian, aided by leading
world sports ethnographers and a group of devoted editors, the <EM>Encyclopedia
of World Sports</EM> discusses the origins and cultural background of thousands
of sports, along with the rules, attire, equipment, pitch, court or playing
area. It is magnificently illustrated with hundreds of action photos by the
world's leading sports photographers, unique photographs of local and
traditional sports, reproductions of art masterpieces, drawings of rare sports
prepared especially for this book, colorful charts and tables with results,
records, and Olympic champions. It is by far the greatest effort ever undertaken
to compile in one book the multitude of human sporting
activities.<BR></DIV></BODY></HTML>