Due to the Covid-19 outbreak, the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 were postponed for the first time in their history.
Find out how Olympic athlete try to keep healthy at home on lockdown.
The Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 will now be held on 23rd July 2021. Fifty-seven years after organising the Olympic Games, the Japanese capital will be hosting a Summer edition for the second time. The Games in 1964 radically transformed the country.
According to the organisers of the event in 2021, the Games of the XXXII Olympiad of the modern era will be the most innovative ever organised, and will rest on three fundamental principles to transform the world:
striving for your personal best > achieving your personal best;
accepting one another > unity in diversity;
and passing on a legacy for the future > connecting to tomorrow”
Professional athletes don’t normally work from home. But from February into early March, as coronavirus began upending sports competitions around the world, Olympians found themselves training in not-so-state-of-the-art facilities—often their living rooms, their balconies, or even their family barns. For weeks, many were training this way and still planning to compete this July in the summer Olympics in Tokyo.
Even though the International Olympics Committee postponed the Games to 2021, and more and more countries are going on lockdown, many Olympians haven’t stopped practicing. Quartz checked in with six elite athletes in different parts of the world to discuss how they’re staying fit, healthy, and prepared for world-class competition—while remaining isolated.
DIG DEEPER
Where, when and why did Olympic Games start?
Thousands of years in the making, the Olympics began as part of a religious festival honoring the Greek god Zeus in the rural Greek town of Olympia. But how did it become the greatest show of sporting excellence on earth? Armand D’Angour explains the evolution of the Olympics.
To find out more about the ancient Olympic Games, visit the Olympic Games official website.
From boxing contests with no weight classifications or point scoring to chariot racing where danger lurked on every corner, it's easy to see why the ancient games enthralled the Greeks for so long.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Should we be so obsessed with sports?
How healthy is sport for us?
What are its health benefits?
Health and fitness
Sport is about more than scoring goals and winning trophies. Participating in sport improves the body mentally as well as physically and it can be a great way to make friends.
Check lessons on BBC Bitesize to help you get ready and revise for exams
First definitions:
Regular exercise improves health and fitness.
Health is defined as a state of complete mental, physical and social well-being; not merely the absence of illness or infirmity.
Fitness is the ability to meet the demands of the environment.
Mental benefits include:
improved confidence
relief of stress/tension and stress related illness
Physical benefits include:
losing weight
improved posture
improved body shape
Social benefits include:
meeting people
making friends
Being a member of a sports club and regularly participating in sport will develop personal qualities from:
co-operation – working with others
competition – testing yourself against others
physical challenge – testing yourself against the environment or your best performances
aesthetic appreciation – recognizing quality of movement in a performance
Health related exercise improves the health-related fitness factors which are also useful to sportspeople. These are:
Cardiovascular fitness - the ability to exercise the whole body for long periods of time and is sometimes called stamina.
Muscular strength - the amount of force a muscle can exert against a resistance. It helps sportspeople to hit, tackle and throw.
Muscular endurance - the ability to use voluntary muscles many times without becoming tired. It helps sportspeople to sprint or repeat quick actions for longer.
Flexibility - the range of movement possible at a joint. It helps performers to stretch and reach further.
Body composition - the percentage of body weight which is fat, muscle or bone. It helps sportspeople depending on the type of sport they play, eg heavy rugby players are more effective in the scrum than lightweight players, but light long distance runners will always beat heavyweights.
Speed is the differential rate at which an individual is able to perform a movement or cover a distance in a period of time or how quickly an individual can move. This helps all games players to move into position or get away from opponents quickly.
Sportspeople exercise and train hard to improve fitness and performance. Skill-related fitness factors are essential for success in sport. These are:
Agility - the ability to change the position of the body quickly and with control. This helps team players dodge their opponents.
Balance - the ability to retain the centre of mass above the base of support when stationary (static balance) or moving (dynamic balance). This helps gymnasts maintain their position and prevents games players from falling over at speed.
Co-ordination - the ability to use two or more body parts together. This helps all athletes to move smoothly and quickly especially when also having to control a ball.
Power - the ability to use strength at speed. This helps athletes to jump high, throw far or sprint quickly. Power = Strength x Speed.
Reaction time - the time between the presentation of a stimulus and the onset of a movement. This helps swimmers to make a fast start.
Speed is the differential rate at which an individual is able to perform a movement or cover a distance in a period of time or how quickly an individual can move. This helps all games players to move into position or get away from opponents quickly.
Usain Bolt, the fastest man in the world, poetry in motion.
Listen and take notes > use subtitles in English
> create a mind map
REVISE BASIC VOCAB ON SPORTS
Click on the screen shot to play word games on the British Council website
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