Physical Activity(Sports)

Sport is a form of physical activity or game.^[1] Often competitive and organized, sports use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills. They also provide enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators.^[2] Many sports exist, with different participant numbers, some are done by a single person with others being done by hundreds. Most sports take place either in teams or competing as individuals. Some sports allow a "tie" or "draw", in which there is no single winner; others provide tie-breaking methods to ensure one winner. A number of contests may be arranged in a tournament format, producing a champion. Many sports leagues make an annual champion by arranging games in a regular sports season, followed in some cases by playoffs.

Sport is generally recognised as system of activities based in physical athleticism or physical dexterity, with major competitions admitting only sports meeting this definition.^[3] Some organisations, such as the Council of Europe, preclude activities without any physical element from classification as sports.^[2] However, a number of competitive, but non-physical, activities claim recognition as mind sports. The International Olympic Committee who oversee the Olympic Games recognises both chess and bridge as sports. SportAccord, the international sports federation association, recognises five non-physical sports: chess, bridge, draughts, Go and xiangqi.^[4][5] However, they limit the number of mind games which can be admitted as sports.^[1] Sport is usually governed by a set of rules or customs, which serve to ensure fair competition. Winning can be determined by physical events such as scoring goals or crossing a line first. It can also be determined by judges who are scoring elements of the sporting performance, including objective or subjective measures such as technical performance or artistic impression.

Records of performance are often kept, and for popular sports, this information may be widely announced or reported in sport news. Sport is also a major source of entertainment for non-participants, with spectator sport drawing large crowds to sport venues, and reaching wider audiences through broadcasting. Sport betting is in some cases severely regulated, and in others integral to the sport.

According to A.T. Kearney, a consultancy, the global sporting industry is worth up to $620 billion as of 2013.^[6] The world's most accessible and practised sport is running, while association football is the most popular spectator sport.

The word "sport" comes from the Old French desport meaning "leisure", with the oldest definition in English from around 1300 being "anything humans find amusing or entertaining".^[8]

Other meanings include gambling and events staged for the purpose of gambling; hunting; and games and diversions, including ones that require exercise.^[9] Roget's defines the noun sport as an "activity engaged in for relaxation and amusement" with synonyms including diversion and recreation.

The singular term "sport" is used in most English dialects to describe the overall concept, e.g. "children taking part in sport", with "sports" used to describe multiple activities, e.g. "football and rugby are the most popular sports in England". American English uses "sports" for both senses.

There are opposing views on the necessity of competition as a defining element of a sport, with almost all professional sports involving competition, and governing bodies requiring competition as a prerequisite of recognition by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) or GAISF.^[1]

Other bodies advocate widening the definition of sport to include all forms of physical activity, not only organised or competitive events. For instance, the Council of Europe’s Sports Charter defines “sport” as: “all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, are aimed at maintaining or improving physical fitness and mental well-being, forming social relationships or obtaining results in competition at all levels,” explicitly encompassing recreational exercise undertaken purely for fun.^[15][16]

To widen participation, and reduce the impact of losing on less able participants, there has been an introduction of non-competitive physical activity to traditionally competitive events such as school sports days, although moves like this can be controversial.^[17][18]

In competitive events, participants are graded or classified based on their "result" and often divided into groups of comparable performance, e.g. gender, weight and age. The measurement of the result may be objective or subjective, and corrected with "handicaps" or penalties. In a race, for example, the time to complete the course is an objective measurement. In gymnastics or diving the result is decided by judges, and therefore subjective. There are shades of judging between boxing and mixed martial arts, where if neither competitor secures a victory before the time limit, the outcome is determined by judges’ scorecards. In boxing, three judges independently score each round, based on criteria such as clean punching, effective aggression, ring generalship and defense.

Artifacts and structures suggest sport in China as early as 2000 BC.^[20] Gymnastics appears to have been popular in China's ancient past. Monuments to the Pharaohs indicate that a number of sports, including swimming and fishing, were well-developed and regulated several thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt.^[21] Other Egyptian sports included javelin throwing, high jump, and wrestling. Ancient Persian sports such as the traditional Iranian martial art of Zoorkhaneh had a close connection to warfare skills.^[22] Among other sports that originated in ancient Persia are polo and jousting. Various traditional games of India such as Kho kho and Kabbadi have been played for thousands of years. The kabaddi was played potentially as a preparation for hunting.^[23]

A wide range of sports were already established by the time of Ancient Greece and the military culture and the development of sport in Greece influenced one another considerably. Sport became such a prominent part of their culture that the Greeks created the Olympic Games, which in ancient times were held every four years in a small village in the Peloponnesus called Olympia.^[24]

Sports have been increasingly organised and regulated from the time of the ancient Olympics up to the present century. Industrialisation has brought motorised transportation and increased leisure time, letting people attend and follow spectator sports and participate in athletic activities. These trends continued with the advent of mass media and global communication. Professionalism became prevalent, further adding to the increase in sport's popularity, as sports fans followed the exploits of professional athletes – all while enjoying the exercise and competition associated with amateur participation in sports. Since the turn of the 21st century, there has been increasing debate about whether transgender sports people should be able to participate in sport events that conform with their post-transition gender identity.^[25]

Sportsmanship is an attitude that strives for fair play, courtesy toward teammates and opponents, ethical behaviour and integrity, and grace in victory or defeat.^[26][27][28]

Sportsmanship expresses an aspiration or ethos that the activity will be enjoyed for its own sake. The well-known sentiment by sports journalist Grantland Rice, that it is “it’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game,”^[29] and the modern Olympic creed expressed by its founder Pierre de Coubertin: “The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part,” are typical expressions of this sentiment.^[30]

Key principles of sport include that the result should not be predetermined, and all participants must have an equal opportunity to win.^[31] Rules and regulations are established by governing bodies to ensure fair play and integrity.^[32] However, participants sometimes breach these rules to gain an unfair advantage.^[33]

Participants may cheat to increase their chances of winning, secure financial gain or other benefit.^[34] The prevalence of gambling on sporting outcomes creates incentives for match fixing, in which one or more participants collude to predetermine results rather than compete honestly.^[35]

The competitive nature of sport encourages some participants to attempt to enhance their performance through medicines, or other means such as increasing the volume of blood in their bodies through artificial means.^[36]

All sports recognised by the IOC, or SportAccord, are required to implement a testing programme, looking for a list of banned drugs, with suspensions or bans being placed on participants who test positive for banned substances.^[37][38]

Violence in sports involves crossing the line between fair competition and intentional aggressive violence. Athletes, coaches, fans, and parents sometimes unleash violent behaviour on people or property, in misguided shows of loyalty, dominance, anger, or celebration. Rioting or hooliganism by fans in particular is a problem at some national and international sporting contests.