Best 3 sports movies in history

We will start this year presenting three sports movies which are considered three of the best  ports movies ever. The selected films are “Victory” (football), “Chariots of Fire” (athletics) and “Million Dollar Baby” (boxing). Different sports and arguments so that anyone can enjoy a good session on its sofa with some fresh popcorn.

VICTORY
Escape to Victory, known simply as Victory in North America, is a 1981 film about Allied  prisoners of war who are interned in a German prison camp during World War II. The film was directed by John Huston and stars Michael Caine, Sylvester Stallone and Max von Sydow. The film received great attention upon its theatrical release, as it also starred football superstars Bobby Moore, Osvaldo Ardiles, Kazimierz Deyna, Paul Van Himst and Pelé.

CHARIOTS OF FIRE
Chariots of Fire is a 1981 British film. It tells the story of two athletes in the 1924 Olympics: Eric Liddell, a devout Scottish Christian, and Harold Abrahams, an English Jew. The film was written by Colin Welland and directed by Hugh Hudson. It was nominated for seven Academy Awards and won four, including Best Picture. It is ranked 19th in the British Film Institute’s list of Top 100 British films.

MILLION DOLLAR BABY
Million Dollar Baby is a 2004 film directed, co-produced and scored by Clint Eastwood and starring Eastwood, Hilary Swank, and Morgan Freeman. It is the story of an underappreciated boxing trainer, his elusive past, and his quest for atonement by helping an underdog amateur female boxer (the film’s title character) achieve her dream of becoming a professional. The film won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture.

Nintendo Wii, a console to enjoy sport

A distinguishing feature of the console is its wireless controller, the Wii Remote, which can be used as a handheld pointing device and detects movement in three dimensions. Another distinctive feature of the console is WiiConnect24, which enables it to receive messages and updates over the Internet while in standby mode. Itis not strange then, that this home video game consol permits any type of movements to practice many different sports.

Famous are the Wii Sports game and the more evoluted Wii Sports Resort. Nintendo put it on sale on 2009. Wii Sports Resort is set in a beach resort on an island called Wuhu Island, where twelve different sports are available to play, such as basketball, frisbee, table tennis, swordplay, archery, golf, bowling or cycling.

Nintendo worries a lot for sport games for its Wii console, but there is another trademark who works with sport a lot too. It distributes their games to any different platform, such as Wii,  PlayStation, X-Box or PSP. This other company is EA Sports, the sports branch of Electronic Arts.

As every year, they create new versions of FIFA, NBA or NFL, with FIFA 10, NBA Live 10 or NHL 10. They have also created 2010 FIFA WORLD CUP (special version for this year’s World Cup). Tiger Woods PGA 10, Madden NFL 10 or NASCAR Kart Racing are other games from EA Sports.

Los of variety for anyone who enjoyw one or other sport. Other companies like SEGA with its  Virtua Tennis or KONAMI with Pro Evolution Soccer offer also really interesting sport videogames.

The best way to be fit

Either athletes or trainers give special importance to obtain or maintain an ideal weight for different sport practices. Our body composition can be modified in important ways by following adapted diets and exercises.

Our body composition changes depending on which sport we practice, but in general we could say that as less corporal fat we have, better execution we will be able to do. An excess of fats could have negative influences for what we want to achieve. It affects negatively to aspects like speed, resistance, balance, agility… Sports like weight-lifting or swimming could be two possible exceptions to this rule.

Many sports have adopted specific weights as an “ideal reference” with the objective of letting sportsmen and sportswomen reach the ideal fit to obtain the maximum performance, but all this has brought some people to non-effective and even dangerous methods of losing weight and special diets to get rid of calories. To avoid these diets, the ideal method to lose weight is a good and professional training and a specific diet of maximum 200-500 calories per day. We also have to say that this is a general orientation. Every case is specific and needs to be consulted with a professional dietist.

Dehydratation

A good diet and a good hydratation are the nutritional requirements for every person who practices any sport. While practicing any sport, the disminution of carbohydrates in our body and the loss of liquids and electrolytes when we sweat, stops our possibilities of reaching the maximum performance and increases possible injury probabilities. Drinking only water it is not  enough to avoid dehydratation.

The objective is that sportsmen could drink enough liquids to maintain hydroelectrolytic balances, depending on his requirements. Depending on the different types of exercises, it is recommened to drink between 6 and 8 ml. of liquids per kg. of weight and hour of exercise. It is not healthy to drink more quantities because it could cause an excess of hydratatino, but, in the other hand, if you drink less than that, it could cause dehydratation. The ideal thing to do is to have an efficient energetical drink, which apports salts and electrolytes that our body requires, depending on the different needs of every person.

Photo: Oriol Roca

Get to know the curiosities of female boxing

Loly Muñoz is, besides a mathematics, a professional boxer. Boxing has some special particularities, such as being the only olympic sport in which only men can participate.

Moreover, in female boxing, before every combat, participants have to demonstrate they aren’t pregnant by tanking a previous test and have to wear special protection for their breasts. Female combats have a lower duration. This is 10 rounds of 2 minutes each, while male combats’ duration is 12 rounds of 3 minutes each.

Greco-roman wrestling world cup

The Armenian city of Yerevan will held the greco-roman wrestling world cup during the 13th and 14th of February. This wrestling style is dominated, in this order, by Russian, French, Armenian, Cuban, Kazakh, Hungarian and Chinese.

Photo: Ricard Rovira

The Australian Open, the first big slam of the season

The Australian Open is the first big tennis tournament of the season every year. This year there will be an interesting fight to become number one’s world tennis player. Roger Federer will have to deffend that position.

It won’t be easy, because Rafa Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray or Juan Martin del Potro will fight really hard to get what the Swiss has in his hands right now. It will be a great battle.

Ruben Rivera, european padel champion

Ruben Rivera is the current champion of the senior Padel European Championship. This 19 year old young man has become Europeans champion only three years after leaving tennis, what was his first sport. In this last European Championship he won with his partner Jamie Bergareche, but also with the Spanish national team.

Photo: Alfred Farre

The most mediterranean America´s Cup

America’s Cup 2010, which will be its 33rd edition, will take place for second year in its history in Valencia (Spain). The current champions, the Nautic Society of Geneve (SNG), from Switzerland, chose the Mediterranean Sea as they can choose any open sea of the world and in their country you can only find lakes. After lots of uncertainty caused by the litigation between the Golden Gate Yacht Club (GGYC) of New York and the SNG, the 2010 America’s Cup edition will finally be disputed in Spanish waters between the teams Alinghi (representing the SNG) and Oracle Challenge (representing the GGYC). The America’s Cup is the oldest active trophy in international sport of the world.

Iker and Xabi win 49er world cup again

Iker Martínez and Xabi Fernández (Spain) have won the World Championships of 49er, a class of small sailing dinghy. It is their third world championship. They have also won two olympic medals, a gold one and a silver one.

Rally world championship starts in sweden

Between the 12th and the 14th February the first rally world championship event will take place in Sweden. French Sebastien Loeb, who has won the last six editions of the WRC, will try to  confirm his superiority by winning in Scandinavian territory. Mikka Hirvonen (FIN), who only obtained one point less than Loeb in last year’s edition of the WRC, will try to avoid frenchman’s seventh victory in a row.

Photo: Francesc Valcarcel

Supercross world cup continues its course

The supercross world cup, which only takes place in the United States, keeps on with its own calendar. With two races already finished, California state will held the next four events. After that, on the 20th February world cup is travelling to Indiannapolis, and on the 27th it will arrive to Atlanta city, where the championship will have reached the equator of the calendar.

Photo: Oriol Roca

The most spectacular acrobatics

Freestyle Motocross World Cup always shows great and spectacular exhibitions of the different pilots who participate, who try to impress the judges by making different types of jumps and stunts. The first event of the World Cup will be in Berlin during February 13th and 14th. Next event will be in held in Vilnius, Lituania.

Toni Bou

Toni Bou will try to mantain his hegemony

Toni Bou has been the outdoor and indoor World Motorcycle Trials Champion in years 2007, 2008 and 2009, so he has won the last six titles in a row. This year he will try to keep his hegemony  by winning the first event in indoor trial’s calendar in Marseille (January 23rd). Trial’s World Cup will remain in France with the event for Februrary 5th in Nice.

Photo: Raimon Palet

Czech Republic holds world´s cyclocross championships

The cyclocross world championships will take place in the city of Tabor, in Czech Republic, the last weekend in January. Cyclists of all around the world will try to beat Niels Albert (BEL), the winner of last year’s edition which took place in Hoogerheide (Netherlands). One of the candidates to obtainn the final victory is Zdenek Stybar (CZE), who has the advantage of running “at  home”.

Road’s cycling season starts this month

The Tour Down Under is a cycling race that takes place in Adelaide (AUS). It is the inaugural UCI World Ranking event in this year’s calendar. In 2005, this race was promoted by the UCI to the  international rating of 2.HC, the largest and highest ranking outside Europe. Last year’s winner was Allan Davis (AUS), from the Quick Step team.

Climbers from all around the world will ascend on ice

A new year starts and with it a new season of ice climbing also does. With Russian and Italian events already finished, next climbings in Switzerland and Romania will help to find out the new ice climbing world champion. In addition, Busteni (ROM) will also held the European Championships of this sport.

The adventure at the end of the world

Between February 9th and 17th the Wenger Patagonian Expedition Race will take place. It is an extreme challenge where teams of four people cross really long distances (more than 500 km.) This teams will traverse through the pristine southern Patagonia by means of trekking, climbing and related rope wor, kayaking, mountain biking and backcountry navigation.