The 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup is the eighth edition of the FIFA Women’s World Cup, the quadrennial international football championship contested by the women’s national teams of the member associations of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) between 7 June and 7 July 2019. In March 2015, France won the right to host the event; the first time the country is hosting the tournament, and the third time by a European nation. Matches are planned for nine cities across France. The United States enters the competition as defending champions. It is also the first Women’s World Cup to use the video assistant referee (VAR) system. The semi-finals and final will be played in the Lyon, while the opening match will be played in Paris. This are the venues: read more…
Augusta National Golf Club, located in Augusta, Georgia, is one of the most famous golf clubs in the world. Founded by Bobby Jones and Clifford Roberts on the site of the former Fruitland (later Fruitlands) Nursery, the course was designed by Jones and Alister MacKenzie and opened for play in January 1933. Its first club professional was Ed Dudley, who served in the role until 1957; Dudley was one of the top tournament professionals of his era, with 15 wins on the PGA Tour. Since 1934, the club has played host to the annual Masters Tournament, one of the four major championships in professional golf, and the only major played each year at the same course. It was the top-ranked course in Golf Digest‘s 2009 list of America’s 100 greatest courses and was the number ten-ranked course based on course architecture on Golfweek Magazine‘s 2011 list of best classic courses in the United States. read more…
The 2018 FIFA World Cup will be the 21st FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial international football tournament contested by the men’s national teams of the member associations of FIFA. It is scheduled to take place in Russia from 14 June to 15 July 2018, after the country was awarded the hosting rights on 2 December 2010. All but one of the stadium venues are in European Russia, west of the Ural Mountains to keep travel time manageable. The Lushniki Olympic Stadium in Moscow shall be the venue of the opening match and the final. Of the 12 venues used, the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow and the Saint Petersburg Stadium (the two largest stadiums in Russia) will be used most, with 7 matches being played at each of these stadiums. In March 2018, the German Federal Criminal Police Office issued a clear warning about “high threats of terrorism” during the World Cup, so that it is recommended to visit the venues only after the World Cup (additionally: U.S. Department of State – Russia Travel Advisory). All other Western security services have issued similar warnings. The venues are similar to those of the FIFA Confederations Cup 2017, which was considered a dress rehearsal for the World Cup. Russia has had to reduce the overall budget for the World Cup several times due to the country’s persistent economic problems, so that the original planning for the World Cup, with the approval of the FIFA, can no longer be met. The venues are: read more…
Kiteboarding is a surface water sport combining aspects of wakeboarding, snowboarding, windsurfing, surfing, paragliding, skateboarding and sailing into one extreme sport. A kiteboarder harnesses the power of the wind with a large controllable power kite to be propelled across the water on a kiteboard similar to a wakeboard or a small surfboard, with or without footstraps or bindings. Kitesurfing is a style of kiteboarding specific to wave riding, which uses standard surfboards or boards shaped specifically for the purpose. There are different styles of kiteboarding, including freestyle, freeride, downwinders, speed, course racing, wakestyle, jumping and kitesurfing in the waves. In 2012, the number of kitesurfers was estimated by the World Sailing and International Kiteboarding Association at 1.5 million persons worldwide. read more…
Winter Olympics
The 2018 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XXIII Olympic Winter Games, and commonly known as PyeongChang 2018, is a major international multi-sport event scheduled to take place from 9 to 25 February 2018 in Pyeongchang County, South Korea. These will be South Korea’s second Olympic Games and its first Winter Games; Seoul hosted the Summer Games in 1988. Pyeongchang will be the third Asian city to host the Winter Games; the first two were in Japan, at Sapporo (1972) and Nagano (1998). read more…
The Olympiapark München (English: Olympic Park Munich) in Munich is an Olympic Park which was constructed for the 1972 Summer Olympics. Located in the Oberwiesenfeld neighborhood of Munich, the Park continues to serve as a venue for cultural, social, and religious events such as events of worship. The Park is administered by Olympiapark München GmbH, a holding company fully owned by the state capital of Munich. The concept of a “green Olympic Games” was chosen, and so too was the orientation toward the ideals of democracy. Officials sought to integrate optimism toward the future with a positive attitude toward technology, and in so doing set aside memories of the past, such as the Olympic Games of 1936 in Berlin. The architecture firm of Günther Behnisch and its partners developed a comprehensive master plan for the sports and recreation area, which was under construction from 1968 until 1972. The landscape layout was designed by landscape architect Günther Grzimek. The eye-catching tensile structure that covers much of the park was designed by German architect and engineer Frei Otto with Günther Behnisch. In all, the project cost 1.35 billion German Marks to complete. read more…
Marlins Park is a baseball park located in Miami. It is the current home of the Miami Marlins, the city’s Major League Baseball franchise. It is located on 17 acres of the former Miami Orange Bowl site in Little Havana, about 2 miles (3 km) west of Downtown. Construction was completed in March 2012, in time for the 2012 season. The stadium is designed in a neomodern form of baseball architecture. Marlins Park was also LEED certified as the greenest MLB park in 2012. The building is the sixth MLB stadium to have a retractable roof. With a seating capacity of 37,442, it is the third-smallest stadium in Major League Baseball by official capacity, and the smallest by actual capacity. The stadium’s public-funding plan led to a protracted lawsuit, largely contributed to the ouster of several local politicians, and triggered an SEC investigation. As revelations of the team’s finances and their handling of payroll (both before and after construction) seemed to contradict some of the premises on which the tax-funded-stadium deal were based, the ballpark controversy intensified. Despite questionable financing decisions by members of local government at the time, the financing of the project did not use General Fund taxes from local taxpayers and pulled from tourist funds specifically allocated for public-benefiting projects like sports facilities. The facility hosted a second-round pool of the 2013 World Baseball Classic, a first-round pool of the 2017 World Baseball Classic, and hosted the 2017 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. The park also hosts soccer matches, fundraising galas and other events during the winter. It also hosted the Miami Beach Bowl from 2014 through 2016. read more…
Baseball is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of nine players each, who take turns batting and fielding (Baseball rules). The batting team attempts to score runs by hitting a ball that is thrown by the pitcher with a bat swung by the batter, then running counter-clockwise around a series of four bases: first, second, third, and home plate. A run is scored when a player advances around the bases and returns to home plate (Baseball positions). read more…
