Sci Scrapbook.docx

Boxing Forget the euphemistic ‘noble art oF selF-deFence’; boxing is a human bloodsport in which the intention is to hurt one's opponents by delivering blows to their body and ultimately knocking them unconscious. It sanctions injury in the name of sport. That said, modern boxing appears almost genteel alongside its prizefighting predecessor in which bareknuckled pugilists fought to exhaustion, with fights often lasting several hours. A round ended only when one combatant was floored; he then had half a minute's respite before placing his toe on a line scratched across the centre of the ring and resuming battle. not until one Fighter Failed ‘to come up to scratch’ was a result declared: no wins on points in those days, just the objective test of an inability to continue. Early rounds were often hard slogging contests but the real physical damage came in the later stages when tiredness slowed defensive reflexes. Imagine too the state of even the winner's hands, protected only by having been soaked in brine. With their combination of boxing and wrestling moves, early contests were literally ‘no holds barred’; grappling, punching, tripping, and throwing all being used to floor an opponent. The widely-adopted Broughton's Rules of 1743 eradicated some of the barbarism by outlawing the hitting of a man when he was down, and the seizing of hair or the body below the waist, but they still permitted butting. Yet it was not the brutality of the prize-ring which brought its demise, but the corruption with which it became associated. The revival of the sport as boxing in late Victorian Britain saw several changes designed to render it more civilized. Although some of the old practices continued for a while — even the famous Queensbury Rules initially allowed endurance contests — by the turn of the century the general picture was one of boxing in gloves, limited-time rounds, points decisions after a fixed number of rounds had elapsed, and weight divisions, though the latter have accentuated problems of dehydration as Fighters struggle to ‘make the weight’.

Though trampoline has been an Olympic event since 2000, when it debuted at the Sydney Games, it has spent the intervening 16 years so barely acknowledged that many I surveyed did not realize it was an Olympic sport at all.

This may be a regional ignorance. Despite sending athletes to compete, the United States has never won a medal in trampoline and did not have an athlete advance to the finals until 2012. The Chinese and the Russians tend to split the prizes for the men, and the Chinese and the Canadians for the women. (Dong Dong of China and Rosie MacLennan of Canada will be defending their London gold medals this year.) But there is an underdog charm to trampoline, in part because it sounds, to the unenlightened ear, fitter for clown college than the Olympics. (Here I should confess that I am no expert, just an earthbound enthusiast.) It does have comic potential — the cartoon quaver of its never-ending bounce — but also the grace of gymnastics and diving, the two sports it essentially combines. (The word “trampoline” derives from the Spanish el trampolín, meaning “diving board.”)