By Aggeliki Tzola and Vasiliki Stathopoulou (B Class)

When you are choosing a sport or a hobby to take up, what influences your decision?

Some people may wish to avoid excessive risk. Others believe that the only activities worth doing are those which involve some real danger. So, what activities could you do and how risky are they?

The risk-takers among us enjoy participating in extreme sports, but what is fashionable changes every year. Snowboarding and bungee jumping are just too well-known these days. Today’s winter sport adrenaline junkies prefer heli-skiing or snow kiting. The first requires a helicopter to fly you to the top of the mountain, far from the ski lifts and slopes full of ordinary people. Then, you leap out and ski down the crispy, white snow. Of course you are skiing off-piste without marked runs and you don’t know whether you are going to go off the edge of the mountain, but that’s the full idea. Snow kiting   is just what you would expect. The skier or snowboarder is pulled along by a large kite which is blown by the wind. On a windy day, you can go so fast that you think that you are on the steepest of slopes. The best thing about it is that you aren’t dependent on the crowed ski lifts.

OK, perhaps you want to take part in an activity that doesn’t require so much energy and is likely to cause physical pain? Maybe you don’t have enough time to do sports because you have too much housework to do? There is an activity that will allow you to do both at the same time. Extreme ironing! Not only does it involve ironing, but also a sport or activity of your choice.  For those who like heights you can set your ironing board up on a rocky ledge high above the ground. For the more athletic, you can try ironing while cycling, waterskiing, or even underwater.  The sport started up in the late of 1990’s and today silly people the world over take part in competitions and can even win awards! And when you’ve finished ironing, you can start extreme vaccuming!

By Harry Memeledgoglou and Leonidas Papageorgopoulos (A Class)

Basketball is a sport played by two teams of five players on a rectangular court. The objective is to shoot a ball through a hoop 18 inches (46 cm) in diameter and 10 feet (3.0 m) high mounted to a backboard at each end. Basketball is one of the world’s most popular and widely viewed sports.

A team can score a field goal by shooting the ball through the basket during regular play. A field goal scores three points for the shooting team if the player shoots from behind the three-point line, and two points if shot from in front of the line. The team with the most points at the end of the game wins, but additional time (overtime) is issued when the game ends in a draw. The ball can be advanced on the court by bouncing it while walking or running or throwing it to a team mate. It is a violation to lift or drag one’s pivot foot without dribbling the ball, to carry it, or to hold the ball with both hands then resume dribbling.

As well as many techniques for shooting, passing, dribbling and rebounding, basketball teams generally have player positions and offensive and defensive structures (player positioning). Traditionally, the tallest and strongest members of a team are called a center or power forward, while slightly shorter and more agile players are called small forward, and the shortest players or those who possess the best ball handling skills are called a point guard or shooting guard. In early December 1891, Canadian Dr. James Naismith, a physical education professor and instructor at the International Young Men’s Christian Association Training School (YMCA) (today, Springfield College) in Springfield, Massachusetts was trying to keep his gym class active on a rainy day. He sought a vigorous indoor game to keep his students occupied and at proper levels of fitness during the long New England winters. After rejecting other ideas as either too rough or poorly suited to walled-in gymnasiums, he wrote the basic rules and nailed a peach basket onto a 10-foot (3.05 m) elevated track. In contrast with modern basketball nets, this peach basket retained its bottom, and balls had to be retrieved manually after each «basket» or point scored; this proved inefficient, however, so the bottom of the basket was removed, allowing the balls to be poked out with a long dowel each time.

Basketball was originally played with a soccer ball. The first balls made specifically for basketball were brown, and it was only in the late 1950s that Tony Hinkle, searching for a ball that would be more visible to players and spectators alike, introduced the orange ball that is now in common use. Dribbling was not part of the original game except for the «bounce pass» to teammates. Passing the ball was the primary means of ball movement. Dribbling was eventually introduced but limited by the asymmetric shape of early balls. Dribbling only became a major part of the game around the 1950s, as manufacturing improved the ball shape.

The peach baskets were used until 1906 when they were finally replaced by metal hoops with backboards. A further change was soon made, so the ball merely passed through. Whenever a person got the ball in the basket, his team would gain a point. Whichever team got the most points won the game. The baskets were originally nailed to the mezzanine balcony of the playing court, but this proved impractical when spectators on the balcony began to interfere with shots. The backboard was introduced to prevent this interference; it had the additional effect of allowing rebound shots. Naismith’s handwritten diaries, discovered by his granddaughter in early 2006, indicate that he was nervous about the new game he had invented, which incorporated rules from a children’s game called «Duck on a Rock», as many had failed before it. Naismith called the new game «Basket Ball». The first official game was played in the YMCA gymnasium in Albany, New York, on January 20, 1892, with nine players. The game ended at 1–0; the shot was made from 25 feet (7.6 m), on a court just half the size of a present-day Streetball or National Basketball Association (NBA) court. By 1897–1898 teams of five became standard. In 1946, the Basketball Association of America (BAA) was formed. The first game was played in Toronto, Ontario, Canada between the Toronto Huskies and New York Knickerbockers on November 1, 1946. Three seasons later, in 1949, the BAA merged with the National Basketball League to form the National Basketball Association (NBA). By the 1950s, basketball had become a major college sport, thus paving the way for a growth of interest in professional basketball. In 1959, a basketball hall of fame was founded in Springfield, Massachusetts, site of the first game. Its rosters include the names of great players, coaches, referees and people who have contributed significantly to the development of the game. The hall of fame has people who have accomplished many goals in their career in basketball. An upstart organization, the American Basketball Association, emerged in 1967 and briefly threatened the NBA’s dominance until the ABA-NBA merger in 1976. Today the NBA is the top professional basketball league in the world in terms of popularity, salaries, talent, and level of competition.

The NBA has featured many famous players, including George Mikan, the first dominating «big man»; ball-handling wizard Bob Cousy and defensive genius Bill Russell of the Boston Celtics; Wilt Chamberlain, who originally played for the barnstorming Harlem Globetrotters; all-around stars Oscar Robertson and Jerry West; more recent big men Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Shaquille O’Neal and Karl Malone; playmaker John Stockton; crowd-pleasing forward Julius Erving; European stars Dirk Nowitzki and Dražen Petrović; more recent stars LeBron James, Kevin Durant, & Kobe Bryant and the three players who many credit with ushering the professional game to its highest level of popularity: Larry Bird, Earvin «Magic» Johnson, and Michael Jordan. In 2001, the NBA formed a developmental league, the NBDL. As of 2014, the league has 18 teams.

By George Andrikopoulos

Sport is known and promoted as a natural way to stay healthy in terms of both the prevention and treatment of physical, psychological and social problems, but it can also become an obsession, connected also with drug-taking, which is harmful for our health, as it is shown by many examples.

When we talk about addiction to sport or an addiction to physical exercise, we are referring to a condition which does not necessarily involve a overgrowing abuse of sporting practice, but rather symptoms which are similar to those typical of other common addictions.

‘Sport Mania’, which is another term used incorrectly as a synonym for ‘sport addiction’, is an excessive behavioral tendency which causes an imbalance in one’s relationship with sport and which does not always show itself in the symptoms common to addictions. Sport mania can evolve into prolonged abuse of sporting activities and cause over-reaching, that is, a subtle form of overtraining which can require a resting period of a few weeks for psycho-physical rest, or even bring on a more stabile state of overtraining which requires months of rest as well as a daily, physical correctional program.

However, sport dependency, or sport addiction, is not always a overgrowing problem and does not simply involve the abuse of sport. It does not necessarily cause overtraining either, because the constant practicing of sport does not always result in an exhausting activity and, above all, it is has become known by some distinctive, psychological characteristics.

So, the frequency of training does not represent a good diagnostic measure since it does not provide any further information about the important motivational and emotional differences which have allowed us to recognize between the three types of people who turn to sport in an unbalanced and sometimes crazy and intense way.

As far as the professional athletes are concerned, they feel high volumes of stress and anxiety over the pressure to perform, beat their opponents and not to display any signs of weakness. For some, this pressure proves to be too exhausting, and drugs, alcohol or one of many other types of addiction becomes their escape. Many are unable to control their addictions and, over time, their ability to perform athletically and stay healthy becomes disable due to their addiction.

Moreover, many of them try to gain an advantage by using performance-enhancing drugs. This is well-known as doping, which is also another kind of addiction. Many performance-enhancing drugs are forbidden by sports” governing bodies. But why are these drugs so appealing to athletes?

Besides making muscles bigger, anabolic steroids may help athletes recover from a hard workout more quickly by reducing the muscle damage that occurs during the session. This enables athletes to work out harder and more frequently without overtraining. In addition, some athletes may like the aggressive feelings they get when they take the drugs.

Unfortunately many athletes take anabolic steroids at doses that are much higher than those prescribed for medical reasons, and most of what is known about the drugs” effects on athletes comes from observing users. Thus, however drugs increase the strength and the abilities of the athletes, they can also cause serious health problems, such as acne, increased aggression and mood changes, psychological dependence or they can result in diabetes, heart diseases, muscle and bone pains or abnormal growth of organs.

All in all, sports should be one of the most important things in our life, but this should not mean that we should also not respect our body or even better ourselves. Reaching goals with success in sport activities and also in our life must be done by us and not by illegal methods.

By Alex Papadopoulos

 Kick boxing is a combat sport that combines boxing and kicking. It is based on the boxing of Thailand and it is widespread throughout the world because of its practicality. It comes from Japan and North America, and combines the techniques of boxing with the kicks of karate and tae kwon do.

In 1970, the first games of kickboxing began to be conducted, and in 1977 the World Federation of the sport was founded, the World Kickboxing Association (WKA).

 Combat kickboxing is divided in amateur kickboxing (in which the athletes wear protective equipment) and in professional (in which they are not allowed to use protective equipment).

 The biggest event of world kick boxing is K -1. Iron Mike is the one who represents Greece in the professional kickboxing world championship, who won the Japanese championship and the Australian K -1, and has been included among the top kick-boxers in the world.

 There are lots of combat styles and gradations in kickboxing: the full contact, semi contact, light or medium contact, body contact and low kicks. There are also many sports related to kickboxing and vary depending on the country of origin. The most famous of them is the Muai Thai, or Thai Boxing, which is the national sport of Thailand and is created by the traditional Muai Thai, Mui Boran, and the combat kickboxing. The techniques of the boxing of Thailand are identical to those of kickboxing with the difference that in Muai Thai the use of elbows and knees is permitted. Another well-known style of kickboxing is Savate, which comes from France and its techniques are almost identical to those of the American kickboxing.

By Spyros Politis, B2 class

Footballl Club Barcelona, also known as Barcelona and familiarly as Barça, is a professional football club, based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.  Founded in 1899 by a group of Swiss, English and Catalan footballers led by Joan Gamper, the club has become a symbol of Catalan culture and Catalanism, hence the motto «Més que un club» (More than a club).

Unlike many other football clubs, the supporters own and operate Barcelona. It is the world’s second-richest football club in terms of revenue, with an annual turnover of $613 million and the third most valuable, worth $2.6 billion. The official Barcelona anthem is the «Cant del Barça», written by Jaume Picas and Josep Maria Espinàs.

Barcelona is the most successful club in Spain, in terms of overall official titles won. Barcelona was ranked first in the “All-Time Club World Ranking” by IFFHS, on December 31, 2009, and is also currently placed on top of the UEFA club rankings. A recent study by Goal.com found Barcelona to be the most successful club in the UEFA Champions League, ahead of AC Milan. Barcelona are the current Spanish football champions and have won 22 La Liga, 26 Copa del Rey, 11 Supercopa de España, 3 Copa Eva Duarte and 2 Copa de la Liga trophies, as well as being the record holder for the latter four competitions.  In international club football, Barcelona have won four UEFA Champions League, a record four UEFA Cup Winners” Cup, four UEFA Super Cup, a record three Inter-Cities Fairs Cup and a record two FIFA Club World Cup trophies.

The club has a long-standing rivalry with Real Madrid; matches between the two teams are referred to as «El Clásico». Barcelona is one of the most supported teams in the world, and has one of the biggest fanbase on social networks (with over 46 million fans on Facebook, around 10 million followers on Twitter, and more than 6 million on Google+). Barça’s players have won a record number of Ballon d’Or awards, as well as a record number of FIFA World Player of the Year awards. In 2010, the club created history when three players who came through its youth academy (Messi, Iniesta & Xavi) were chosen as the three best players in the world, having bagged the top spots at the FIFA Ballon d’Or, an unprecedented feat for players from the same football school.

Barcelona is one of the clubs to have played continental football every season since 1955, and one of three clubs never to have been relegated from La Liga, along with Athletic Bilbao and Real Madrid. In 2009, Barcelona became the first Spanish club to win the continental treble consisting of La Liga, Copa del Rey and the Champions League. That same year, it also became the first football club ever to win six out of six competitions in a single year, thus completing the sextuple, comprising the aforementioned treble and the Spanish Super Cup, UEFA Super Cup and FIFA Club World Cup. In 2011, the Blaugrana again became European champions and won a total of 5 titles, missing out only on the Copa del RΕΥ. This all-conquering Barça team, which reached a record 6 consecutive Champions League semi-finals and racked up 14 trophies in just 4 years under Guardiola’s charge, is considered by a few managers, players and experts to be one of the best team of all time. FC Barcelona B youth manager Pep Guardiola took over Frank Rijkaard’s duties at the conclusion of the season. Guardiola brought with him the now famous tiki-taka style of play he had been taught during his time in the Barcelona youth teams. In the process Guardiola sold Ronaldinho and Deco, and started building the Barcelona team around Xavi, Iniesta and Messi. Lionel Messi, four-time FIFA/Ballon d’Or winner, in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012, and FC Barcelona’s top goalscorer in official competitions with 327 goals.

Barça beat Athletic Bilbao 4–1 in the 2009 Copa del Rey Final, winning the competition for a record-breaking 25th time. A historic 2–6 victory against Real Madrid followed three days later and ensured that Barcelona became La Liga champions for the 2008–09 season. Barça finished the season by beating the previous year’s Champions League winners Manchester United 2–0 at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome to win their third Champions League title and completed the first ever treble won by a Spanish side. The team went on to win the 2009 Supercopa de España against Athletic Bilbao and the 2009 UEFA Super Cup against Shakhtar Donetsk, becoming the first European club to win both domestic and European Super Cups following a treble. In December 2009, Barcelona won the 2009 FIFA Club World Cup and became the first football club ever to accomplish the sextuple. Barcelona accomplished two new records in Spanish football in 2010 as they retained the La Liga trophy with 99 points and won the Spanish Super Cup trophy for a ninth time.

After Laporta’s departure from the club in June 2010, Sandro Rosell was soon elected as the new president. The elections were held on 13 June, where he got 61.35% (57,088 votes, a record) of total votes. Rosell signed David Villa from Valencia for €40 million and Javier Mascherano from Liverpool for €19 million. In November 2010, Barcelona defeated their main rival, Real Madrid 5–0 in El Clásico. In the 2010–11 season, Barcelona retained the La Liga trophy, their third title in succession, finishing with 96 points. In April 2011, the club reached the Copa del Rey final, losing 1–0 to Real Madrid at the Mestalla in Valencia. In May, Barcelona defeated Manchester United in the 2011 Champions League Final 3–1 held at Wembley Stadium, a repeat of the 2009 final, winning their fourth European Cup.In August 2011, the La Masia graduate Cesc Fàbregas was bought from Arsenal and who would help Barcelona defend the Spanish Supercup against Real Madrid. The Supercup victory brought the total amount of official trophies to 73, matching the number of titles won by Real Madrid. Later the same month, Barcelona won the UEFA Super Cup after defeating Porto 2–0 thanks to goals from Lionel Messi and Cesc Fábregas. This extended the club’s overall amount of official trophies to 74, surpassing Real Madrid’s total amount of official trophies. The UEFA Super Cup victory also marked another impressive achievement as Josep Guardiola won his 12th trophy out of 15 possible in only three years at the helm of the club, becoming the all-time record holder of most titles won as a coach at FC Barcelona. FC Barcelona against Bayer Leverkusen in the UEFA Champions League In December, Barcelona won the FIFA Club World Cup for a record second time since its establishment, by beating the Brazilian 2011 Copa Libertadores holders, Santos, 4–0 in the final thanks to two goals from Lionel Messi and goals from Xavi and Fábregas. As a result, the overall trophy haul during the reign of Guardiola was further extended and saw Barcelona win their 13th trophy out of 24 possible in 4 years, continuing their high-quality performance in recent world football competitions. In the 2011–12 season, Barcelona lost the semi-finals of the UEFA Champions League against Chelsea. Right afterward, coach Pep Guardiola, who had been on a rolling contract and had faced criticism over his recent tactics and squad selections, announced that he would step down as manager on 30 June and be succeeded by assistant Tito Vilanova. Guardiola finished his tenure with Barça winning the Copa del Rey final 3–0, bringing the tally to 14 trophies that Barça had won under his stewardship.

Guardiola’s four trophy-laden years has inspired British director Paul Greengrass to make a documentary about the Catalan giants. Entitled Barça, the film will examine the process and legacy of one of the world’s most famous sports franchises, focusing primarily on the four years in which Guardiola guided the club to 14 trophies. The movie is expected to be finished ahead of the 2014 World Cup, when public attention will begin focusing on the international event in Rio de Janeiro. Xavi presently holds the team record for number of total games played (693) and the record number of La Liga appearances (454), surpassing the previous record holder Migueli (391).

FC Barcelona’s all-time highest goalscorer in all competitions (including friendlies) is Paulino Alcántara with 369 goals. The all-time highest goalscorer for Barcelona in all official competitions, excluding friendlies, is Lionel Messi with 327 goals. He is also the record goalscorer for Barcelona in European and international club competitions and the record league scorer with 223 goals in La Liga. Four people have managed to score over 100 league goals at Barcelona: Lionel Messi (223), César Rodríguez (192), Ladislao Kubala (131) and Samuel Eto’o (108) . On 2 February 2009, Barcelona reached a total of 5,000 La Liga goals. The goal was converted by Messi in a game against Racing Santander, which Barça won 2–1. On 18 December 2009 Barcelona beat Estudiantes 2–1 to win their sixth title in a year and became the first ever football team to complete the sextuple. Barcelona’s highest home attendance was 120,000, for a European Cup quarter-final against Juventus on 3 March 1986. The modernisation of Camp Nou during the 1990s and the introduction of all-seater stands means the record will not be broken for the foreseeable future as the current capacity of the stadium is 99,354.

By Peter Panagopoulos (B class)

Rugby football is a style of football from England. It refers to two current sports, rugby league and rugby union. It developed from a version of football that was played at Rugby School.

Rugby union (rugby) is based on running with the ball in the hand. It’s played by fifteen players by each side. The ball is oval-shaped. The field is with H-shaped goalposts on each goal line. Each team starts the match with 15 players on the field and seven substitutes. There are eight forwards and seven backs. Forwards are generally bigger and stronger and take part in the scrum and line-out. On the other side, the back’s role is to create and convert point-scoring opportunities. They are generally smaller, faster and more agile than the forwards.

Rugby union is played between two teams. The one that scores more points wins the game. Points can be scored in several ways: a try, scored by grounding the ball in the in-goal area (between the goal line and the dead ball line), is worth 5 points and a subsequent conversion kick scores 2 points. A successful penalty kick or a drop goal each score 3 points. The values of each of these scoring methods have been changed over the years.

 The Greek federation of rugby was recognised by the Greek state in 2004 and the European in 2005.Today our country holds the 93th place worldwide. Hellas has 31 rugby clubs. Patras city has got two rugby teams. One team called “Aiolos“

and the other “Patras’ Rugby’ .

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By Harry Zaverdas (class A) 

Hard training, willing to try, strict discipline and above all: PASSION, is what you need to play one of the most fascinating sports- WATER POLO. The history of water polo starts in 1926 when, according to a story, English players of polo (played by horses) shot their ball into a lake and so they started playing a game with the ball in the water. The first unofficial games were organised by Wilson, a fanatic of water sports from Glasgow and played in lakes with boats for goalposts. The first official international water polo game was between England and Scotland and England won with 4-0.

The rules of the game are quite simple. Two teams with seven players each, try to put the ball into the opponent team’s goalpost. No one, except for the goalkeeper, is allowed to touch the ball with two hands. The game has 4 periods with 8 minutes each and the teams have 30 seconds to create an attack. The training is on a daily basis with over two hours a day. If you want to play water polo you have to swim fast and be in a nice physical condition. But water polo offers you a nice body sculpture. According to researches, by swimming you burn 550 kcal per hour, much more from any other exercise.

In conclusion, water polo is a worth-trying sport. Also, the fact that Greece has won so many titles at international level, gives us the sign that more and more people should try this amazing sport.