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Sporting Giants
Sporting Giants was a scheme launched by Sir Steve Redgrave on behalf of UK Sport in February 2007 to identify young people with the potential to display talent in sports such as handball, rowing and volleyball. Because tallness is considered a possible advantage in those sports a minimum height of 6’ 3” (190 cm) for men and 5’11 (180 cm) for women was specified. An age requirement of 16 to 25 was set and an athletic background was also sought. 4,800 applications were received for the scheme, 3,854 of which met the eligibility criteria. 2012 Summer Olympics Ten participants in the scheme were members of Team GB at the 2012 Summer Olympics and one of them was a medal winner: Helen Glover won gold in the women's coxless pairs rowing. She was a cross country runner, swimmer, hockey and tennis player but had no rowing experience prior joining the scheme in 2008. At 178 cm tall Glover did not meet the minimum height standard specified for the scheme but she stood ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steve Redgrave
Sir Steven Geoffrey Redgrave (born 23 March 1962) is a British retired rower who won gold medals at five consecutive Olympic Games from 1984 to 2000. He has also won three Commonwealth Games gold medals and nine World Rowing Championships golds. He is the most successful male rower in Olympic history, and the only man to have won gold medals at five Olympic Games in an endurance sport. Redgrave is regarded as one of Britain's greatest-ever Olympians. As of 2016 he was the fourth-most decorated British Olympian, after cyclists Sir Chris Hoy, Sir Jason Kenny and Sir Bradley Wiggins. He has carried the British flag at the opening of the Olympic Games on two occasions. In 2002, he was ranked number 36 in the BBC poll of the 100 Greatest Britons. He received the BBC Sports Personality of the Year – Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011. Early life and education Redgrave was born in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, to Geoffrey Edward Redgrave, a submariner in the Second World War who bec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
UK Sport
UK Sport is the government agency responsible for investing in Olympic and Paralympic sport in the United Kingdom. It is an executive non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport. It was created following a "rock bottom" showing at the 1996 Summer Olympics where Team GB won just one solitary gold medal. Team GB and Paralympics GB went on to place third in the medal table at London 2012 and second in the table at Rio 2016. Funding UK Sport currently invests around £345m in summer Olympic and Paralympic sports and £24m in winter Olympic and Paralympic sports. These investments are spread over a four-year cycle ahead of the Tokyo and Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games respectively. The investments are made through Athlete Performance Awards which are paid directly to the athlete and contribute to their living and sporting costs and through central funding to sport National Governing Bodies to invest in coaches, facilities and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Team Handball
Handball (also known as team handball, European handball or Olympic handball) is a team sport in which two teams of seven players each (six outcourt players and a goalkeeper) pass a ball using their hands with the aim of throwing it into the goal of the other team. A standard match consists of two periods of 30 minutes, and the team that scores more goals wins. Modern handball is played on a court of , with a goal in the middle of each end. The goals are surrounded by a zone where only the defending goalkeeper is allowed; goals must be scored by throwing the ball from outside the zone or while "diving" into it. The sport is usually played indoors, but outdoor variants exist in the forms of field handball, Czech handball (which were more common in the past) and beach handball. The game is fast and high-scoring: professional teams now typically score between 20 and 35 goals each, though lower scores were not uncommon until a few decades ago. Body contact is permitted for the def ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rowing (sport)
Rowing, sometimes called crew in the United States, is the sport of racing boats using oars. It differs from paddling sports in that rowing oars are attached to the boat using oarlocks, while paddles are not connected to the boat. Rowing is divided into two disciplines: sculling and sweep rowing. In sculling, each rower holds two oars—one in each hand, while in sweep rowing each rower holds one oar with both hands. There are several boat classes in which athletes may compete, ranging from single sculls, occupied by one person, to shells with eight rowers and a coxswain, called eights. There are a wide variety of course types and formats of racing, but most elite and championship level racing is conducted on calm water courses long with several lanes marked using buoys. Modern rowing as a competitive sport can be traced to the early 17th century when professional watermen held races (regattas) on the River Thames in London, England. Often prizes were offered by the London G ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summer Olympic Games since Tokyo 1964. Beach volleyball was introduced to the programme at the Atlanta 1996. The adapted version of volleyball at the Summer Paralympic Games is sitting volleyball. The complete set of rules is extensive, but play essentially proceeds as follows: a player on one of the teams begins a 'rally' by serving the ball (tossing or releasing it and then hitting it with a hand or arm), from behind the back boundary line of the court, over the net, and into the receiving team's court. The receiving team must not let the ball be grounded within their court. The team may touch the ball up to three times to return the ball to the other side of the court, but individual players may not touch the ball twice consecutively. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Team GB
Team GB is the brand name used since 1999 by the British Olympic Association (BOA) for their British Olympic team. The brand was developed after the nation's poor performance in the 1996 Summer Olympics, and is now a trademark of the BOA. It is meant to unify the team as one body, irrespective of each member athlete's particular sport. Officially, the team is the "Great Britain and Northern Ireland Olympic Team", although athletes from Northern Ireland may opt to compete under the auspices of the Olympic Federation of Ireland instead. History The British Olympic Association's director of marketing, Marzena Bogdanowicz, felt that the official and abbreviated names of the Great Britain Olympic team were a mouthful. She first thought of the 'Team GB' concept in 1996 or 1997, and said: "I went to the games in 1996 and the logo at the time was just the lion and the rings, but we weren't strong enough as a brand to just be a lion and the rings. So coming back I wanted to find s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2012 Summer Olympics
The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the group stage in women's football, began on 25 July at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, followed by the opening ceremony on 27 July. 10,768 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) participated in the 2012 Olympics. Following a bid headed by former Olympic champion Sebastian Coe and the then- London mayor Ken Livingstone, London was selected as the host city at the 117th IOC Session in Singapore on 6 July 2005, defeating bids from Moscow, New York City, Madrid, and Paris. London became the first city to host the modern Olympics three times, having previously hosted the Summer Games in 1908 and 1948. Construction for the Games involved considerable redevelopment, with an emphasis on sustainability. The mai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Helen Glover (rower)
Helen Glover (born 17 June 1986) is a British professional rower and a member of the Great Britain Rowing Team. Ranked the number 1 female rower in the world in 2015–16, she is a two-time Olympic champion, triple World champion, quintuple World Cup champion and quadruple European champion. She and her partner Heather Stanning were the World, Olympic, World Cup and European record holders, plus the Olympic, World and European champions in the women's coxless pairs. She has also been a British champion in both women's fours and quadruple sculls. At the 2012 Summer Olympics, in partnership with Heather Stanning, she set the Olympic record and won the gold medal in the women's coxless pairs, the inaugural gold medal won by Team GB in 2012 and the first Olympic gold medal for British women's rowing. In December 2012 she won the BBC '' Olympic Superstars'' game show. At the 2013 World Rowing Championships in South Korea, she became the world champion with her partner Polly Swann, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Coxless Pair
A coxless pair is a rowing boat used in the sport of competitive rowing. It is designed for two rowers, who propel the boat with sweep oars. The crew consists of a pair of rowers, each having one oar, one on the stroke side (rower's right hand side) and one on the bow side (rower's lefthand side). As the name suggests, there is no coxswain on such a boat, and the two rowers must co-ordinate steering and the proper timing of oar strokes between themselves or by means of a steering installation which is operated by foot from one of the rowers. The equivalent boat when it is steered by a cox is referred to as a "coxed pair". Racing boats (often called "shells") are long, narrow, and broadly semi-circular in cross-section in order to reduce drag to a minimum. Originally made from wood, shells are now almost always made from a composite material (usually carbon-fibre reinforced plastic) for strength and weight advantages. Pairs have a fin towards the rear, to help prevent ro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victoria Thornley
Victoria Thornley (born 30 November 1987) is a Welsh rower. She won a silver medal for Great Britain with Katherine Grainger in the women's double sculls at the 2016 Summer Olympics. She was also a member of the Great Britain team that finished fifth in the women's eight at the 2012 Summer Olympics, and finished fourth in the single sculls at the 2020 Summer Olympics. Early life and education Thornley was born in St Asaph to Andrew and Gina Thornley, and was brought up in Wrexham. She has two sisters. After completing her secondary education at Bishop Heber High School, she went on to study Business Management at the University of Bath and graduate from the GB Rowing Team Start programme. Before rowing, Thornley was a national championship winning show jumper, having participated since the age of twelve. She also briefly worked as a fashion model. Rowing career Thornley began her sporting career through the "Sporting Giants" programme, becoming the first of the scheme's gr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eight (rowing)
An eight is a rowing boat used in the sport of competitive rowing (crew). It is designed for eight rowers, who propel the boat with sweep oars, and is steered by a coxswain, or "cox". Each of the eight rowers has one oar. The rowers, who sit in a line in the centre of the boat and facing the stern, are usually placed alternately, with four on the port side (rower's right hand side - also traditionally known as "stroke side") and four on the starboard side (rower's lefthand side - known as "bow side"). The cox steers the boat using a rudder and is normally seated at the stern of the boat. Because of the speed of the boat, it is generally considered unsafe to row coxless or to have a bowloader cox. Racing boats (often called "shells") are long, narrow, and broadly semi-circular in cross-section in order to reduce drag to a minimum. Originally made from wood, shells are now almost always made from a composite material (usually carbon-fibre reinforced plastic) for strength and w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert White (handballer)
Robert White (born 5 April 1983) is a British handball player. At the 2012 Summer Olympics he competed with the Great Britain men's national handball team in the men's tournament. Early life White spent his childhood in Milton Keynes where he participated in a variety of sports including football, karate and swimming. He later played Non-League football for Newport Pagnell Town and Ardley United. He later completed FA coaching qualifications and graduated from the University of Northampton with a degree in Sport and Exercise Science. Introduction to handball White began his handball career via a UK Sport scheme to unearth potential Olympic athletes. After impressing during trials, he earned a scholarship with Austrian club Bregenz Handball Bregenz Handball is a handball club from Bregenz, Austria. They currently compete in the Handball Liga Austria. History Bregenz Handball was founded in 1946 at the divisions of SC Schwarz-Weiß Bregenz. The team initially played in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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