Wrestling is a sport in which a practitioner attempts to defeat an opponent without the use of striking.

Absent winning a match by points, a wrestler can win at any time during a match by “pinning” the opponent, which is turning him completely to his back.

According to the International Federation of Associated Wrestling Styles (FILA), the governing body of international amateur wrestling, the four main forms of amateur competitive wrestling practiced internationally today are Greco-Roman wrestling, Freestyle wrestling, Judo wrestling and Sambo wrestling.

Wrestling is a major sport in the United States and Canada and most nations in Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

On the collegiate level, several universities are known for regularly having competitive wrestling teams, including Iowa State, Lehigh University, Pennsylvania State University, the University of Iowa, the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, the University of Oklahoma, University of Minnesota, and others.

Wrestling is an Olympic sport.

Wrestling has gained tremendous respect among martial arts practitioners, especially with the advent of mixed martial arts competition.

Sumo wrestling is a competition contact sport where two wrestlers or rikishi face off in a circular area. The sport is of Japanese origin and is surrounded by ceremony and ritual.

A winter sport is a sport commonly played during winter.

As a formal term, it refers to a sport played on snow or ice, but informally can refer to sports played in winter that could be played at any time of the year.

The main winter sports are skiing and snowboarding, but may also include snow-balding, monoskiing, skwal, and tobogganing.

Ice skating is traveling on ice with skates, narrow (and sometimes parabolic) blade-like devices molded into special boots (or, more primitively, without boots, tied to regular footwear). It is mainly done for recreation and as a sport.

Skiboarding is a winter sport which combines inline skating / ice skating and skiing. Skiboards are generally around 100 centimeters long, symmetrical, twin tipped, and very wide. In addition, they generally have non-release bindings very similar to snowboard hard-boot bindings.

Sledding is a common activity in wintry areas. The term refers to traveling down any sort of decline, typically in cold weather, on a surface such as snow.

Ice blocking is a quasi-sport in which individuals race to the bottom of a hill sitting on large blocks of ice. It is most popular among students and is sometimes recommended as a good activity for dating or scout camps.

Many winter sports are a part of the Winter Olympic Games.

Rodeo is a traditional North American sport with influences from the history of Mexican vaqueros and American cowboys such as bull riding or saddle bronc riding.

Rodeo originated as an extension of the day-to-day lives of early American cowboys; branding cattle and riding and training young bucking horses made a natural progression to competition between the cowboys.

Bragging rights about who could stay on a “bronc-y” horse went from passing the hat for the winner, to today’s large purses at competitions such as the National Finals Rodeo.

The oldest and largest sanctioning body of professional rodeo is the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) which sanctions around 700 rodeos annually.

Animal rights activists are vocal critics of rodeos, due to reported injuries and distress to the animals involved. The American Humane Society contends that rodeos are not an accurate or harmless portrayal of ranching skills; rather, they display and encourage brutal treatment of animals in the name of sport.

The Professional Bull Riders (PBR) is a recent organization dedicated to Bull Riding and puts on a number of events. There are also high school rodeos, amateur rodeos, youth rodeos, and rodeos for women. Many colleges, such as Montana State University, Texas Tech University, and Tarleton State University have a rodeo team.

The National Intercollegiate Rodeo Association is responsible for the College National Rodeo Finals held each June in Casper, WY. Also available is the National High School Rodeo Association (NHSRA). This organization offers internationally competitive rodeo to high school students.

Many youth rodeo associations exist to allow young cowboys and cowgirls to comete at young ages, such as the American Junior Rodeo Association.

Recreation is the employment of time in a non-profitable way, in many ways also a therapeutic refreshment of one’s body or mind. While leisure is more likely a form of entertainment or rest, recreation is participatory, but in a refreshing manner.

Some examples of recreational activities are traveling, motorcycling, and camping.

The weekend is typically a time for recreation, perhaps (in Judeo-Christian and Muslim cultures) because the Sabbath falls on the weekend and the Sabbath is “the day of rest.” Holidays are also a common time for recreation.

Recreation, play, and fun are not the preserve of humans; nearly all creatures indulge in this to some extent. Play is essential for the development of skills, the most basic of which are motor skills in young creatures.

Recreation is essential to the longevity of human beings. It is roughly the opposite of stress. Today, stress is the number one killer in the United States according to TIME magazine.

Some recreational activities are made illegal in many legal jurisdictions because of the perceived immorality of certain forms of recreation. These include gambling, some forms of sex, drug use or some forms of dancing.

Recreational activates are performed by humans of all ages.

In general, a recreation anything that someone enjoys, it could include hobbies such as shopping, sports, yoga, gambling, sex, dancing, travel, and many more.

Racquetball is a sport played with racquets and a hollow rubber ball on an indoor or outdoor court. It was invented by Joe Sobeck in 1949 incorporating rules from squash and handball.

Unlike most racquet sports (such as Tennis or Badminton), usage of the walls, floor, and ceiling of the court is considered legal in the context of the sport, rather than out-of-bounds.

Joe Sobek is credited with inventing racquetball, though not naming the sport. Sobek, a tennis professional and handball player, was looking for a fast-paced sport that was easy to learn and play. He designed the first strung paddle, devised a set of rules based on those from squash and handball and named his game, “paddle rackets”. In February 1952, Sobek founded the International Paddler’s Racquets Association, codified the rules, and had a booklet of said rules printed.

The new game experienced rapid growth & take-up through Sobek’s continual promotion of the game, but was also aided by the estimated 40,000 existing handball courts across the country in YMCAs and JCCs which could also be used for racquetball.

A standard racquetball court is rectangular and is 40 feet long, 20 feet wide and 20 feet high.

The court is marked by several red lines to define service and reception areas.

The player who won the last point makes the next service. The server must bounce the ball once on the ground, then hit the ball against the front wall, at which point the ball either must hit the floor behind the short line directly or hit one side walls and then hit the floor behind the short line; otherwise it is a fault.

Serve style varies drastically from player to player. Generally, they are divided into two types: offensive and defensive. Most players use an offensive serve for the first serve, and a defensive serve if they need to hit a second serve. Of the offensive serves, the most common is the drive.

Polo is a team sport played on horseback in which the objective is to score goals against an opposing team.

When played outdoors, each Polo team consists of four riders and their mounts. In the indoor variant (”Arena Polo”), each team fields only three players.

Play occurs in seven-minute periods, called chukkas. Six chukkas is the normal length of play; however, depending on league rules, matches can also have four or eight chukkas. Arena Polo has 6-minute chukkas.

Polo is now an active sport in 77 countries, and although its tenure as an Olympic sport was limited to 1900–1939, in 1998 the International Olympic Committee recognised it as a sport with a bona fide international governing body, the Federation of International Polo.

The U.S. is unique in possessing a professional women’s polo league and a men’s professional polo league: the United States Women’s Polo Federation and the United States Men’s Polo Federation, founded in 2000. The thirty-two (32) team league plays across the country.

Polo requires two teams of players mounted on horseback to play the game. When playing outdoors each team has four players, whereas arena polo is restricted to three players per team.

The field is 300 yards long, and either 160 yards or 150 yards wide if there are side boards—these are generally 12″ high. There are lightweight goalposts on each side of the field spread 8 yards apart.

The object of the game is to score the most goals by hitting the ball through the goal.

Pigeon racing is a sport in which pigeons are removed by an agreed distance from their home coops and then released at a predetermined time.

For each bird, a velocity, usually in meters per minute or yards per minute, is calculated from the recorded time and the distance the coop is from the release point (distance/time). The velocities for each of the birds in the race are then compared to determine the order in which they reached their homes, and a winner is declared on that basis.

During the 1920s and 1930s successful racing pigeons would often have their portraits painted. Notable among pigeon artists at the time was E H Windred.

Homing pigeons, selectively bred to be able to navigate back to their homes from places they haven’t visited, are used in these races.

Pigeons are banded both for ease in recording and maintaining genealogies and also so that homing pigeons that become lost during a race and are found by helpful people can be returned to their owners.

On Race days a rubber ring is placed on the birds foot and the number noted by a club official. When the birds are released and fly home the rubber ring is taken off and “clocked into” a specially made sealed Pigeon Racing Clock. This records the time of arrival of the bird and a average speed, normally in yards per minute is calculated.

Like all sports, pigeon racing also has drug problems, although they are minor. The main drug is a steroid called Cortisone.

In order to breed messenger pigeons that were both fast and dependable, it was necessary to carry them long distances from home, release them at a recorded time, and calculate the speed with which they returned.

Pétanque is a form of boules where the goal is to throw metal balls as close as possible to a small wooden ball called a cochonnet (piglet). The game is normally played on hard dirt or gravel, but can also be played on grass or other surfaces.

The game of pétanque is similar to bocce and bowls.

Pétanque is generally associated with southern France, particularly Provence, whence it originates. It is the most played sport in Marseille.

There are about 480,000 players licensed with the Fédération Française de Pétanque et Jeu Provençal (FFPJP). The FFPJP is the 4th-largest sporting federation in France. These licensed players play a more competitive form of Pétanque known as Pétanque Sport.

The first World Championships were organized in 1959. The most recent championships were held in Faro, Portugal (2000), Monaco (2001), Grenoble (2002), Geneva (2003), Grenoble (2004), Brussels (2005), and Grenoble will host 2006. Fifty-three countries participated in 2004 and the number is growing every year.

The playing area should be at least 15 meters (49 ft) long, by 4 meters (13 ft) wide.

The boules are made of metal and weigh between 650 g and 800 g, with a diameter of between 71 mm and 80 mm. The jack is made of wood or synthetic material and has a diameter of between 25 mm and 35 mm.

A complete game is usually played up to 13 points.

Paintball is a sport in which participants use compressed air guns called markers to shoot paintballs (marble-sized, .68 caliber, gelatin capsules filled with colored polyethylene glycol “paint”) at other players.

Paintball is in essence a complex form of tag, as players struck with paintballs during the game are eliminated.

Paintball draws a wide array of players worldwide, and the Sporting Goods Manufacturer’s Association estimates that approximately 10 million people play annually in the United States alone.

Like many sports, safe participation in paintball requires observance of proper safety procedure. When safety rules are followed, paintball is extremely safe, with an injury rate of only 0.2 injuries per 1,000 exposures.

Paintball Velocity - In addition to the mandatory use of masks, paintball markers must not fire paintballs that exceed a certain velocity. The industry standard maximum velocity is 300 feet per second (about 200 miles per hour).

Players eliminate each other from the game by hitting their opponent with a paintball. Players are generally considered ‘hit’, ‘marked’ or ‘tagged’ when a paintball shot by another player strikes and breaks on the player leaving a paint mark.

Some rules require that a player within a certain distance of an unaware opponent (usually 10 to 15 feet) must demand the unaware player’s surrender (by yelling “Surrender!” or “Mercy!”) before they may open fire.

In almost all tournament play, there is no surrender rule, and if a player catches an opponent off guard, they are free to fire at him.

Paddleball is an American ball game that consists in hitting a small rubber ball against a single wall by using paddles. It can be played in singles (1 versus 1) or in doubles (2 versus 2).

The general rule of the game is that the ball must hit the wall without touching the court floor more than once to be a valid rally.

The balls are usually of the colors black, blue, green and originally, the paddles were made of wood, although new materials have replaced them throughout the years (such as graphite and titanium paddles).

Tournaments are ruled by the American Paddleball Association.

The history of the game is somehow undocumented, but it obviously origins from American handball which consists of hitting the ball with the bare hands or a gloved palm.

The game is popular in places where the weather permits outdoor plays such as New York, Florida, New Jersey, Connecticut, California and Puerto Rico, although indoor courts, albeit rare, exist.

Due to the cold weather in north American states, the players carved wooden paddles to hit with to relieve the pain from the cold.

National Paddleball Association is a league which supports and promoted the growth of paddleball.