
 
 82
Text 1 
    Sports and Games 
 
The United States of America is a sport-loving country. Thousands of peo-
ple, old and young, go in for sports. The most popular games in the USA are 
baseball and basketball. 
A lot of people practise various forms of athletics, such as running, jump-
ing, swimming, rowing and ets. There are many athletic halls and swimming 
pools in the USA. But in America people prefer open-air games, such as playing 
golf, tennis, beach volleyball as well as football. It is important to note that they 
call this game soccer because they play American football the rules of which 
differ from those of the European football. 
As far as England is concerned football, cricket, tennis and golf are the 
most favourite games. The first world tennis championship took place at Wim-
bledon in 1877. Now the Wimbledon championships are considered to be the 
most prestige for tennis players. 
Millions of people like to w atc h the c hampions hip on TV. There are all 
kinds of racing in England: motor-racing, horse-racing, boat-racing, and even 
dog-racing. But boat-racing between Oxford University and Cambridge Univer-
sity is the most popular. Usually it takes place on the River Thames and a lot of 
people go there to watch the winner. 
And, of course, all know English football fans to be crazy about their 
teams. Thousands of football fans follow their football teams in order to support 
them. Sometimes instead of being helpful to the sportsmen they do harmful 
things and spoil the image of the game. 
In our country many people are fond of sports too. Such games as football 
and ice-hockey are very popular in our country. We are proud of taking part in 
World Championships and Olympic Games. We are also proud of winning in 
some kinds of sport.