Olympics Lingo

by Cindi SutterFounder of The Spirited Table® - content from visualthesaurus.com

The 2016 Summer Olympics will begin this August. Learning some of the lingo of these sports can let you into the athlete's world just a little bit, even if you have terrible balance or can barely tread water.

The Games of the 31st Olympiad, The Summer Olympics, begin on August 5, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Olympics stirs up a one-of- a-kind combination of patriotism and athletic competition that make it required viewing for two weeks every two years. With  the exception of events like soccer and basketball, most of the events are sports that we see only during the Olympics. Watching them is like entering a different world, or learning a new language. The commentators try to guide the viewer, but it can be difficult to get your head around what a "reverse 2.5 somersault pike with 1.5 twists" is, exactly, never mind thinking of someone actually performing one and landing safely in a pool Each of the twenty-eight sports that make up the Rio Summer Olympics is like that, with a jargon and a tradition all its own. Here I'll be exploring some of the language specific to some popular Summer Olympic events.

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