How Sports Changed the Renaissance
Sports are a lot of fun, but sometimes they can get a little overboard. If you or your child has ever seen a professional basketball or football game and felt like you were part of the action, then you will know exactly what I mean. But if you have ever been involved in any type of recreational sports, then you will understand that sometimes the competition is so fierce, it can make people almost feel like they want to give up. The problem with sports, at its core, is that in order to be good at them, you need to have an ability to discipline yourself in order to maintain a high level of performance, as well as a capacity to enjoy yourself and perhaps, just maybe, to make a few friends along the way. And sometimes that can take more than just one person to keep you going!
In the early 20th Century, organised sports competitions began to appear regularly in many sporting events. This began to remove much of the ‘personal competition’ which existed in previous decades, as the organisers wanted to provide a competitive yet controlled environment, where there could be an incentive for each competitor to strive harder. The first modern sports competitions appeared in the form of the very first World Cup, held in Germany in 1900. This competition marked the first step towards professional sport, when organisers began placing bets and offering prize money to the winning teams. The world has not looked back since.
The first major development in modern sports took place in the form of the international tennis tournaments, which began to take place in the 19th Century. At first, the idea of putting a man on top of a tennis court and calling him a winner seemed to be a bit strange, even for sports enthusiasts. However, with time and technology, this perception has changed greatly. Today, tennis courts are no longer reserved for the rich, and the athletes have been transformed from merely players, into celebrities, on par with the rest of us.
Sports, both old and new, have been a part of renaissance in the modern era. One of the most noticeable changes is the growing number of international sports tournaments, especially in basketball, which have been held in different countries over the last century. With the help of modern technology and better infrastructure, these international competitions have become truly international, with even some of the least popular countries in the world, like Venezuela, becoming regular fixtures of the season.
The 19th century witnessed the beginning of professional baseball and other sports competitions, with the first European ever World Series. A century later, the creation of the first modern sports league in the world, the Olympics, paved the way for further developments in sports management. The creation of the modern Olympics in athletics has helped organise sporting events across all areas of the globe, including games for the Olympic Games and various sports disciplines. The Olympics have also enabled people across the world to celebrate their common heritage through sporting events.
Gymnastics and the rest of the family of sports were left out of the picture during the early years of the new millennium, when the creation of the Olympics and its accompanying sports events made it clear that people from a wide variety of cultures and nationalities can compete in the Olympic Games. Thus, the modern gymnastic disciplines were not created until after the Renaissance. In addition to this, many sports were introduced to the arena of the Renaissance, most notably wrestling, which was probably taken up as a rough and tumble game. However, despite the introduction of modern sports in the Renaissance, some of the most famous sports of the time, such as fencing and gladiator combat, were ignored or banned altogether, as they were considered too violent for the times.