Olympics Tennis

The Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games is Canada’s time to showcase its exceptional athletic achievements. The spectacular cultural performances show the world that Canada is a community of immense diversity filled with talented people.

Mascots have become important and popular representatives of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. They bring warmth, fun, and excitement to the games. Tourists from all over the world delight in the antics of these lovable mascots.

Each host Country and region designs their mascots to represent the culture and ideals of that country. The mascots are often the storytellers of the games and symbolize the values of the athletes. The host province of the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games is British Columbia but contributing provinces and territories include Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador, Manitoba, and the Yukon. The four host First Nations include: Lil’wat First Nation, Musqueam First Nation, Squamish First Nation, and the Tsleil-Waututh First Nation

The role of the mascot has made significant advancements. Imagination and creativity are poured into mascot designs resulting in a tremendous line of collectables, toys, and other mascot paraphernalia. Canada and the province of British Columbia have carried on the tradition of creating mascots that emanate pride, celebration, diversity, inspiration, and the Olympic spirit.

Vancouver 2010 Mascots 1. Miga is a snowboarding sea-bear inspired by the First Nations’ legends of the Pacific Northwest. Miga is part sea-bear and part orca whale and has been described as mischievous and outgoing. Snowboarding is Miga’s favorite winter sport. She is a young sea bear who lives in the ocean with her family pod, beyond Vancouver Island, near Tofino, British Columbia. Miga is part Kermode bear, a rare white bear that only lives in British Columbia. The Kermode bear is a rare white or cream-colored sub-species of the black bear located along the central West Coast of British Columbia. According to First Nations’ legend, Kermode bears were turned white by Raven to remind people of the Ice Age. Orcas are revered by West Coast First Nations as travelers and guardians of the sea.

2. Quatchi is a young Sasquatch who comes from the deep Canadian forests. The Sasquatch is a well known character in local native legends of the Pacific West Coast. Quatchi enjoys exploring new places and making new friends. Quatchi is a bashful and kind Sasquatch. He has a long brown beard and blue earmuffs. His large size makes him a bit uncoordinated. Quatchi’s favorite sport is hockey and his dream is to become a famous goalie. He is eager and understands that working hard is a key component of realizing your dreams.

3. Sumi is an animal spirit who lives in the mountains of British Columbia. Sumi’s name comes from the Salish word Sumesh which means guardian spirit. He has wings of a Thunderbird that allow him to fly and the furry legs of a bear. The bear often represents strength and friendship. Sumi is a leader dedicated to protecting and conserving our water, land, and the critters that make it their home. Sumi loves every sport of the Paralympic games.

4. Mukmuk is a small and sociable Vancouver Island marmot. Mukmuk gets his name from the word ‘muckamuck,’ which is Chinook dialect for ‘food.’ Mukmuk loves to eat and cheer for the athletes during races and games. His favorite foods are berries and mountain flowers. He is an honorary member of the mascot team.

These sweet and cuddly mystical creatures symbolize the strength and transformation of the athletes while showcasing First Nation culture. Audiences will find the mascots of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games entertaining, educational, and memorable.

One of the world’s oldest (and largest) tennis tournaments, the US Open has been held annually since 1881. This is the fourth and final tournament of the Grand Slam tour and is held beginning in late August and concluding in early September. There are championship events in the following categories which are held at the US Open: Men’s and Women’s Singles, Men’s and Women’s Doubles and Mixed Doubles. IN addition, the tournament features Seniors, Juniors and wheelchair events.

The US Open is atypical for the Grand Slam in that the winners in these events are the winners of the final set’s tie break instead of the best of 5 sets (in Men’s) or best of 3 sets (Women’s) used in Wimbledon.

Like the rest of the Grand Slam, the US Open is a prestigious event; while there is no royalty in attendance as at Wimbledon, the tournament draws thousands of people from all over the world. The players compete for over $20 million in prizes, with the purses being larger than in the other Grand Slam tournaments. There are more than 600 players in each year’s tournament.

The US Open is held in Queens, New York at the Flushing Meadows-Corona park USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. The court is not held on turf or grass like you would expect at the Wimbledon. This tennis court is made of acrylic.

With so much money in prizes to go around, there is intense competition and a great deal of interest on the part of players in entering the tournament. Winners of the championship events receive a whopping $1.5 million, with half as much going to runners-up, $320,000 to the semifinalists and half of this amount to quarterfinalists. There are smaller cash prizes as one goes on down the line. Even players who get nowhere near to capturing a championship still stand a chance of winning substantial prizes in the US Open.

There are many prizes for US Tennis Open winners that are not in the singles events. The money for winners of doubles is split up in 7 different ways and totals $1.8 million. The mixed doubles event totals $500,000 in prizes. Men’s and women’s qualifying events of 128 draws pays out up to $1 million. The total player compensation to players in the event totals $20,657,000 in prize money.

Since there is simply so much prize money to go around, quite a few players go home with heavier wallets than is the case in other Grand Slam tournaments. Cash prizes are awarded to winning players in a large number of different events, making the US Open a perennial favorite with tennis fans and players alike, even in the rarified climate of the Grand Slam tour.

Every four years, thirty two teams from around the world compete in one of the biggest tournaments in all of sports. The World Cup is the world championship tournament for the sport of soccer and it brings with it the same excitement and fan-fair as that of the Olympic Games. The most recent World Cup tournament, held in 2006, was the eighteenth in the tournaments history and was played in Germany.

Upwards of two hundred countries compete to qualify in the World Cup, which is soccer’s biggest stage, but only thirty-two of those teams actually get to play in the tournament. The bulk of the tournament is played in a round-robin style over the course of nearly a month in the host nation, the final (16th) round is an elimination round in which teams that are defeated are eliminated from the tournament.

Who Won the 2006 World Cup? The last incarnation of soccer’s biggest tournament pitted rival nations Italy and France against one another. It was a close and hard fought match that saw Italy take the win, and the World Cup Championship, as a result of penalty kicks after the end of the match’s regulation. The game was loaded with excitement and controversy, as in the latter part of the game one of France’s most talented and popular players was ejected due to a flagrant foul. Lots of talk after the game questioned whether the outcome of the game would have been the same if he had been playing during the final minutes and in the penalty kick shootout instead of watching from the sidelines. This was Italy’s fourth World Cup win, which places them second in overall wins behind perennial soccer powerhouse Brazil.

Host country Germany didn’t win the World Cup, nor did they play in the final match but they still had a fantastic showing at the 2006 World Cup. Germany played in the game to decide third place in the tournament and defeated Portugal, who is often considered among the best teams in the world, by a score of three to one.

Recent World Cup Results In the three World Cup tournaments prior to 2006, the powerful Brazilian team appeared in each final match - winning the tournament in 2002 by defeating Germany and in 1994 by defeating Italy and losing to France in 1998. The two World Cup wins for Brazil gave the country a total of five since the tournaments inception and making them the winning-est team in World Cup history.

The 2002 World Cup saw two surprise teams vie for third place as two teams who had never before appeared in a final game in the World Cup faced off. The game pitted Turkey against the Korea Republic and saw Turkey edge out a very close three to two victory.

1998’s tournament also brought shock in the game for third place as surprise Croatia, who had never before even seen action in the final four of a World Cup tournament, defeated the Netherlands, who seems to always be in contention and who finished second in both the 1974 and the 1978 World Cup tournaments.

Despite the fact that the next World Cup final round won’t begin for nearly eighteen months, there is already excitement building about the event. The 2010 World Cup tournament will mark the first time in tournament history that the finals have taken place in South Africa. The South African team, as the host country, will receive automatic qualification to appear in the tournament and 204 other nations will play for the thirty one remaining spots.

The 2006 tournament had the largest viewing audience of any World Cup tournament on television and as the popularity of soccer continues to grow and gain momentum in countries the world over - the 2010 version of the tournament promises to have even more viewers watching than 2006. If you thought is on World Cup seeking a sports travel expert.

From being a timid suburban child in Saginaw, Michigan, Serena Jameka Williams became an outstanding tennis player that currently ranks as the world no.1 by the Women’s Tennis Association as of February 2, 2009. At 27, she holds the current titles of the US Open and Australian Open singles champion, has won 20 Grand Slam titles (10 singles, 8 women’s doubles, 2 mixed doubles) and is considered the most recent tennis player to have held all four Grand Slam titles simultaneously. With all her successes as an athlete, Serena has won more career prize than any other woman athlete in any sport. In the 2005 issue of the Tennis magazine, Serena Williams was named as the 17th best athlete of the preceding years. Along with her female tennis player sibling, Venus Williams, there is more to see for this woman in action.

Williams is the youngest of the family’s five daughters. She was born in Saginaw, MI but moved with her family to Los Angeles while still very young. Her father Richard wanted to see his daughters achieve success as tennis players and began coaching them himself, playing on Compton’s public courts. Out of the Williams sisters, Serena and her sister Venus were especially talented players; Serena in fact won her first tournament while not yet five - by the time she reached the age of ten, she had won no less than forty-six tournaments!

The Williams family chose to home school their children; and fearing that they would be exposed to the ugliness of racism, decided to stop sending the sisters to national junior’s tennis tournaments. Serena was sent to a Florida tennis school operated by the professional player Rick Macci. While at the school, she often trained with Andy Roddick. In one practice match, she even defeated this seasoned player.

Years of constant training have made Serena Williams the almost unbelievably skilled athlete that she is today. She primarily is a baseline player, but she has a very aggressive style which focuses on taking control of rallies, making her a fearsome opponent. Her strokes, whether serves, groundstrokes or returns have a lot of power behind them. She is one of the most powerful servers ever to play the game, with serves often reaching 120 mph (and in Charleston in 2008, she hit record breaking 127 and 129 mph serves). Her return serves are no less impressive - opponents are sometimes simply overpowered by her phenomenal skills, which include the ability to hit flat serves and topspin serves at either corner of the service box.

Aside from her playing style, Serena is also known for her unusual and colorful outfits on court. Her family has opened a clothing line named Aneres. She also made several television and movie appearances. She also posed for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. She eventually made a lucrative career as a product endorser. In May 2004, Serena William’s partnership with Nike debuted custom-designed sports apparel. Serena also received the Celebrity Role Model Award from Avon Foundations in 2003 for her participation in the breast cancer drives. She also had her charities to spend time with off the court. In November 2008, she funded the construction and completion of a secondary school in Kenya.

If you are one of those people who want to shop on online shoe stores but are hesitant to push through with it for fear of the unfamiliar, then this article is for you. Here in this article, we will shed light on the difference between shopping on actual stores and shopping online. We will also highlight the different benefits that you can have when you are doing your shopping online.

Greater accessibility The internet is a wonderful place where in people just about any where can connect with one another. Today, it is being tapped by businesses because of its unwavering reach and accessibility. In essence, your business will be able to reach over a billion people world wide. This type of reach plus the easy way to access web pages through the internet is the formula for success when going into online shoe business.

The other reason why more and more people are going online to shop for shoes is because they are very easy to go to. The main thing about anything online is that they are readily available to anybody who has access to the internet. It does not matter if you are at your own house, if you are on you cubicle in the office, or if you are on vacation on some remote place ” as long as you have access to the internet you can shop online

Also, time is not a factor when you are doing your shopping online. There are no store hours. They are open twenty four hours a day, seven days a week and they are ready to serve you all the time. Payment is also a breeze. That means you no longer have to stand in queue or fight in line.

However, the best part about ordering your shoes through the internet is that there are no lines when you pay. Dont you just hate it when you are at a store and you have to queue up along a very long line of people to wait for your turn? That does not happen when you shop online. There are different varieties of payment schemes that you can choose from ” the most popular being credit cards and cash on delivery.

But do you know what the best part about ordering your shoes through the internet? It is their return policy. Most people are afraid of ordering online because of fear that they are going to pay for the shipping of their orders upon return.

If this is your only concern then you not need to worry because almost all online shoe stores have a return policy that includes free shipment of the products. Just make sure that the shoes that you will be returning is in the condition that it was in when you first received it.

Born in Saginaw, Michigan, Serena Williams is currently the top ranked female professional tennis player in the world. Only 27 years old, Williams is also the current US and Australian Open singles champion, the winner of 20 Grand Slam titles in total (10 in singles, 8 women’s doubles and 2 mixed doubles) and is the most recent player to have held all four of the Grand Slam titles at the same time. Serena Williams is universally acknowledged as one of the greatest athletes ever to pick up a racket, being named the 17th best athlete by Tennis magazine in 2005. She still has much of her career ahead of her; and along with her sister Venus, she is one of the most popular players in the world of tennis.

The youngest of five children, her family moved to Los Angeles, where her father decided to begin coaching all of his children in tennis on the public courts in Compton. Serena and her sister Venus especially took to the game, with Serena willing her first tournament before the age of five! By the time she was ten, she had already won 46 tournaments.

The Williams children were all homeschooled; their father stopped sending his tennis playing daughters to national junior tournaments, fearing that they would have to deal with racism on the court. Instead, he sent Serena to Rick Macci’s tennis school in Florida, where she trained with Andy Roddick (who Williams actually defeated in a practice match).

Through the years of her intense training, Serena became an outstanding athlete. Although she is primarily a baseline player, she builds her game around taking immediate control of the rallies, making her known as an aggressive player in court. She delivers powerful and consistent serve, return serve and groundstrokes on both forehand and backhand wing. With her playing style, she consistently delivers powerful and smooth motion serves, which was noted as the best in the women’s game. Her serves even earned the respects of the crowd of the WTA tour. Serena frequently hits at 120 mph. she even made record with her 127 and 129 mph serve in 2008 at Charleston. Her capability of overpowering her opponents when returning serve is absolute with her ability to hit flat and topspin serves on both corners of the service box.

Aside from her playing style, Serena is also known for her unusual and colorful outfits on court. Her family has opened a clothing line named Aneres. She also made several television and movie appearances. She also posed for the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. She eventually made a lucrative career as a product endorser. In May 2004, Serena William’s partnership with Nike debuted custom-designed sports apparel. Serena also received the Celebrity Role Model Award from Avon Foundations in 2003 for her participation in the breast cancer drives. She also had her charities to spend time with off the court. In November 2008, she funded the construction and completion of a secondary school in Kenya.

13 Grand Slam singles titles, 4 Tennis Masters Cup titles, 14 ATP Masters Series titles and an Olympic Gold Medalist; Roger Federer is every inch a fine athlete. He currently holds many noteworthy titles in the tennis world. He had appeared in 10 consecutive Grand Slam single men’s finals of the Wimbledon Championships in 2005 through the 2007 US Open. He managed to secure 19 consecutive Grand Slam singles semifinals and holds outstanding records for the most consecutive in over 65 grass courts and 56 hard courts. For 237 consecutive weeks dating from February 2, 2004 to August 17, 2008, he was the number 1 tennis player in the world. He was even given the honor of the prestigious Laureus World Sportsman of the Year from 2005 to 2008. Today, Roger Federer ranks as world no. 2.

Roger Federer was born in August 8, 1981 in Basel, Switzerland. He spent most of his childhood in Munchenstein, Switzerland near the French-German boarders with his parents- Swiss-German Robert Federer and South African Lynette Federer. He was raised as a Roman Catholic and was even given the honor of meeting Pope Benedict XVI while playing at the 2006 Internazionali BNL d’ Italia tournament held in Rome. Although Federer considers French-Germa as his native language, he can speak German, French and English fluently.

Even at the age of six it was obvious that Federer was a born athlete. He begun tennis lessons at the age of nine, working under the tutelage of a private coach by the time he was ten. Federer also played football and cricket as a teenager; both of which he also showed great potential for. However, he ultimately decided to make his career in tennis, though he continued to play cricket in the off-season. He had won all of the national championships open to him at the age of fourteen, being awarded with the opportunity to train at the Ecublems-based Swiss National Tennis Center. Feder joined the ITF junior tennis circuit in 1996, turning pro by 1998; this year saw him winning the ITF Junior Tennis championship as well as the junior WInbledon and the Orange Bowl.

Most tennis players are specialists who play their best on a particular type of court. However, Federer is well known for is performance on courts of all types. As one sportswriter said, you can be a clay court specialist, a hard court specialist or a grass court specialist - or you can be Roger Federer. Federer uses a hybrid semi-western and eastern grip and is best known for his powerful, precisely aimed groundstroke; although his volleys are also certainly something to behold.

Roger Federer has earned an incredible 57 singles titles in his career and has been named by Time magazine as one of the most influential people (in 2007). Federer is active in charity work, having established the Roger Foundation in 2003; the group works to help the disadvantaged and to promote sports to youth. We have yet to see the best years of Federer’s career; it is easy to forget that he is only 27 when you consider how much he has already achieved.