Gymnastics
Gymnastics is a sport involving the performance of exercises requiring strength, flexibility, balance and control.
Swimming
Swimming is an individual or team sport and activity. Competitive swimming is one of the most popular Olympic sports, with events in freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly.
Horseback Riding
Horseback riding (or Equestrian) is one of the most intense sports known to man. Not only because it’s physically challenging, but it takes more than athleticism. Horseback riding takes commitment, time, patience, and most importantly building a bond with your horse. If you don’t have a good relationship with your horse, you’re not going to have a good experience. You need to spend as much time with your horse as you can, riding and on the ground. You need to learn how to work with your horse, not against your horse.
Figure Skating
Figure skating is a sport in which individuals, duos, or groups perform on figure skates on ice. It was the first winter sport included in the Olympics, in 1908. The four Olympic disciplines are men’s singles, ladies’ singles, pair skating, and ice dance.
Ice Hockey
You can imagine Zdeno Chara as a star basketball player, or Pavel Datsyuk as a speedy soccer player. You can even imagine Jarome Iginla playing professional baseball because he actually did. But can you imagine LeBron James, Cristiano Ronaldo, or Miguel Cabrera quickly getting into hockey? No. None of them have likely ever worn ice skates. While anyone can mount a horse, throw a football, wrestle, or row with a slight amount of practice (I understand the difficulty of becoming skilled), hockey requires the ability to skate. And not just a little bit. You NEED to be an excellent skater to play the game at all. Hockey is tough.
Water Polo
Nobody’s ever attempted to rip my swimsuit off and use me as a human backboard while swimming – just at water polo. As someone who does both sports, I’d say that water polo is definitely tougher. It requires more stamina to continually release in the water and sprint back and forth. Even when you have moments of rest, you’re still treading water, which takes energy.
Freestyle Wrestling
Competition cheerleading? Are you serious? How does that make any sense? You’re competing, and you have to have spot-on timing and accuracy. In wrestling, you need not only your own accuracy but also precision to a tee. Mess up a move, and you’re broken. I’m talking metal plates attached to collarbones and potentially life-ruining accidents. There’s no one else to help you. There’s no “team” on that mat. It’s just you and the other guy, nine minutes, and a lot of pain. If you get hurt, you keep wrestling. If you’re bleeding, you keep wrestling. I’ve watched guys with broken collarbones continue wrestling because they felt as though they had to. The level of dedication it takes to wrestle is unmatched by any other sport, period.
Wrestling
Wrestling is a combat sport involving grappling type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds.
Cross Country
I have seen runners chewing on their own jerseys as they push towards the last stretch of a course. This sport is both mentally and physically challenging. I’ve also seen athletes sail across the finish line in record time, only to throw up anything they may have had in their empty stomachs. As any parent of a cross-country athlete will tell you, most athletes don’t eat right before running.
Bull Riding
Bull riding is a rodeo sport that involves a rider getting on a bucking bull and attempting to stay mounted while the animal tries to buck off the rider.American bull riding has been called “the most dangerous eight seconds in sports.” To receive a score, the rider must stay atop the bull for eight seconds with the use of one hand gripped on a bull rope tied behind the bull’s forelegs.
