The Paralympic Games: Resourcefulness, Determination, Spirit, Courage, Integrity

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The Paralympic Games are a major international multi-sport event where athletes with a physical disability compete; this includes athletes with mobility disabilities, amputations, blindness, and cerebral palsy. Wednesday, August 29, 2012 sees the start of the Paralympic Games.

The Paralympics have grown from a small gathering of British World War II veterans in 1948 to become one of the largest international sport events by the early 21st century.

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10 College Mascots That Are Really Strange And How They Came To Be

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Forget about what's happening on the college playing field. The real action is often on the sidelines or in the stands as team mascots, often costumed as fierce animals, drive fans to a screaming frenzy against the opposition and lead them in shouting their favorite team to victory. They're everywhere.

And they are animals! Well, many of them are, anyway. All during the contest, no matter what the game, the crowd is fired up by the likes of bulldogs, panthers, eagles, tigers, squirrels and anteaters. Some college mascots simply are truly weird... and every one of them has an interesting story to tell. Here are 10 of those most interesting college mascot stories.

(thanks Kat)

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A Brief History Of Formula 1

Find out how Formula 1 grew from being a 12 mph race around the streets of Paris in the 19th century, to being the big business, global phenomenon it is today. The evolution of Formula 1 is an eye-opening journey, which provides an interesting insight into how motor sports has grown and adapted through the years, taking full advantage of innovations in technology along with the tenacity and daring of drivers to become a multi-million pound sport's industry.

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Hey, That's My Bike!

You can't really blame him, they do all look the same.



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London 2012: 20 Olympic Oddities

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Most people are probably aware that Usain Bolt is the 100m Olympic champion, Team GB have done rather well and that Michael Phelps can swim a bit, but what about the less obvious details of the Olympics?

For example, why has the British national anthem been modified for medal ceremonies? Why have some of the athletes blue tongues before they do their events? And what are these little Minis running across the grass at the athletic events?

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Leader, But Never The Winner

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The capacity crowd at the Olympic Velodrome roars in anticipation. Six highly trained and fit cyclists set off on a race for gold. And leading the way is a 65-year-old man on a motorbike. One of the more incongruous sights at the Olympics has been Peter Deary, who drives the derny, a two-stroke motorized bicycle that leads the riders in the keirin race.

The derny driver leads the riders for the first five and a half laps of the race; they may not pass him. Then he pulls off the track, and the riders sprint to the finish for the final two and a half laps, about 600 meters.

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Tennis 'Grunt-O-Meters' Aim To Cut Shrieks

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Anti-grunting measures on the tennis court could soon be served up for young players, in a bid by the Women's Tennis Association to shush next-generation talent before they pick up the distracting habit. The WTA is reviving talk of equipping officials with a 'grunt-o-meter,' a hand-held instrument that would allow umpires to dock female players who shriek too loudly during play.

Grunting during women's tennis matches was mostly unheard of until former world No. 1 player Monica Seles broke onto the tournament scene in the mid-1990s and made it popular. Since then, there has been a dramatic rise in on-court grunting. The tennis association plans to teach junior players not to imitate offending tennis idols such as Victoria Azarenka and Maria Sharapova - whose loud wails have become so notorious that they've been dubbed tennis 'scream queens.'

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The Olympics' 15 Most Terrifying Mascots Ever Created

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Why are all Olympic mascots so weird and creepy?
Here are some of the all-time most nonsensical mascots from the Olympics.

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Why Are So Many Of The Olympic Athletes Wearing Bright Green Shoes?

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If you were wondering why so many of the track and field athletes at the Olympics were wearing bright green shoes, here's why: they're all Nike athletes. And Nike has decided to go uniform across the globe on bright green shoes to grab your attention.

Known as 'Volt', the shoes are striking against the red track in London. Nike says that out of all the colors on the rainbow, the human eye is most sensitive to the yellow/green zone. That means the Nike shoes the Olympians are wearing reflect more light than nearly anything on the field. The shoes are there to be bright and bold so you look at them... and want to buy them.

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All The Medalists: Men's 100-Meter Sprint

Usain Bolt vs. 116 years of Olympic sprinters. His 9.63 set an Olympic record in the 100. Based on the athletes' average speeds, if every Olympic medalist raced each other, Usain Bolt (the London version) would win, with a wide distribution of Olympians behind him. So how far ahead of every Olympic medalist is he?

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The Lonely Man's Olympics

A lonely man fills his time by competing in his very own Olympics on his own.



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A Brief History Of Bottle-Throwing

On Sunday night in London, a (likely drunken) 'fan' threw a bottle at the start of the Olympic men's 100-meter final. Luckily, no one was hurt - except the man who threw the bottle, who happened to be standing next to Dutch world judo champ Edith Bosch, who 'hit him on the back.'

The incident outraged spectators and judges alike, and of course made for bad Bob Costas jokes. But there's actually quite a long history of bottle-throwing, specifically. And sometimes even riots. Here are some highlights of bottle-throwing.

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10 Insanely, Incredibly Close Olympic Finishes

Every Olympics produces at least a couple of nail-biting finishes, races so close we yell ourselves hoarse screaming at the television, as if that would push the athletes just a little bit harder. The job of measuring finishes that close falls to the Olympic timers, a team of 450 technicians who use more than 400 tons of equipment to ensure peerless accuracy timing.

But sometimes even the very finest in timing technology is not enough. Dead heats are rare, but not unheard of, as we saw during the 1984 Summer Games when Nancy Hogshead and Carrie Steinseifer registered the same time in the 100-meter freestyle. Both won gold, the first double-gold in swimming history. Close finishes are what give the Games their excitement.

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5 Olympians Who Sold Their Gold Medals

Mark Wells from the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team didn't part with it lightly: he sold it to help pay for medical treatments related to a rare genetic disease that damaged his spinal cord. He sold the medal to a private collector, who in turn sold it through an auction house for $310,700 in 2010.

You wouldn't know it with all of the hype surrounding the Olympics right now, but there are things more important than winning a gold medal. Just ask these athletes, who had good reason to sell their hard-earned precious metal.

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Five Olympians Who Won Fame By Losing

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National pride sometimes trumps competitiveness at the Olympics. Some fans are just happy to see local heroes in the spotlight, whether they go home empty-handed or even hardly know the sport.

The tradition of spectacular failure at the Olympics dates back to the inception of the modern Games in Athens in 1896, when Great Britain's George Stuart Robinson's discus throw of about 82 feet set a world-record low that stands to this day. Here are five athletes throughout recent Olympic history who won fame by losing.

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Why Do Olympians Wear That Colorful Tape?

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You may have first noticed the markings on the synchronized swimmers' backs. Or cascading down a beach volleyball player's chiseled abs. Birthmarks? Accessories? A bizarre form of intimidation? No, no, and no. The answer is Kinesio tape. And, yes, it's all the rage in the sports world. So, what is this tricked-out injury treatment?

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The 6 Worst Scandals In Olympic History

If you follow the Olympic Games in London you've probably heard about those women's badminton games that were thrown - first by a Chinese pair and then by three others from South Korea and Indonesia, leading to the disqualification of all eight players.

But it was far from the first scandal to hit the Olympics in recent history. Here is a brief tour through six of the most scandalous.

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The Secrets Behind National Anthems

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They are songs of pride and patriotism, booming out at every international sporting fixture and medal ceremony. But behind the world's national anthems lurk some strange and surprising stories.

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Your Olympic Athlete Body Match

Olympic athletes come in all shapes and sizes, from the lithe limbs of Japan's Asuka Teramoto to the gargantuan frame of China's Zhaoxu Zhang. But how do you measure up in comparison? Type in your height and weight and find your Olympic athlete body match.

My athlete body match is Osman Murillo from Costa Rica who competes in judo.

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The Greatest And Most Dangerous Race Course In The World

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Snaefell Mountain Course is a road-racing street circuit used for the Isle of Man TT and Manx Grand Prix Races held in the Isle of Man from 1911 and 1923 respectively. The racing is held on public roads. It is the oldest motor-cycle racing circuit still in use.

Cars have never raced on the mountain course. In fact, they've only run on the closed course a handful of times, one of which occurred last year when Subaru persuaded the organizers to let World Rally Championship driver Mark Higgins flog a mostly stock Impreza WRX STI at full tilt. He set a lap-time record for production cars at 19 minutes 37 seconds and averaged 115.4 mph.

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