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Visita Mikael Books en Facebook para ver más contenido de libros en inglés.

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Unit 17, page 282. Read.

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Are sports still sporting?

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As I write this editorial, preparations for the 2016 Summer Olympics are in full swing in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

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This international competition seems likely to be a big success,

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with 206 countries expected to participate in the first games ever to be played in South America.

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The 2012 Summer Games in London, England, and the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, were artistic triumphs.

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The popularity of sports worldwide continues to rise.

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But while sports may look good on the surface,

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problems lurk underneath.

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For one thing, there's a vast overemphasis on fame and the worshipping of famous athletes.

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Then there's the increasingly large role money is playing in sports today,

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since there are ever-increasing possibilities for product endorsement by athletes.

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Finally, sports violence has certainly not diminished.

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In April of 2013, for example,

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a coach in an amateur team,

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in a amateur soccer game in Salt Lake City,

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was punched in the face by a player because he had penalized that player.

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The coach later died from the injury.

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What is wrong?

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I've concluded that the whole sports scene is in need of repair

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and have identified three major excesses.

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First excess, misplaced focus on fame.

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When the Olympics began about 2,700 years ago in Greece,

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the contests were derived from war.

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The javelin throw, for example,

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paralleled the throwing of a spear in a battle.

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Running paralleled the physical exertion you might have to make

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if an enemy was chasing you.

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When the modern Olympic Games started in 1896,

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the philosophy had shifted to the promotion of peace.

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However, emphasis was still placed on demonstrating physical stamina and excellence

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in challenging contests.

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How things have changed.

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Although athletes still try to achieve their personal best,

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the focus has shifted to the breaking of records and the achievement of fame.

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Can we really say that someone who finishes the 400-meter freestyle swim

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one-tenth of a second ahead of his or her nearest rival is a champion

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while that rival is an also-ran?

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Second excess, money.

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Consider the cost of attending a major athletic competition.

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In the United States, the average cost of a ticket to a National Football League game in 2015

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was about $84.

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If you add up the cost of taking a family of four to a game,

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the total was over $440.

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A ticket to an NBA basketball game is about $52.

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Baseball is cheaper, though it's not really a bargain.

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At an average, it's about $50.

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Baseball is cheaper, though it's not really a bargain.

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Baseball is cheaper, though it's not really a bargain.

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Baseball is cheaper, though it's not really a bargain.

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The average ticket cost of about $30.

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I wondered why tickets are so expensive

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until I remembered the key factor,

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players' salaries.

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NBA basketball star LeBron James earns about $23 million a year.

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Baseball player Alex Rodriguez made about $22 million in 2015.

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Is anyone worth that much money?

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Meanwhile, the President of the United States

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earns $4.

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thousand dollars a year, and U.S. public school teachers make a median yearly salary of about

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fifty-three thousand dollars. We can infer a lot about what we value by looking at what we pay

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people. When we compensate professional athletes so highly, are we rewarding the people who are

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truly valuable to society? Third excess. Prevalence of violence. We see it wherever we look, and it's

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certainly not decreasing. Fights occur frequently in professional sports, with ice hockey one of

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the worst offenders. In one of the best-known cases, for instance, NHL player Steve Moore had

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to be hospitalized because another player hit him in the head with his hockey stick.

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Unfortunately, it's not always the case. It's not always the case. It's not always the case.

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Fortunately, there seems to be increasing acceptance of violence as just part of the

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game. But once we assume violence is inevitable, it will be almost impossible to stop. This sort

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of thing doesn't just happen in North America. We've all heard about the well-publicized violence

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surrounding soccer games in Europe. In another example that occurred in December of 2012,

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a Dutch amateur linesman was beaten to death after a youth

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match concluded. Sports have enormous potential to benefit society, but somehow, in becoming big

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business entertainment, they have gone awry. What to do? Well, we can pay more attention to local

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athletics and events such as the Special Olympics. We can refuse to pay ridiculously high ticket

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prices. We can demand an end to violence. Above all, we need to get back to this

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situation. We need to get back to this situation. We need to get back to this situation. We need to

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get back to this situation. We need to get back to this situation. We need to get back to this situation.

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It's not whether you win or lose. It's how you play the game.