Leisure Sports (2170)

There are many sporting activities that are a part of daily American life. Skating, certainly, is one widespread activity, with most cities, large and small areas for use as skating rinks in the North. Skiing, sledding and tobogganing are equally popular.

Hunting and fishing are extremely popular in all parts of America and have been since the days when they were necessary activities among the early settlers. Great part of the country is covered with forests and filled with wildlife: wild deer, wild turkeys and bears. In the states of the Midwest and West there is a lot of wild game, and hunting there is very popular.

There is a great amount of rivers and lakes in the country, which favour enthusiasms for fishing. Minnesota advertises itself as "the land of 10,000 lakes". This is not quite true: there are more, about twice that number. Finding enough water is no problem for most Americans, and where there is water, there are boats. In Minnesota and Arkansas one out of seven people owns a boat. Fishing is so popular in Minnesota that when a recent survey showed that 97 per cent of all kids in the state went fishing, a newspaper asked "What on earth went wrong with the other three per cent?"

All water sports and activities are very popular, including swimming, diving, sailing, canoeing, water skiing, white-water rafting, power-boat and "off-shore" racing. Many Americans, of course, like to go to the-beach on a hot summer day, swim a bit, and then take a nap in the sun.

There are also several sports in the U.S., which have gained international popularity lately. Among these, for example, there is skate-boarding and wind-surfing which very quickly spread in popularity from the beaches of California and Hawaii. Hang-gliding became really popular after the people in California started jumping off cliffs above the ocean.

Swimming-jogging, cycling and calisthenics can be done in company with family members and friends, have no real age limits, and are performed more for health and fun than for competitions.

The fitness boom of the past decades led to a big rise in the numbers of people participating in sports and activities. Americans pay much attention to physical fitness. To cater to the fit­ness boom and provide the up-to-date facilities people want, a lot of private health and fitness clubs, as well as public leisure centres have been built during some past decades in America. These modern centres with their swimming pools, gyms and indoor courts for tennis and other sports, are competing with clubs and cinemas as places for people to go to spend their leisure time.

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