All about Sports

These days, on a world scale, sport is one of the most important mass phenomena. Annually, the number of sports is growing, with greater or lesser success in respect to popularity. We are presently witnessing the emergence of new sports where physical contact between athletes is prevalent. On the other hand, there are also new sports which do not involve such contact. The emer-gence of sports lacking physical contact is motivated by the fact that the practice of sport is an environment propitious to aggressive behaviour and even violence, in spite of the observance of rules.
It would be impossible to prevent the birth of new sports, of any type, since to invent, perfect and introduce something new is in the nature of all men, including sportsmen.
So we should rather focus on the way to eliminate all the negative phenomena associated with new sports or established sports for that matter.
All athletes want to win at all costs and this sometimes means violating the written or unwritten rules of sport which can only lead to the progressive degradation of the athlete as a person. I am thinking of doping. Contemporary science is very advanced and pharmacological preparations are being replaced by new sub-stances. In order to win and on the advice of his coach or physician, the athlete will take these substances, heedless of their effects. What is important is to win, to win at all times, without caring if this means violating the rules. If athletes, as well as coaches and doctors can allow morality to prevail over the impure wish to win at any price, the desired result will be achieved. All of us who are gathered here, must provide the guarantee that the respect of ethical rules will be at the top of the athletes' value list and that all athletes will be modern knights demanding equal com-petition conditions for themselves and their opponents.