All over the world people enjoy sports. Sports help to keep people healthy, happy and help them to live longer.

Sports change with the season. People play different games in winter and summer. Games and sports often grow out of people's work and everyday activities. The Arabs use horses or camels in much of their everyday life; they use them in their sports, too.

Some sports are so interesting that people everywhere go in for them. Football, for example, has spread around the world. Swimming is popular in all countries near the sea or in those with many rivers.

Some sports or games go back thousands of years, like running or jumping. Chinese boxing, for example, has a very long history. But basketball and volleyball are rather new. Neither one is a hundred years old yet. People are inventing new sports or games all the time.

People from different countries may not be able to understand each other, but after a game they often become good friends. Sports help to train a person's character (性格). One learns to fight hard but fight fair, to win without pride and to lose with grace (优雅).

I loved weightlifting and began to do that at 12 years old. During my first year of high school, increased the amount of training and put everything into my dream to one day compete internationally. Unfortunately, I was not a naturally-gifted athlete. But I worked hard. When I was a senior in high school, I won two national championships and earned nine national-level medals in all.

However, I didn’t make it to compete for Team USA. I didn’t meet the requirements for the IWF Youth World Championships team and was later an alternate(侯补者) for the Pan-American Youth Championships team. I struggled to accept the fact that I never achieved the one goal I worked for during the last four years, representing Team USA internationally. I lost the passion I once had for the sport and took a step back from competing for a few months.

After I started college, I once again came into contact with barbells(杠铃) during my PE classes. Once I touched the barbell again, I just wanted to continue lifting weights and see how far I could physically and mentally push myself. I decided to start training full-time again to see what I could achieve during the rest of my college years.

I stopped caring about the weight on the bar, the girls I was competing against and the idea of being on Team USA. I started focusing on being confident and consistent with every lift-training with consistent weights on the barbells, skills and positive self-encouragement. Training and weightlifting became a competition with myself, rather than with other weightlifters.

During University Nationals 2022, I represented Temple as a university student. It was the first competition in my eight years of competing where I felt confident during every lift. The work I put into the six minutes spent on the lift paid off in every way. Later, I became a 2022 All-American athlete and finally made my first international team.

Ways to Encourage Your Kids to Love Sports

From watching the live game to practising skills with your kids, there are so many ways to get them involved(参与) and benefit from all that sports have to offer!

【小题1】, but also it offers many benefits, including bodily benefits like improved health and fitness, mental benefits, including improved confidence, happiness and behaviour, and social benefits, such as making friends, improving communication skills and learning how to work as a team. 【小题2】.

Find out what kind of sport your kids enjoy playing.

【小题3】, or watch on TV and what sports they like to talk about with their friends. Let them choose the kind of sports that is the most fun for them and you'll see their love towards sport to develop rapidly.

Read, watch and learn.

A great way to inspire a love of sports is by reading and watching movies about famous athletes. 【小题4】 and let them experience the energy and excitement of the sport first-hand.

【小题5】.

There's always the chance that your kids might lose interest after trying out new sports. Offer them the chances to try out all different sports and see what they like best.

Get involved but not too involved.

Show interest in your kids' new sports hobby. Just make sure not to become too involved! Make sure that fun is always the focus — at the end of the day, what's most important is that your kids are having a good time!