Bullfighting is a spectacle in which men ceremonially fight with—and in Hispanic tradition—kill bulls in an arena for public entertainment.

Bulgarians take pride in the antiquity and diversity of their sports, which include football (soccer), rugby, gymnastics, weightlifting, bowling, ice-skating, and swimming.

The 2004 Open Championship of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club (R&A) marked the 133rd time the contest was held since its inception on Prestwick’s twelve-hole course on 17 October 1860.

Foreigners—first the colonizing Portuguese and then British, French, Italian, and German immigrants and black slaves—played an important role in the development of sports in Brazil.

Sports organizations, such as professional teams, college athletic departments, health clubs and even athletes, increasingly view themselves as brands to be managed.

Boxing means fighting with one’s fists. Up until the twentieth century, the sport based on boxing was prizefighting in which two men fought bare knuckled for money.

Bowls and bowling include a group of activities that involve rolling or throwing balls at targets with the intent of hitting or knocking them over.

The Boston Athletic Association’s Boston Marathon, inaugurated just one year after the modern marathon was introduced at the 1896 Olympics, arguably remains the most prestigious running event in North America, and one of the most celebrated in the world.

Boomerang throwing is a recreational and competitive sport in which participants try to achieve specified effects in their throws: accuracy, speed, distance, tricks, extended time aloft, and the like.

As well known internationally as the beaches of Waikiki, Acapulco, and Miami, Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, embodies a sense of place and a way of life synonymous with a hedonistic culture of sun, sand, and surf.

The history of bobsledding as an organized and identifiable sport stretches back for over a hundred years.

Ice boating (also called “ice yachting”) is a fast-paced winter sport that uses a boat propelled by wind.

Arowing competition is held annually in late March or early April between the boat clubs of Oxford and Cambridge, two of England’s oldest and most prestigious universities.

Bislett Stadium is located in Oslo, Norway. The stadium, known simply as “Bislett,” for decades hosted speed skating in the winter and track and field and football (soccer) in the summer.

Biomechanics is a relatively new subdiscipline of kinesiology, although some people use the terms biomechanics and kinesiology interchangeably.

Billiards is descended from a fourteenth- or early fifteenth-century northern European lawn game played with balls.

Biathlon and triathlon are multisport endurance races.

Belgium, with a population of about 10 million, is situated at the cultural crossroads of Europe.

Baton twirling is the sport of manipulating metal rods to create choreographed routines incorporating diverse patterns of movement.

The sport of “basket ball” was first played in December 1891 in a Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) gymnasium located in Springfield, Massachusetts; eighteen players were involved in the initial game.

Not surprisingly, most of what is written about baseball is about the men who play the game, with little attention given to life at home or to their wives and families.

Baseball stadiums or “ballparks” are magical places for players and fans alike.

Nicknames are more common in childhood than later in life—except in sports.

Baseball most likely evolved from the British batand-ball games of cricket and rounders or perhaps from the more ancient English game of stool ball.

The sport of ballooning is a study in contrasts. The balloon simply drifts with the wind, but its pilot must understand the complex meteorological conditions that cause that wind.

Badminton, which some people call “the world’s fastest racket sport,” is played with shuttlecocks (lightweight conical objects with rounded noses) and rackets on a court divided by a net.

Automobile racing began in France in 1894 when the magazine Le Petit Journal organized a point-topoint race to test performance.