A winter sport is a sport which is played on snow or ice.^[1] Most such sports are variations of skiing, ice skating and sledding. Traditionally such sports were only played in cold areas during winter, but artificial snow and ice allow more flexibility. Common individual sports include cross-country skiing, Alpine skiing, snowboarding, ski jumping, speed skating, figure skating, luge, skeleton, bobsleigh and snowmobiling. Common team sports include ice hockey, curling and bandy. Winter sports often have their own multi-sport tournaments, such as the Winter Olympic Games.

List of winter sports[link]

Note: an asterisk indicates that a particular sport is included in the Winter Olympic Games, as of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.

[edit] Ice skating

• Figure skating *
• Short-track speed skating *
• Speed skating *
• Synchronized skating

[edit] Skiing

Skiing

• Alpine skiing *
• Biathlon *
• Cross-country skiing *
• Freestyle skiing *
• Kite skiing
• Mogul skiing*
• Monoskiing
• Newschool skiing
• Nordic combined *
• Ski archery
• Skiboarding
• Skibob
• Skijoring
• Ski jumping *
• Snowkiting
• Snowshoe
• Speed skiing
• Speed riding
• Telemark skiing

[edit] Sledding

Sports that use sleds going down ice tracks or pulled by something:

• Airboard
• Bobsled *
• Dogsled racing
• Ice blocking
• Luge *
• Skeleton *
• Wok racing

[edit] Snowboarding

• Alpine snowboarding *
• Boardercross *
• Freestyle snowboarding *
• Slalom *

[edit] Snowmobiling

• Free style
• Snow-cross
• Recreation
• Cross-country
• Hill climbing

[edit] Team sports

• Bandy
• Broomball
• Curling *
• Ice hockey *
• Ice stock sport
• Ringette
• Sledge hockey - (winter Paralympic sport)
• Snowball fight - (last one standing)
• Snowman building - highest one
• Snow rugby

Recreational sports[link]

Some 'sports' are competed (or simply enjoyed) on a more casual basis, often by children:

• Building snowmen
• Ice boating or sailing
• Ice fishing
• Ice swimming
• Shinny
• Snowball fight
• Tobogganing

Notable winter sporting events[link]

• Winter Olympic Games
• Asian Winter Games
• Winter Paralympic Games
• Winter Universiade
• Winter Dew Tour
• Winter X Games

See also[link]

• Outline of sports
• Outdoor activity

References[link]

• "Winter Sports: Sport guides". BBC Online. 2010-02-20. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/winter_sports/sport_guides/default.stm. Retrieved Feb 22, 2010. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Winter sports

Kaj Munk from the De Wervelwind, February 1944.

Kaj Harald Leininger Munk (commonly called Kaj Munk) (13 January 1898 – 4 January 1944) was a Danish playwright and Lutheran pastor, known for his cultural engagement and his martyrdom during the Occupation of Denmark of World War II. He is commemorated as a martyr in the Calendar of Saints of the Lutheran Church on 14 August, alongside Maximilian Kolbe.

Biography[link]

He was born Kaj Harald Leininger Petersen on the island of Lolland, Denmark, and raised by a family named Munk after the death of his parents. From 1924, he was the vicar of Vedersø in Western Jutland.^[1] The dramas of Munk were mostly performed and made public during the 1930s, although many were written in the 1920s. Much of his work is a contribution to the "philosophy-on-life debate" (religion - Marxism - Darwinism) which marked much of Danish cultural life during this period.

On one occasion, in the early 1930s, in a comment that came back to haunt him in later years, Munk expressed admiration for Hitler (for uniting Germans) and wished that the same kind of unifying figure could be found for Danes.^[2] However, Munk's attitude towards Hitler (and Mussolini) turned to outspoken disgust, as he witnessed Hitler's persecution of the German Jewish community, and Mussolini's conduct of the war in Ethiopia. In 1938 the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published on its front page an open letter to Benito Mussolini written by Kaj Munk criticising the persecutions against Jews.^[1]

Early on, Munk was a strong opponent of the German Occupation of Denmark (1940–1945), although he continually opposed the idea of democracy as such, preferring the idea of a "Nordic dictator" who should unite the Nordic countries and keep them neutral during periods of international crisis. His plays Han sidder ved Smeltediglen ("He sits by the melting pot") and Niels Ebbesen were direct attacks on Nazism. The latter, centering on the figure of Niels Ebbesen, a medieval Danish squire considered a national hero for having assassinated an earlier German occupier of Denmark, Count Gerhard III, was a contemporary analogue to World War II-era Denmark.

He was arrested and subsequently assassinated by the Gestapo on the night of 4 January 1944 at Hørbylunde, near Silkeborg. His body was found in a roadside ditch the next morning. His death motivated the Danes, who until then had resigned themselves to German occupation, to rise against their foreign oppressors.^[1]

Playwright[link]

He often used a historical background for his plays - among his influences were William Shakespeare, Adam Oehlenschläger, Henrik Ibsen, and George Bernard Shaw.^[3] In his dramas Munk often displays a fascination for "strong characters" and integrated people who fight wholeheartedly for their ideals (whether good or bad). In his play En Idealist, for example, the "hero" is King Herod whose fight to maintain power is the motive behind all of his acts until he is at last defeated by a show of kindness to the Christ child in a weak moment. I Brændingen is a camouflaged portrait of Munk's antagonist, the anti-religious Georg Brandes whose atheism also impressed him.

His 1925 play Ordet (The Word) is often said to have been his best work; it is an investigation of miracles from the unique (at least, to theatre) viewpoint of one who was not prepared to dismiss them. A family of farmers - of differing degrees of faith - find themselves reconciled to their neighbours through a miracle. A 1955 film version of Ordet was directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer, and won the Golden Globe Award that year for Best Foreign Language Film.^[4]

His plays, many of which have been performed at the Royal Theatre, Copenhagen, and elsewhere, include:

• Pilatus (1917. Published 1937),
• Ordet (tr. The Word) (1925),
• Kærlighed (1926),
• En Idealist (1928),
• I Brændingen (1929),
• Kardinalen og Kongen (1929),
• Cant (1931),
• De Udvalgte (1933),
• Sejren (1936),
• Han sidder ved Smeltediglen (1938),
• Egelykke (1940),
• Niels Ebbesen (1942),
• Før Cannae (1943).

His play Niels Ebbesen has been translated into English (2007) by his granddaughter Arense Lund, and Dave Carley.

References[link]

External links[link]

• www.kajmunk.dk
• www.kajmunk.hum.aau.dk