Australian Open

The Australian Open is a major tennis tournament held annually over the last fortnight of January in Melbourne, Australia. First held in 1905, the tournament is chronologically the first of the four Grand Slam tennis events of the year – the other three being the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open. It features men's and women's singles; men's, women's and mixed doubles and junior's championships; as well as wheelchair, legends and exhibition events. Prior to 1988 the tournament had been played on grass. Since 1988 two types of hardcourt surfaces have been used at Melbourne Park – green Rebound Ace to 2007 and blue Plexicushion from 2008.

The Australian Open typically has high attendance, second only to the US Open. It was also the first Grand Slam tournament to feature indoor play during wet weather or extreme heat with its three primary courts, the Rod Laver Arena, Hisense Arena and the refurbished Margaret Court Arena equipped with retractable roofs.

History

The Australian Open is managed by Tennis Australia, formerly the Lawn Tennis Association of Australia (LTAA), and was first played at the Warehouseman's Cricket Ground in Melbourne in 1905. This facility is now known as the Albert Reserve Tennis Centre.

Badminton

Badminton is a racket sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per side) and "doubles" (with two players per side). Badminton is often played as a casual outdoor activity in a yard or on a beach; formal games are played on a rectangular indoor court. Points are scored by striking the shuttlecock with the racquet and landing it within the opposing side's half of the court. Each side may only strike the shuttlecock once before it passes over the net. Play ends once the shuttlecock has struck the floor or if a fault has been called by the umpire, service judge, or (in their absence) the opposing side.

The shuttlecock is a feathered or (in informal matches) plastic projectile which flies differently from the balls used in many other sports. In particular, the feathers create much higher drag, causing the shuttlecock to decelerate more rapidly. Shuttlecocks also have a high top speed compared to the balls in other racquet sports.

Sydney Olympic Park

Sydney Olympic Park is a large sporting, cultural and leisure complex in a suburb of inner west Sydney. It is also an official suburb of Sydney, commonly known as Olympic Park but is officially named Sydney Olympic Park. Sydney Olympic Park is located 16 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of Auburn.

The area was redeveloped for the 2000 Olympics. The facilities built continue to be used for sporting and cultural events, including the Sydney Royal Easter Show, Sydney Festival, Stereosonic, Big Day Out, Soundwave, Sydney 500 and a number of world-class sporting fixtures. The suburb also contains commercial development and extensive parklands. The area was originally part of the suburb of Homebush Bay, but was designated a suburb in its own right in 2009.

History

The Wangal clan of Indigenous Australians lived in the area before British settlement. The area was called "The Flats" by a scouting party shortly after the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788. It became part of the Newington Estate in 1807, which was acquired by John Blaxland. The Government acquired some of the land for an aged women's home in the late 19th century. Much of the land was reclaimed from the river and wetlands by landfill.

Olympic Park

An Olympic Park is a sports campus for hosting the Olympic Games. Typically it contains the Olympic Stadium and the International Broadcast Centre. It may also contain the Olympic Village or some of the other sports venues, such as the aquatics complex in the case of the summer games, or the main ice hockey rink for the winter games. The Olympic Park is often part of the "legacy" which provides benefit to the host city after the games have ended. As such it may subsequently include an urban park and a museum or similar commemoration of the games that were hosted there.

The 1908 Olympic organising committee specified "As far as possible all the competitions, including swimming, archery, fencing, wrestling, &c., will be held on the same site in which the amphitheatre for the track-athletics and cycling will be erected." Not every games has a centralised complex of this type. The 1992 and 2010 Winter Games had widely dispersed venues; "Whistler Olympic Park" was the venue for the nordic skiing events in 2010. Venues of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro will be split among four "clusters" rather than concentrated in a single Park.

Sydney Olympic FC

Sydney Olympic Football Club is an Australian semi-professional soccer club, based in Belmore, Sydney, New South Wales, that plays in the NSW Premier League. Founded as Pan-Hellenic Soccer Club in 1957 by Greek immigrants, the club changed its name to Sydney Olympic and in 1977 competed in the Phillips Soccer League, later named the National Soccer League, the inaugural national football league of Australia, until the league's demise in 2004.

Sydney Olympic have won many trophies in Australian football, including two National Soccer League Championships, two National Soccer League Cups, the National Soccer League Minor Premiership and two NSW Premier League Championships. The club has also won the Johnny Warren Cup, the Brett Emerton Cup, the National Youth League Championship, the National Youth League Minor Premiership and the NSW Premier League Club Championship.

Sydney Olympic has traditionally been one of the most well supported football teams in Australia, setting numerous domestic crowd attendances. A crowd of 18,985 attended Sydney Olympic's victory over Northern Spirit in 1998 at North Sydney Oval, a record crowd attendance between two clubs during the regular season of the NSL, defeating the previous record of 18,367 set when Newcastle KB United played Sydney Olympic in 1979 at Marathon Stadium. The greatest crowd attendance for a Grand Final was recorded during the 2001/02 season when 42,735 people were present at Subiaco Oval to see Sydney Olympic defeat Perth Glory.