If I said the word, 'sports' to you, what's the first word that comes into your mind? Would it be ... football, Olympics, rugby, athletics, running, training, or something else? Why not try it out on your friends? Record the first thing they say ... is there a pattern with their answers? There are so many different sports. Click on the icons to read some strange descriptions of three well-known ones. Can you work out which sports they are describing? Click here to see if you were right! Imagine you have to describe another well-known sport to an alien from Pluto - which sport would you choose and how would you describe it?

	In poorer countries, children often have to make their own equipment to play their favourite sports, like these cricketers in Pakistan and these footballers in Kenya - what have they used to make the game possible? © Dermot Tatlow/Panos Pictures © Crispin Hughes/Panos Pictures Some children from poorer backgrounds go on to become world famous sports stars. Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Rivaldo all grew up in shanty towns in Brazil. Like many other football stars, they have been 'bought' by richer clubs in Europe. Today, some of the best football teams in the English Premiership or the Spanish La Liga have almost no local players at all! This is great for football fans like me, but some footballers still have to face racism from some so-called fans. These racists shout abusive names or even use violence just because of differences in skin colour or background. If you feel angry about this, visit www.kickitout.org - this website tells you about racism in football, and what we can do to kick it out!

	Last year, the Rugby Union World Cup was held in Sydney, Australia. Twenty teams from all over the world took part. The table shows how far each team travelled to reach the World Cup but it is not complete! A Team/Country B City C Total distance travelled (rounded off to the nearest hundred kilometres) D Who travelled the furthest? Australia Sydney 0 20th Argentina Buenos Aires         Ireland Dublin     Namibia N/A 11,100   Romania Bucharest     Scotland N/A 17,200   France N/A 16,900   Fiji Nandi     Japan Tokyo     USA New York     South Africa     Durban     England London     Samoa N/A 4,300   Georgia Tbilisi     Uruguay Montevideo     New Zealand Wellington     Wales N/A 17,100   Italy Rome     Canada Vancouver     Tonga N/A 3,400   To finish the table: Click here to print out the table. Visit www.indo.com/distance/. On the webpage, type in the first box the city and country name (for instance, Buenos Aires, Argentina for the first one) for each team, and type in Sydney, Australia in the second box. Click on 'look it up' to get your answer each time. Write down the distances in kilometres in column C, rounding them off to the nearest hundred. In column D, write 1 for the team that travelled the longest distance, 2 for the team that travelled the second longest distance, and so on. Click on the rugby ball to see if you were right! Some teams not only travelled a long distance to Australia, but they also went through many 'time zones'. For instance, the England team went through ten time zones, so that they were ten hours ahead of their watches and clocks when they arrived in Australia. But they did come back home as World Cup winners! To find out more about time zones, go to www.globaleye.org.uk/primary_summer2002/eyeon/index.html Other countries don't play or don't like rugby - they have their own favourite sports and pastimes. Click on the hotspots on the map to see which sports are the most popular in different places.