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Bolaño, Roberto

(Encyclopedia)Bolaño, Roberto bōlänˈyō [key], 1953–2003, Chilean novelist widely regarded as the most influential Spanish-language writer of his generation. He led a peripatetic life, and his fictional prota...

biathlon

(Encyclopedia)biathlon bīăthˈlŏn [key], sport in which cross-country skiers race across hilly terrain, occasionally stopping to shoot, prone or standing as required, with rifles at sets of fixed targets. The bi...

iceberg

(Encyclopedia)iceberg, mass of ice that has become detached, or calved, from the edge of an ice sheet or glacier and is floating on the ocean. Because ice is slightly less dense than water about one ninth of the to...

dog racing

(Encyclopedia)dog racing, trials of speed between dogs. Now contested on oval tracks, the sport developed from the ancient practice of coursing, in which specially trained dogs chase game animals in the open field....

weight lifting

(Encyclopedia)weight lifting, international sport, also a training technique for athletes in other sports. From the earliest times men have lifted weights as a test of strength. Long popular as a competitive sport ...

glacier

(Encyclopedia)glacier, moving mass of ice that survives year to year, formed by the compacting of snow into névé and then into granular ice and set in motion outward and downward by the force of gravity and the s...

mountain climbing

(Encyclopedia)mountain climbing, the practice of climbing to elevated points for sport, pleasure, or research. Also called mountaineering, it is practiced throughout the world. Many mountain climbing clubs have...

canoeing

(Encyclopedia)canoeing, sport of propelling a canoe through water. John MacGregor, an English barrister and founder of the Royal Canoe Club (est. 1865), is generally credited with being the initiator of modern spor...

equestrianism

(Encyclopedia)equestrianism, art of riding and handling a horse. Horseback riding was practiced as far back as the Bronze Age and was thereafter adapted to commerce, industry, war, sport, and recreation. Diverse st...

judo

(Encyclopedia)judo jo͞oˈdō [key], sport of Japanese origin that makes use of the principles of jujitsu, a weaponless system of self-defense. Buddhist monks in China, Japan, and Tibet developed jujitsu over a per...