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pentathlon

(Encyclopedia)pentathlon pĕntăthˈlən [key], composite athletic event. In ancient Greece it comprised leaping, foot racing, wrestling, discus throwing, and casting the javelin. The modern pentathlon, an Olympic ...

Wambach, Abby

(Encyclopedia)Wambach, Abby (Mary Abigail Wambach) wämˈbäk [key], 1980–, American soccer player, b. Rochester, N.Y. A forward, she was the all-time leading scorer for the Univ. of Florida Gators (1998–2001)....

Szewińska, Irena

(Encyclopedia)Szewińska, Irena, 1946–2018, Polish sprinter and long jumper, b. Leningrad (now St. Petersburg, Russia) as Irena Kirszenstein, grad. Univ. of Warsaw, 1970. In her first Olympics (1964), she won sil...

skeleton, in winter sports

(Encyclopedia)skeleton, in winter sports, a type of small, very low, steel-frame sled on which one person, lying face down, slides headfirst down snowy hillsides or down steeply banked, curving, iced chutes similar...

Lillehammer

(Encyclopedia)Lillehammer lĭˈləhämər [key], town (1995 pop. 24,170), capital of Oppland co., S Norway, at the northern end of Lake Mjøsa. It is a commercial center for the fertile Gudbrandsdalen valley and is...

Harold V

(Encyclopedia)Harold V or Harald V, 1937–, king of Norway (1991–); son of Olaf V. He lived in exile in Washington, D.C., during World War II and was educated at Oslo Katedralskole before taking up a military ca...

Garmisch-Partenkirchen

(Encyclopedia)Garmisch-Partenkirchen gärˈmĭsh-pärˌtənkĭrˈkhən [key], town, Bavaria, S Germany, in the Bavarian Alps, at th...

Ederle, Gertrude Caroline

(Encyclopedia)Ederle, Gertrude Caroline āˈdərlē [key], 1905–2003, American swimmer, b. New York City. Ederle won three medals in the 1924 Olympic games. On Aug. 6, 1926, she became the first woman to swim the...

Nadal, Rafael

(Encyclopedia)Nadal, Rafael (Rafael Nadal Parera), 1986–, Spanish tennis player, b. Majorca. Widely regarded as the greatest clay-court player ever, “Rafa” turned professional at 15. In 2005 he won his first ...

bobsledding

(Encyclopedia)bobsledding, winter sport in which a bobsled—a partially enclosed vehicle with steerable sledlike runners, accommodating two or four persons—hurtles down a course of iced, steeply banked, twisting...