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Contact sport
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A (full) contact sport is a sport which includes significant physical contact between the athletes involved. Examples of contacts sports are: Rugby football, American football, Ice Hockey, Australian Rules Football, Lacrosse and Amateur wrestling. Full-contact martial arts include e.g. boxing, MMA, puroresu, Muay Thai, judo, or kyokushin karate. Also, kick-boxing in the early seventies in the USA was born as an attempt to introduce full contact to karate. Examples of non-contact sports are: Table Tennis and Badminton.
A semi-contact sport is typically a combat sport involving striking and which contains physical contact between the combatants simulating full-power techniques. The techniques are restricted to limited power, and rendering the opponent unconscious is forbidden. Such sports usually use a point system to determine the winner, and use extensive protective gear to protect the athletes from injury. Examples of semi-contact sports include Taekwondo (under ITF rules), amateur kick-boxing and various styles of Kung Fu that incorporate semi-contact rules sparring. Debate is also an example of a non-contact sport. Soccer is sometimes considered a contact sport.
A light-contact sport is sometimes distinguished from the above. In martial arts it refers then to sparring smilar in style to fencing, where only touching the oponent (or, in case of hits and kicks to the head, just marking the blow) counts. Occasional or deliberate hits are counted against the hitter and may be the reason for disqualification. Light-contact combat sports include some styles of karate (e.g. shotokan).
Current medical terminology in the United States uses the term collision sport rather than contact sport to refer to American football, lacrosse, and ice hockey. The term contact sport is used to refer to sports, such as basketball and association football that allow limited contact. For example, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a policy statement in 2001 entitled "Medical Conditions Affecting Sports Participation" that included the following definitions:
| “ | In "collision" sports (eg, boxing, ice hockey, football, and rodeo), athletes purposely hit or collide with each other or inanimate objects, including the ground, with great force. In "contact" sports (eg, basketball and soccer), athletes routinely make contact with each other or inanimate objects but usually with less force than in collision sports. | ” |
This terminology may have evolved from a quote from Vince Lombardi, who is reported to have said, "Football isn't a contact sport; it's a collision sport. Dancing is a contact sport." This quotation is also attributed by some sources to Michigan State Coach Duffy Daugherty.
