Contact sport

Many sports involve a degree of player-to-player and/or player-to-object contact. The term "contact sport" is used in both team sports and combat sports, medical terminology and television game shows, such as the Gladiators and Wipeout, to certain degrees. Contact between players is often classed by different grades ranging from non-contact, where there is no contact between players, to full-contact or collision sports, where the rules allow for significant physical contact.

Current medical terminology in the United States uses the term collision sport rather than contact sport to refer to Rugby football, American football, Ice hockey, and Lacrosse. The term contact sport is used to refer to sports, such as association football^{[citation needed]} 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, 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), athletes routinely make contact with each other or inanimate objects but usually with less force than in collision sports.

—Committee on Sports Medicine and Fitness, American Academy of Pediatrics, [1]

This terminology may have evolved from a quote attributed to both Vince Lombardi^[1] and Duffy Daugherty:^[2] "Football isn't a contact sport; it's a collision sport. Dancing is a contact sport."^{[citation needed]}

Contact sports have a higher risk of transmission of blood-borne disease between players.^[3]

Injuries and legal issues

Many sports will penalise contact sport with the rules for certain situations or instances to help reduce the incidence of physical trauma or litigation for assault or grievous bodily harm^{[citation needed]}. Many sports involve a degree of player-to-player and/or player-to-object contact. The term "contact sport" is used in both team sports and combat sports, medical terminology and television game shows, such as American Gladiators and Wipeout, to certain degrees. Contact between players is often classed by different grades ranging from non-contact, where there is no contact between players, to full-contact or collision sports, where the rules allow for significant physical contact.

Equipment

As a result of the risk of injury, some sports require the use of protective equipment, for example American football protective equipment. Some sports are also played on soft ground and have padding on physical obstacles, such as goal posts.

The cost of equipment can be an obstacle to participating in many sports.

Social

There is a perception among some sections of western society^[who?] that full-contact sports are barbaric, prone to sporting violence, thuggery, and tend to cause injuries. In the United States, this has led to the phenomenon of the soccer mom and a general increase in sports with less contact. There is a predicted trend away from participation in non-contact sports.^[4] Full contact however is seen as a major component of rugby union in the guise of rucks and mauls and is unlikely to be ever removed.

In some societies, contact in sports can have an influence on the attitudes of sex roles^{[citation needed]}.

Trends

Because of the issues raised above, many sports are reducing their levels of contact. In recent years, very few sports governing bodies have encouraged aggression and rough play.

Grades

Full-contact

A (full) contact sport is any sport in which significant physical impact force on players, either deliberate or incidental, is allowed for within the rules of the game.

Contact actions include tackling, blocking and a whole range of other moves which can differ substantially in their rules and degree of application.

Examples of contact sports are: Australian rules football, rugby, American football, lacrosse, water polo, wrestling, sumo, European team handball, and ice hockey. Full-contact martial arts include boxing, MMA, taekwondo (under WTF rules), puroresu, jujutsu, Muay Thai, judo, Unifight, and various forms of full contact karate. Also, kickboxing in the early seventies in the United States was born which introduced a controlled version of full contact to martial arts.

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.

Some semi-contact sports 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 karate, kick-boxing, and various styles of Kung Fu that incorporate semi-contact rules sparring or Kendo.

Another indicator of a semi-contact martial arts competition system is that after a point is rewarded the adversaries will be separated and resume the match from safe distance, but often it is possible to argue if some martial arts sports belong in one contact group or another.

Limited-contact

Limited-contact sports are sports in which the rules are specifically designed to prevent contact between players either intentionally or unintentionally. Although contact can still happen, strong penalties are often used to disallow substantial contact between players. These penalties, including physically removing players from the field of play, mean that contact is moderate or rare. Examples include baseball, basketball, association football, field hockey, netball, squash, running.^[5]

Non-contact sports

Non-contact sports are sports where participants compete alternately, in lanes, or are physically separated such as to make nearly impossible for them to make contact during the course of a game without committing an out-of-bounds offense, or more likely, disqualification. Examples include precision sports such as golf or curling, bodybuilding, tennis, cricket, volleyball, swimming, sprinting, and gymnastics.

However, there is still opportunity for indirect contact, such as being hit with a ball, whether deliberately or not. Most notably, in cricket, players can intentionally hit another player with the ball (bodyline or bouncers), which can often cause injury similar or worse in severity to those suffered in full contact sports.

References

1. ^ "My Thoughts on Sports". mythoughtsonsports. http://www.mythoughtsonsports.com/. Retrieved 2009-04-25. 
2. ^ "Duffy Daugherty quotes". thinkexist. http://thinkexist.com/quotes/duffy_daugherty/. Retrieved 2009-04-25. 
3. ^ Blood Borne Diseases and Contact Sports
4. ^ http://www.sportdevelopment.org.uk/dupfuture2004.pdf
5. ^ http://pediatrics.about.com/od/exerciseandfitness/a/0806_restrictns.htm