5–6 CLIL |  History and PE B2

1 Work in pairs. Look at the sports and categorise them into 20th century,
19th century or earlier according to when you think they originated.

baseball | cycling | football | golf | judo | rugby | snowboarding | tennis

2 Read the text. How did sport evolve in Ancient Greece?

The Sporting Times

A history of sport
Although it’s impossible to know for sure, it’s generally
considered that the first ever sports were probably individual
sports like running and swimming, and combat sports like
wrestling and boxing. Prehistoric cave paintings show
evidence of humans doing these activities as far back as
17,500 years ago.
It’s most likely that sport evolved as part of basic
human development – the need to adapt to nature and the A modern-day marathon
environment, to exercise and to be strong, fit and useful for
fighting and defence. three hours. Nowadays, as well as being an Olympic event,
It was in Ancient Greece that sport was formally more than 500 marathons are run in the world every year,
established, however. There is extensive evidence of Greek often with thousands of competitors.
sporting events dating back more than 3,000 years, including Many sporting events took place in stadiums, and the
gymnastics and funeral games in the form of competitive Olympia stadium is the oldest known. Inspired by the Greeks,
races held to honour deceased soldiers. In time, this interest the Romans started building stadiums too, and in AD 80
in athletics led to the Olympic Games™, the world’s first construction was completed of the Colosseum in Rome,
sporting contest, in 776 BC. The competition began with which was able to hold 80,000 spectators. It was used for all
just one event – a 200-metre sprint, which was the length of sorts of large public performances from theatre dramas to
the stadium in Olympia where the games were held – and sports like gladiator contests.
gradually grew to include other sports, like wrestling, javelin They say that the first ball sport could well be a Mayan
throw, discus throw, long jump and chariot racing. game, called pitz, played about 3,000 years ago in what is
now modern-day Mexico, and which consisted of hitting
a ball with stones, bats or body parts. Other countries that
have a sporting history going back more than
2,000 years include Ireland, where the ancient
team sport of hurling is still played today.
So a lot of sports have their origins in
prehistory or ancient times, and many of them
evolved over time to form the modern sports that we
know today. ■
The Colosseum in Rome
The Irish sport of hurling
The games continued every four years until
AD 393, and then declined when Greece came
under Roman rule. The modern Olympics were
resurrected in 1896, and the organisers wanted
to include an event that remembered the glory of
Ancient Greece. They chose the marathon, a
long-distance race of 26 miles named after a
famous Greek legend in which a messenger
called Pheidippides succeeded in running this
distance from Marathon to Athens in about

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This sheet may be photocopied and used within the class.
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 5–6 CLIL |  History and PE
3 Read the text again and then choose T (True)
or F (False) for the statements below.
1 The first sports must have been
team sports.
2 Sport originally developed because
people were bored and uninspired in
prehistoric times.
3 We know about the earliest sports thanks to
evidence recorded thousands of years ago. T / F
4 The Olympic Games was a sporting contest
in Ancient Greece that continued for more
than 1,000 years. T/F
5 Athletics includes sports such as long
jump, running and javelin throwing.
6 The marathon became an Olympic event
in AD 393.
7 The Roman stadiums were built for a
variety of events.
8 Pitz is a ball sport played in Mexico today. T / F
4 Read the statements. Write the correct
numbers from the article.
1 the year of the world’s first sporting
competition 
2 the length of a marathon race 
3 the number of spectators the
Colosseum in Rome could hold  discus [n]:  a heavy, round, flat object thrown as part
4 the year the marathon was
introduced to the Olympic Games  extensive [adj]:  very large in amount or degree
5 the length of the Olympia Stadium 
6 the history of hurling in Ireland  someone dies
5 Work in pairs and discuss these questions.
1 Do you know of any sports which had their
origins in your country? Do you know anything
about their history?
2 How important do you think it is to participate in
a sport?
DID YOU KNOW?
The Olympic Games
❍ The first Winter Olympics were held in 1924 in
Chamonix, France.
❍ The USA has won more medals (2,520) at the
Summer Olympics than any other country up
to 2016.
❍ Norway has won more medals (303) at the Winter
Olympics than any other country up to 2016.
❍ The five Olympic rings represent each of the
five major continents – Africa, Asia, Europe, the
Americas and Australasia.
❍ Michael Phelps from the USA has won the most
Olympic medals in history – a total of 28 overall
for swimming.
Optimise B2 Optimise B2 Teacher’s Resource Centre © Macmillan Publishers Limited 2017.
This sheet may be photocopied and used within the class.
B2
PROJECT
6 Work in pairs and choose a sport that
interests you both. Find out about its
T/F
origins. Think about the following:
• how old it is
T/F
• why it started and how it developed
• whether it is still played today
• what kind of sport it is, e.g. team sport, ball
sport, etc.
• the rules of the game
• any other interesting information
T/F
7 In your pairs, prepare a video recording
T/F of you presenting the sport to show to
the class.
T/F
VOCABULARY FOCUS
chariot [n]:  a vehicle with two wheels and no roof
that was pulled by horses in races and battles in
ancient times
deceased [adj]: dead
defence [n]:  an action taken to protect against attack
depict [v]:  to describe something using words
or pictures
of a sports event
funeral [n]:  a ceremony that takes places after
gladiator [n]:  a person who fought against wild
animals and other gladiators in Ancient Rome for
public entertainment
honour [v]:  to show respect or admiration for
someone
hurling [n]:  a game similar to hockey that is popular
in Ireland
javelin [n]:  a long, pointed stick that is thrown in a
sports competition
resurrect [v]:  to make something exist again after it
has been forgotten or stopped
sprint [n]:  a short race at a fast speed
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