International Sports
In international sports, the term is perhaps best known in reference to big international sporting events such as the Olympic Games and Wimbledon. Countries which fail to produce athletes who meet qualification standards are granted "wild cards", which allow them to enter competitors whose abilities are below the required standards. In some instances, wild cards are given to the host nation in order to boost their chances. However, in Olympic and World Championship competitions in track and field and swimming, nations are automatically allowed to enter two competitors. Thus these are not wild cards. In some other Olympic sports, such as judo, archery and badminton, wild cards are in use, and they are granted by the respective sport federations. On rare occasions, a competitor who gained entry by wild card succeeds in winning a medal or championship: Kye Sun-Hui won gold in judo at the 1996 Summer Olympics, Ding Junhui won the 2005 China Open snooker championship, and in tennis, Goran Ivanišević won the 2001 Wimbledon Championships and Kim Clijsters won the 2009 US Open.
Read more about this topic: Wild Card (sports)
Famous quotes containing the word sports:
“Sweet smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,
Thy sports are fled and all thy charms withdrawn;
Amidst thy bowers the tyrant’s hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green;
One only master grasps the whole domain,
And half a tillage stints thy smiling plain;”
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730?–1774)