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標題：華盛頓郵報刊載巧固球運動（底下紅色說明台灣之好）

期號：20020213

作者：By Adam Bernstein

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, January 22, 2002; Page B03

From the Swiss, Cerebral Fitness

Fast-Paced Sport Elicits Camaraderie Instead of Combat

By Adam Bernstein

Washington Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, January 22, 2002; Page B03

There's no defense to speak of -- and offense is more mental than physical. The game is swift, and even seasoned athletes can't leave the court without sweating.

This obscure Swiss sport,tchoukball (pronounced CHUKE-ball), took root in the United States for perhaps the first time when Silver Spring resident Pierre-Alain Girardin started a team in February. High school athletes and Swiss Embassy officials now play together Sunday nights at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda.

"It's not just one more sport," said Girardin, 45, an avid player for the past five years, first in his native Switzerland and now locally. "It's completely different in its spirit."

He's made it his mission to bring a wider U.S. audience to the game, which he presents as a welcome contrast to the brute ballet of football, soccer or hockey.

"It's fast-paced, but most of it's mental," said Sarah Dalglish, a Tufts University freshman home in Rockville for winter break. "You have to think about where the ball is going to go, instead of thinking about getting between the ball and another person. You're ducking a lot."

Since the game was created in the early 1970s, it has grown popular in Switzerland, Britain and Taiwan, which has about 200 teams. Girardin, who moved to the United States with his wife two years ago, is hoping to form a league of local teams.

He is scheduled to make a presentation to Montgomery County physical education teachers Jan. 30 and next month at a Baltimore conference of physical educators, dance instructors and recreation officials.

Through his Web site, www.tchoukball.net, and school demonstrations, he has persuaded some U.S. and Canadian schools to try the sport. About 100 grade schools in eastern Canada teach it in gym class.

"It's difficult for the American culture -- because you're not allowed to play any kind of defense," said Heidi Yohn, a physical education teacher at a Lancaster County, Pa., middle school who teaches the sport to her students. "As Americans, we're used to blocking, as in a basketball game."

Yohn said her students learned to adjust, even use physics to predict where the ball will go.

The game involves two teams of six to nine members on a basketball-size court. Players use a European handball -- a hard, leather ball about the size of a cantaloupe. They pass it quickly among each other -- with just three seconds apiece to move the ball -- aiming to hit a 3-foot-square rebound net.

Members of the opposing team do nothing to stop them. Instead, their mission is to catch the ball as it ricochets off the rebound net. If they catch it, there's no point; if they miss, the team that threw the ball gets the point.

The "chuke" sound as the ball bounces off the net gives the game its name. At the professional level, the ball can go as fast as 70 mph.

Swiss biologist Hermann Brandt, a critic of traditional athletics, honed tchoukball over several decades and drafted its unabashedly utopian charter shortly before his death in 1972.

He called his game "the sport of tomorrow" and saw it as a remedy to sports that create injuries, not camaraderie.

Lack of combativeness, he wrote, "is more than just the rule of a game. It is a rule for social conduct [at] all times . . . the basis of an individual's personality."

Girardin, a man of sturdy build, played soccer for years before switching to tchoukball. After moving to the Washington area, he started a club at the National Institutes of Health, where his wife, Sylvie Bertholet, is a biologist.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, NIH tightened security, prompting Girardin to rent the Whitman gym. At Whitman, he found fortune in senior Andrew Knowlton, the cross-country team co-captain who recruited fellow athletes to play.

"It's really physical and just as fast as basketball," said Knowlton, the club president.

Swiss Embassy officials, some of whom play at Whitman, said the local club is the first in the United States.

Girardin now has about 15 core members, ranging in age from 15 to 51. Sedentary newspapermen are as adept at the game as high school varsity athletes because the rules automatically accommodate players with varying abilities.

Girardin said he hopes to bring some club members to the international tournament held in Britain in August.

If the club goes, he said, it would not be about beating the mighty Taiwanese, whose teams have dominated the international tournament for years. After all, no one receives money, and everyone goes home with a prize, whether a certificate or a medal.

"The winner?" he said. "No. This is something for all the players."

© 2002 The Washington Post Company

尤其粗斜體部分，說明台灣之好。

當時，我國駐美代表處[即大使館]立刻來電詢問台灣之巧固球運動推展，為何如此厲害，多年來都是世界之冠？本會副秘書長黃進成從晚上12：00忙到清晨8：00，終於mail給代表處，然而全文，是說明巧固球的好，也是說明政府應該多鼓勵一下，本土好的運動單項。

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