swimming freestyle

Beijing Olympic Venues

Beijing is in the midst of preparing for the Summer Olympics and completing some major athletic venues.  A couple photos.

The Beijing University of Technology Gymnasium will host badminton and rhythmic gymnastics competitions. Seats 7,500
Picture: AFP/GETTY

The Beijing National Stadium will host the main track and field competitions and the opening and closing ceremonies. It seats 91,000
Picture: REUTERS

The Beijing Olympic Basketball Gymnasium has a capacity of 18,000
Picture: AP

RoboPong Anyone?

Only $700.

Eye To Hand

From the NY Times:

For 50 minutes straight, (Vova) Galchenko tried to bang out the nearly impossible trick. He began each attempt with a seven-club cascade. If the pattern was a good one, tight and stable, five of the clubs would suddenly spurt to the rafters in order to give him room — and time — to pull the 360. (This is what Galchenko says he likes about juggling, the “aesthetic feeling” of a good pattern: “It looks nice. And it looks like you could keep going forever. Which, of course, is a false impression.”) But every time he tried to collect the clubs after pirouetting, they were just beyond the reach of his hands. They’d bonk off the floor, skittering in all directions, and Galchenko would scowl and trudge after them and send all seven skyward again, biting his lip, jerking his neck every so often to shake his shaggy mop of brown hair out of his eyes. He never looked down at his hands. The clubs made hollow popping sounds as they slapped against the callused pads on his palms. A half-hour into this, Galchenko finally nailed his first 360 and wrangled the wayward clubs back into a clean cascade, only to drop one. He opened his right hand and said, into his palm, “Catch,” like a mother disciplining her kid. “I cannot juggle anymore,” he said. He kept at it for 20 minutes longer until, finally, he landed the trick cleanly. Then he landed it again — then a third time, then a fourth, then a fifth. “Thank you, Jesus,” he said.

All Dressed Up And Nowhere To Go

Many have been fretting all weekend about Michael Fournier, the skydiver planning to jump Sunday from nearly 25 miles up and break records for highest skydive and longest freefall. 

If he makes it, Fournier will set records for falling the longest, farthest and fastest of anyone in history. The fall will be the cumulation of 20 years of research and physical and emotional preparation. To pay for his training and equipment, Fournier has sold almost all his belongings and spent roughly $20 million, mostly raised from private donations.

Well, things didn't work out as he had hoped.  As the special helium balloon was being filled, it detached from the specially designed capsule Fournier would ascend in prior to his jump, and drifted out of sight.

Bummer.

Breaking the Sound Barrier

From Gizmodo:

Michel Fournier is about to make the greatest leap of his, and anyone else's, life. On Sunday, the 64-year-old retired French army officer will fly almost 25 miles into the sky in a giant balloon, step out of a pressurized capsule and plunge headfirst towards the earth, soaring through the atmosphere for an estimated 15 minutes.

A lot can go wrong when you're trying to reach 130,000 feet up in the air. At above 40,000 feet, there's no longer enough oxygen to breathe. At 12 miles up, the air pressure can cause blood to boil. Fournier will be taking the trip in a special space suit, but if it malfunctions, he'll be dead within seconds.

If he makes it, Fournier will set records for falling the longest, farthest and fastest of anyone in history. The fall will be the cumulation of 20 years of research and physical and emotional preparation. To pay for his training and equipment, Fournier has sold almost all his belongings and spent roughly $20 million, mostly raised from private donations.

What A Moron

Marathon Man

From the NY Times:

With a Huck Finn grin atop a weight lifter’s shoulders, and sweaty curls straight out of a Mountain Dew ad, (Josh) George is equal parts oh-boy Virginian and oh-man athlete. Because he already is so good, so young — wheelchair racers typically reach their competitive peak as late as their mid-30s — George is a budding star in wheelchair racing, and easily the United States’ top Paralympic medal contender in races from 100 meters up through the marathon.

Wheelchair racing is far from a glorified soap-box derby, but rather an intricate test of athletic strength, endurance and strategy among athletes whose propulsion comes from arms atop wheels rather than legs atop sneakers. And although his sport immediately advertises physical limitations, George excels partly because some of his physical restrictions have led to some spectacular physical gifts.

“Is he the guy that can get the Coke ad? I think that he is,” said Amanda McGrory, who finished second in the London Marathon among women and is another top United States medal contender for Beijing. “If anyone can do it, he will be the one that will be able to change wheelchair racing.”

Holy S**t

(h/t The Daily Dish)

Love of the Longboard

From the NY Times:

...So-called soul surfers, more concerned with the individuality of the sport, and less with the commercial aspects, are picking up the old boards in an effort to retain the original spirit of surfing.

And they gather for events like the Big Stick Logjam, one of the longest running longboard surf contests in the world, which was held April 26 and 27. This year the contest attracted more than 100 competitors, who came from all up and down the West Coast.

AND there is something about watching a longboarder make a good, easy turn that conjures the same nostalgic elegance as watching a classic hot rod like a chrome-encrusted T-bucket or a low-slung ’49 Mercury cruise down main street.

Surf Fever in Peru

From the New York Times:

Despite having monster swells on par with those that hit Hawaii’s legendary northern shores, Peru isn’t known as a surfing destination, except perhaps by a small band of jet-setting surfers for whom no wave is beyond reach.

That is, unless you happen to be one of the approximately 28 million inhabitants of Peru, South America’s third-largest country in area. Then you know very well that surfing has swept the nation recently in a pop cultural frenzy. On the wide boulevards of Lima, billboards are covered with the fresh-faced ranks of Peruvian surfers endorsing cellphones, beer and soft drinks. Surfing contests are all the rage. And to the south, where the waves are even bigger, physical attributes like pumped-up lungs, buff shoulders and sun-bleached hair seem to be bred into the local DNA.

Peru’s love affair with surfing actually dates back to the 1940s, when the playboy socialite Carlos Dogny returned from Hawaii with a shiny wooden board given to him by Duke Kahanamoku, considered the godfather of modern surfing. In 1942, Mr. Dogny founded the elite Waikiki Surf Club in Miraflores, a ritzy suburb on the southern outskirts of Lima, where Peru’s ruling families rode the swells and got tipsy in the clubhouse on pisco sours. (The club still employs “board boys” who rush to the water’s edge to carry and wax members’ boards when they’re done with a session.)