Archive for August, 2008

Although we are deeply sorry for what happened to Kevin we and a number of other reporters of this incident believe that Kevin had totally failed to switch on his brain when he decided to go kite surfing at Fort Lauderdale last week on the day that tropical storm Fay came on shore.

Come on guys – it upsets us that we have to write too often about a fatal accident or near fatal accident but really the notion of kite surfing in a tropical storm should be a no brainer – but I’m afraid there are some people like Kevin for whom even a ‘no brainer’ is not sufficient – and why should the ’state’ nanny us more than they do already.

I have not been able to find any news on Kevin’s current condition, but will report if there is any development – as can be seen on the YouTube video from fatimajamil5 below, Kevin, not surprisingly is in a critical condition – we do wish him a full and speedy recovery.

And so we have posted this blog to show you just what can happen when you try and play with the forces of mother nature – wind speed after all is one of the golden rules of kite surfing – know it and respect it.

Check out the vid – poor bloke.

As the wonderful games draw to a close I know that there will be continuing debate for many years to come on who was the greatest Olympian of 2008 – how do you quantify and qualify for such honour – is it the number of gold medals an individual has won, is it the number of world records broken or could it be awarded to an individual who has played to the best of his or her ability and at the same time demonstrated a degree of honour and sportsmanship never before seen. We do not profess to know the answer – yes the debate will go on and we can for now savour what has been a fantastic Olympic games – so goodbye Beijing and congratulations China.

I am pleased to show you below a great compilation of one contender for the greatest Olympian ever – yes Michael Phelps certainly has every right to be considered for that title – I can only congratulate him and say I have so much respect for this truly great Olympian – thanks IMRANPIRISHAH for this great YouTube video.

You’ve got to love the Wall Street Journal cos when I pick something up from their reporters it is so darn good – big shout of thanks for this article by Stephanie Kang for what you read below, fascinating stuff – and also to xllRAPST4Rllx for the You Tube video you will find below.

They flew down a 30-foot ramp, jostling for position along steep ramps and dirt moguls. They drew the biggest crowd reactions when they crashed.

Getty Images

Jill Kintner of the United States leads in the Women’s BMX semifinals Friday. Ms. Kintner won the bronze medal.

In its Olympic debut, bicycle motocross racing had something to prove to fans of the five rings, especially to those who wondered how BMX racing reached the Summer Games before far more popular action-sport siblings like skateboarding.

“This is our chance to show the world what BMX is about,” said U.S. racer Kyle Bennett, who competed Friday despite a dislocated shoulder. (He didn’t place in the top three, though two American men and one American woman won medals.)

Fans seemed appreciative, bopping to a mix of punk, rock and hip-hop blaring over the loudspeakers at the Laoshan BMX track.

“I used to do BMX when I was a kid so it’s cool to see this,” says Andreas Enderson, a design student from Los Angeles who was milling around between races, looking for a beer. “But you know that this is nothing compared to skateboarding. That should be here.”

Bicycle motocross racing isn’t the most popular action sport. It’s not even the biggest BMX discipline — that distinction goes to the BMX freestyle riders whose tricks send them soaring, spinning and flipping into the air.

Unlike youth sports such as skateboarding and freestyle, however, BMX racing is highly organized. The discipline boasts a network of groups and rules that have regulated the sport for decades. Standardization may not be sexy, but it has helped the little sport reach the Summer Olympics before any of its flashier competitors.

“We knew where we wanted to be and we knew the steps it would take,” says Bob Tedesco, a former drag racer who has been promoting BMX racing since the 1970s. “Freestyle and skateboarding was more like a cult. They never could get together.”

Mr. Tedesco is one of a handful of BMX enthusiasts around the world who have been on a decades-long quest to get to the Olympics. He says he first heard talk about BMX and the Games from George Esser, another fellow racer who founded one of the first BMX groups in 1974.

In his career in the U.S. Air Force, Mr. Esser had watched races around the world. It wasn’t long after his sons started BMX racing that he started “constantly” talking about the Olympics, recalls his son Greg.

“‘This is going to be in the Olympics one day,’” Greg remembers his father proclaiming. “As a 16-year-old kid you think you know it all, and I’m just like, ‘Yeah right, what are you smoking?’”

To make it into the Games, a new sport must meet a laundry list of requirements from the International Olympic Committee. Sports must be regulated by international federations that run world competitions and include member countries with their own national federations. By the early 1980s, BMX racing was well on its way to ticking off those requirements. By contrast, an international governing body for skateboarding wouldn’t come together for about another decade, a major disadvantage considering the glacial pace at which Olympic sports are added.

BMX racing started about 40 years ago in Southern California, when kids began mimicking motocross racers on their Schwinn Sting-Ray bicycles. Informal races quickly led to the creation of bicycle racing leagues around the country, which put on races for kids. In 1971, Bruce Brown’s motorcycle film “On Any Sunday” opened with a shot of kids BMX racing, kick-starting a wave of popularity for the nascent sport.

BMX racing also made the strategic decision to be acquired by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), the powerful, long-standing international cycling governing body. By then racers from about 30 countries were participating in a world tour of BMX racing events.

“They, of course, dreamt about going to the Olympics, that’s for sure,” says Hein Verbruggen, chairman of the coordination commission for the Beijing Olympic Games and former president of UCI. “They realized also that they would never make it. It would be much better to be attached to an international federation recognized already by the IOC.”

Meanwhile, NBC, which broadcasts the Games in the U.S., and the IOC were hungering for youth-oriented sports to lure younger viewers to the Games. Their first attempt with snowboarding a resounding success, NBC and the IOC began asking international federations for options in the Summer Games. Research showed that younger people were interested in new disciplines, including BMX and skateboarding, says Mr. Verbruggen.

“The problem with skateboarding is that skateboarding is not organized,” he says.

BMX racing was a ready solution. “We were the only discipline that had our act together,” says Mr. Tedesco. “Not that our ratings were high, but we had all of the pieces that they needed.”

While both are considered action sports, BMX racing and skateboarding have very different personalities.

Bicycle motocross racing was “very organized,” says Dave Carnie, a former editor of a skateboarding magazine who is now on the board of directors for USA Skateboarding. “There’s a place you have to do it, there’s uniforms, there’s rules. Skateboarding had no rules. I could do it whenever I want, wherever I want and however I want.”

And the two aren’t created equal. Skateboarding superstar Tony Hawk has his own skate tour, videos and line of shoes, apparel and accessories, part of a plan to tap into the 11 million people in the U.S. who skateboard and the many more who dress like they do. Few people, even in the action-sports world, would recognize top BMX racers like Donny Robinson and Mike Day. BMX racing isn’t even in the X Games.

Still, entry into the Olympics has pumped new life into the sport. The United States Olympic Committee built a replica track of the Olympic course in Chula Vista, Calif. Nike created a BMX shoe and sponsors BMX racing athletes.

Skateboarders and the IOC continue to discuss how to get the sport into the Games. One sticking point — whether skateboarding will become part of an existing federation or govern itself.

Skateboarding is trying to avoid the fate of snowboarding in its early days in the Olympics. Snowboarders boycotted the 1998 Winter Games after the IOC gave the international ski federation governing power over international snowboarding.

“When you say ‘organization’ you bring on adults and typically bring on old adults,” says Gary Ream, president of the International Skateboard Federation. “A young, relevant sport managed by old adults is a tough sell. They usually do more harm than good.”

Our congatulations to Usain Bolt for his incredible record 200m run of 19.30 seconds, thus breaking the venerable record set by Michael Jonhson 12 years ago.

Officially he won an incredible 0.66 second lead over Crawford (or 0.52 second lead over Martina), – about four body lengths, the biggest margin in an Olympic 200.

What an apt name for this superb athlete. I wonder if his parents ever imagined, some 22 years ago, that he was going to be a Bolt in name and a ‘bolt’ of lightning?!

But otherwise this superb race seems to have been marred with wrangles. Churandy Martina of the Dutch Antilles has been stripped of his Olympic 200m silver medal after the US team’s protest that he had run out of his lane was upheld.

The move deprives the Dutch Antilles of their first ever Olympic track and field medal, and sees 2004 Olympic champion Shawn Crawford of the United States take silver behind Jamaican Usain Bolt.

The US team had initially protested the disqualification of third American runner Wallace Spearmon, who had finished in bronze-medal position behind Bolt and Martina. But they ultimately accepted the decision that Spearmon had in fact crossed lanes.

To his credit, Crawford does not seem to have been over the moon about his silver medal , which he won at the expense of his fellow runner. “It feels like a charity case,” he said.

And, since we’re still in Zimbabwe, we must congratulate the Zimbabwean Brian Dzingai for being up there with the top 9 fastest 200m runners in the world. Although he didn’t get a medal he knows he is one of the fastest men over 200m. That must be a good feeling.

“The mountains have rules. They are harsh rules, but they are there, and if you keep to them you are safe. A mountain is not like men. A mountain is sincere. The weapons to conquer it exist inside you, inside your soul.” – Walter Bonatti

And finally, for our last batch in this series… the mountains of South America. Of course, having decided to write on the world’s most extreme mountains, I opened a whole can of worms. How can you decide which are the most extreme? So I have selected a mere handful for the moment and will continue researching others over time. I have had fun with this topic – so many amazing mountains, so many incredible stories of courage and endurance.

Siula Grande, Peru. 6344m

This is a mountain of the the Cordillera Huayhuash, in the Peruvian Andes. It ranks among the most famous peaks in the world. It has a subpeak Siula Chico which is 6260 m high. It was made famous by the film ‘Touching The Void’ by Joe Simpson which, if you haven’t read, is WELL worth a read! Simpson and Simon Yates wanted to climb the Siula Grande because no-one else had. They wanted to be the first to do it and they wanted to test themselves against it. Like other Huayhuash peaks, Siula Grande is very difficult to climb, on the order of a Himalayan ascent. I have read that the Simpson and Yates ascent route has never been repeated, but I stand to be corrected on that.

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Although Simpson and Yates ascended the West face, and thereby became the first to reach the summit by that route, they chose the North Ridge (first descended in 1936 by a German team) for their descent, which was made almost impossible by terrible weather. All subsequent climbers have avoided the ridge and rappelled back down the face. As of 2002 the south face has been unconquered.

FitzRoy, Patagonia, Argentina. 3,375m (11,073 ft)

Fitz Roy, also known as Cerro Chaltén, lies on the border between Argentina and Chile. Perito Francisco Moreno named it Fitzroy in 1877, after the Beagle’s captain Robert FitzRoy, who explored some of the area in 1834. It was first climbed in 1952 by French alpinists Lionel Terray and Guido Magnone. The mountain has a reputation of being “ultimate,” despite its average height, but because the sheer granite faces present long stretches of arduous technical climbing. In addition, the weather in the area is exceptionally inclement and treacherous. Although it is the highest peak in the Los Glaciares park, but it is less than half the Himalayan giants!

The mountain climb, however, remains extremely difficult and is the preserve of very experienced climbers. Today, when a hundred people may summit Mount Everest in a single day, Cerro Chaltén may only be successfully ascended once a year.

Cerro Torre, Argentina. 3,127m (10,262ft)

Cerro Torre is one of the mountains of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field in South America. It is located in a region which is disputed between Argentina and Chile, west of Cerro Chalten (Fitz Roy). The peak is the highest in a four mountain chain: the other peaks are Torre Egger, Punta Herron, and Cerro Stanhardt. Cerro Torre’s sheer granite walls rise more than 1,219m (4,000ft) from the glacier to a summit guarded by enormous mushrooms of air-puffed snow. Because of its brutal steepness, violent weather, and lack of a clear line of ascent, many climbers had thought Cerro Torre unclimbable. The top of the mountain often has a mushroom of rime ice, formed by the constant strong winds, increasing the difficulty of reaching the actual summit. The first undisputed ascent is that by Daniele Chiappa, Mario Conti, Casimiro Ferrari, and Pino Negri in 1974. In 1977 the first Alpine style ascent was completed by Dave Carman, John Bragg and Jay Wilson. They spent a week summiting Cerro Torre which had previously taken the Italian group two months to summit.

Cesare Maestri claimed in 1959 that he and Toni Egger had reached the summit and that Egger had been swept to his death by an avalanche while they were descending. However, inconsistencies in Maestri’s account, and the lack of bolts, pitons or fixed ropes on the route has led most mountaineers to doubt Maestri’s claim. Only in 2005, after many attempts by world-class Alpinists, was a confirmed route put up on the face that Maestri claimed to have climbed.

Aconcaqua, Patagonia. 6,962m (22,841ft)

And finally, a mountain for everyone. There are several routes up Aconcaqua – of which only one, the Polish Glacier, requires intermediate to advanced skills. The route demands the use of ice-climbing and glacier travelling techniques culminating in a challenging and rewarding summit day. Beginners to intermediate.

Mt. Aconcagua is the highest point in the western hemisphere.