Posts Tagged ‘China’

It looks like the 20th annual international snow sculpture competition which is held in Breckenridge, Colorado from Jauary 26th to 30th is going to be a give away to the very strong team from China.

But the competition comes from around the world with thirteen teams from around the globe competing from seven countries including the Czech Republic, Canada with 2 teams, Lithuania, Mexico, Russia and the U.S. as well as the Chinese.

The United States has 5 teams from Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Snow Sculpting is attended annually by more than 30,000 people of all ages from across the U.S. and the world.

The four-person teams are assigned 12-foot-tall, 20-ton blocks of machine-made Colorado snow. These teams work within a five-day period to create their sculptures. From these blocks of snow, the teams often craft enormous pieces of whimsy, although some deliver powerful political or social commentary.

The finished pieces are achieved after a total of 65 intense hours of work without the use of power tools, internal support structures or colorants — just the ingenuity of the sculptors and a medium that lends itself, if only temporarily, to the persuasion of hand tools. When the sculptures are finished on Saturday, Jan. 30, a panel of well-known artists and patrons of the arts serve as judges. Awards are presented to the first, second and third place sculptures on Sunday, Jan. 31.

Last year it was a team Canada for taking first place with their sculpture titled ‘Family Reunion’ and the Chinese could only manage second place with their sculpture entitled ‘The march of Spring’ – as seen in the photo below.

Awards are also given for People’s Choice, Kids’ Choice and Artists’ Choice. There are no cash prizes; the artists instead revel in the reward of hard work, forged friendships, freedom of artistic expression and the satisfaction of long hours of preparation that lead to the event.

But if the annual International Ice and Snow Festival  which has just begun in Harbin, northern China, featuring giant luminous ice sculptures and a fireworks display is anything to go by the other teams have no hope. Check out what the ‘land of the many’ can do, in the video below from ReutersVideo , when they turn their energies to sculpting ice – impressive.

Back to reality – the Snow Sculptures at Breckenridge are located in the area around the Riverwalk Center at 150 West Adams Avenue, Breckenridge, CO 80424. If you want further information we suggest you visit the website http://www.gobreck.com/events/townevents/budsnowsculpture/

Its gonna be a lot of fun!

Further to our blog a couple of days ago about global warning – Scuba diving has a bleak future, October 21st – we want you all to know about October 24th – a day of action – OH AND HELLO - THAT’S TOMORROW!

350.org are the coordinators behind a day of worldwide activity – it has been dubbed ‘INTERNATIONAL DAY OF CLIMATE ACTION’ – a day of the most widespread environmental action in the planet’s history.

There will be big rallies in big cities, and incredible creative actions across the globe: mountain climbers on our highest peaks with banners, underwater demonstrations in island nations threatened by sea level rise, churches and mosques and synagogues and ashrams engaged in symbolic action, star athletes organizing mass bike rides—and hundreds upon hundreds of community events to raise awareness of the need for urgent action.

Their website tells us there will be 4227 actions in 170 countries.

Every event will highlight the number 350 – the most important number in the world—it’s what scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Two years ago, after leading climatologists observed rapid ice melt in the Arctic and other frightening signs of climate change, they issued a series of studies showing that the planet faced both human and natural disaster if atmospheric concentrations of CO2 remained above 350 parts per million.

Right now, mostly because we’ve burned so much fossil fuel, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 is 390 ppm—that’s way too high, and it’s why ice is melting, drought is spreading, forests are dying. To bring that number down, the first task is to stop putting more carbon into the atmosphere. That means a very fast transition to sun and wind and other renewable forms of power. If we can stop pouring more carbon into the atmosphere, then forests and oceans will slowly suck some of it out of the air and return us to safe levels.

OK – on most of the above we are agreed and therefore when people agree they mobilise, and when people mobilise, whether they be from the USA, China or the Maldives, they can and will have influence on their governments.

It is going to be tough, some unpleasant decisions are going to have to be made – but unless we let our voices be heard government will do as little as possible.

We are pleased to support www.350.org and we urge you to click on the link and sign up so your voice too can be heard – shout loud!

Here is the video from  350org extremely important stuff

Last week we wrote about mountain biking and the varieties of mountain biking that have developed – including downhill, freeride, trial/street and finally XC. Undoubtedly extreme but our question today is whether BMX eclipses the freeride and trial/street riding of mountain bikes as the most extreme form of the sport.

We will let you decide for yourselves but there is no doubt about it – BMX has become very extreme.

The development of BMX bikes came from kids on the west coast in the 1970s wanting to emulate what their older brothers were doing on their motor cross bikes when they only had a Sting Ray to use. The sport blossomed and its development is best described in the video below from RiChArDOsZ

Times have moved on and the old Sting Ray has been replaced by purpose built BMX bikes.  In 2008, for the first time, there was BMX bike racing at the Olympic games held in Beijing, China.

You may have heard of the pirates who have been operating in the Gulf of Aden off the Somali coast in the Indian Ocean. Up until now they have been hijacking oil tankers and the like in the hopes of extracting a large ransom for return of the vessel and its cargo. It now seems as though these real life Jack Sparrows are spreading their wings and not only going further afield but also attacking vessels of a different nature.

News that a scuba diving ship operating from one of the world’s greatest diving locations in the Seychelles Islands has been seized is sending shock waves through the Seychelles tourist industry. The ‘Indian Ocean Explorer’ had just dropped her divers on Assumption Island when she was hijacked by the pirates and taken to Harardhare, a pirate stronghold north of Mogadishu.

The Seychelles coral archipelago offers some of the best diving in the world and its pristine white sand beaches attract thousands of tourists to the islands every year. The pirate attack which occurred last weekend and is the second such attack to happen in a month has forced the Seychelles government to deploy security vessels to the outer islands in the archipelago.

According to the International Maritime Bureau 130 vessels were attacked by Somali pirates last year. On Tuesday the Japanese navy joined US, Chinese and EU navies who are patrolling the shipping lanes which lead to the Suez Canal. They face a daunting task in trying to patrol over 400,000 square miles of ocean.

You can see from these videos below, the first from rutgergeeling, the second from KesandSarah, what the attraction is of scuba diving in the Seychelles – be it whale sharks, green turtles or incomparable visibilty – you will understand why this very serious problem has to be resolved.

Diving as we know it is a popular and fun thing to do – one of the first things we learn having grasped the basics of swimming, and in some cases young lads and lasses will learn to dive before they know how to swim. For most of us that is about where we stop but there are those who continue to practice the art, for that is what it has become, and inevitably there are those of us who take their art to the extreme and hence we have a high diving world record.

Let us first give you the basics of competitive diving before we move onto the extreme diving that we know will interest you guys. Big shout of thanks goes out to our friends at Wikipedia – a great source of reference.

Diving competitions consist of three disciplines: 1m and 3m springboards, and the platform. Competitive athletes are divided by gender, and often by age groups as well. In platform events, competitors are allowed to perform their dives on either the five, seven and a half or ten meter towers. In major diving meets, including the Olympic Games and the World Championships, platform diving is from the 10 meter height.

Divers have to perform a set number of dives according to various established requirements, including somersaults and twists in various directions and from different starting positions. Divers are judged on whether and how well they completed all aspects of the dive, the confirmation of their body to the requirements of the nominated dive, and the amount of splash created by their entry to the water. Theoretically, a score out of ten is supposed to be broken down into three points for the takeoff, three for the flight, and three for the entry, with one more available to give the judges flexibility.

There are six “groups” into which dives are classified: Forward, Back, Inward, Reverse, Twist, and Armstand. The latter applies only to Platform competitions, whereas the other five apply to both Springboard and Platform.

• In the Forward Group (Group 1), the diver takes off facing forward and rotates forward
• In the Back Group (2), the diver takes off with their back to the water and rotates backward
• In the Reverse Group (3), the diver takes off facing forward and rotates backward
• In the Inward Group (4), the diver takes off with their back to the water and rotates forward
• Any dive incorporating an axial twisting movement is in the Twist group (5).
• Any dive commencing from a handstand is in the Armstand group (6).(only on platform)

During the flight of the dive, one of the four positions may be specified:

• Straight – with no bend at the knees or hips
• Pike – with knees straight but a tight bend at the hips
• Tuck – body folded up in a tight ball, hands holding the shins and toes pointed.
• Free – Some sequence of the above positions.

These positions are referred to by the letters A, B,C and D respectively.

In the video below from rosebowlaquaticsorg there is a great compilation of dives performed by the US Olympic dive team shortly before they headed off to Bejing for the 2008 games. This less than 100% serious demonstration was held at the Rose Bowl Centre in Pasadena, California and it is great to see the team relaxing and having some fun as well as executing their dives with precision and accuracy.

So now you know what competitive diving is all about it is time to check out the extreme element. Enter one Dana Kunze who currently holds the world record, in fact has more records in the diving world than any other practioner of high diving. His 172 feet reverse tripple somersault put him back on top of world – awesome and frightening – respect to Dana Kunze. korismith’s video shows the dive.

Both Germany and Sweden have a long history of diving but it was the United States who dominated the sport for most of the twentieth century. Now we see the Chinese dragon has raised its head and sweeps all before it – in Beijing at the 2008 Olympics China won 7 of the 8 gold medals on offer (Australia winning the other), and they won 11 of a total of 24 medals on offer. And the United States did not win one medal at the diving meet in Beijing.

Just to cheer you up we have found our friends at redbull are into sponsorship of extreme diving and have posted this video – come on you American divers – where are you hiding?

Monday morning and we were wondering what to present today – of course there has been some great action over the weekend, not least from Val d’Isere in the French Alps where there has been some fantastic skiing in the FIS World Championships – but hey – deja vu – every Tom, Dick and Harry will be writing about that – so we thought we would show something a little different – white water rafting.

It may not be an activity to consider at this time of year if you are based in the northern hemisphere and certainly not in the Altay mountains in Russia where at the moment you are more likely to find a frozen river and ice and snow – but, and there is always a but, it might be something to consider for that extreme holiday you were planning for the summer – so read on.

The name Altay (or Altai) comes from the Mongolian word ‘altan’ which means golden and this landscape which lies over four countries – Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China – is truly a golden place to go. It is vast – broad and boundless with views that stretch as far as the eye can see – steppes, forests, deserts and snowcapped mountains and between the months of June and September its rivers offer some of the most challenging rafting to be found anywhere in the world.

The Katun’ is one of the best known rivers in Russia and Siberia since the Katun’ was the first river explored by foreign whitewater rafting enthusiasts. This is one of the most commonly run rivers in the Altai so there are many stories about this run.

The river runs 688 km from its source on the Mount Belukha (14,770 feet) glaciers and cuts through mountains, taiga, and meadows of high grass and flowers. The Katun’ rafting run is a high water journey similar to the Grand Canyon of the Colorado.

Your ‘put-in’ is at Yaloman village on the Chuyskiy Trakt (highway connecting Russia and Mongolia). The river shows its power even before the major rapids: it is very fast and waves cover the entire width of this huge river. You can’t relax: any of these mountain-like waves can cause an unwanted swim or even flip a 16 foot raft. There are no Colorado style pools on Katun’. You will travel 4-5 miles per hour even without rapids.

There are few breath taking rapids on the Lower Katun’: Il’gumenskiy and Shabash are the most exciting. You definitely want to try and avoid some of waves in these rapids. The last rapids you will run are the Teldekpen’ rapids which are locked in black rocky corridor and have enormous whirlpools.

Another well travelled river is the Chuya with spectacular views of every type of terrain the region has to offer. You will see the North Chuya Range covered with ice and snow, wide hollows between the mountains, canyons, and the dense taiga forest. The weather is usually good during the river rafting season, with air temperatures around 25 degrees centigrade (83 F), and water temperatures around 11 to 14 degrees centigrade. Rain is relatively rare here. Most of the water comes from glaciers and because of this, the water level is highest in the early part of July.

There are many great rapids on the Chuya. The first of them is Begemot (Hippo), a powerful Class 5 rapid beginning with a huge drop under the bridge and having a couple huge, powerful holes. After many Class 3-4 rapids you reach a few more Class 4 and 5 rapids including The Turbine and Tourist Club Horizon rapids.

Below these rapids the Chuya is still a very fast and exciting river. You will have fun on Class 3 rapids all the way to the confluence with the Katun’.

These journeys will take 10 to 12 days and you will cover a distance of between 100 and 200 miles depending on which river you select. Cost – reckon you need to budget up to $2,500 before any flights. For further information we suggest you visit either www.raftsiberia.com or http://en.kochevnik.ru/tours/3/

Oh and for those idle moments – well you should not forget to pack your fishing rod!

Most of the rafting is done in a rubber raft but as you can see in the video from maxwizardoff you can challenge yourself and go even more extreme!