Posts Tagged ‘Germany’

We trust no one will be upset by cycle polo which from our research would appear to be gathering an increasing number of players, supporters and countries that play the game. Having said that we have not been able to find anything about the 2009 tournaments and so we would be delighted to hear from enthusiasts of the sport of what is happening, when and where, so we can post a blog and keep people informed.

Traditional bicycle polo is played in a rectangular grass field, 150 meters by 100 meters officially, unofficially whatever field is big enough or whatever surface is smooth enough. Moreover, official dimensions can vary between 120 and 150 meters in length on 80 to 100 meters in width.

The game was invented by an Irishman, Richard J. Mecredy, in 1891 and has seen a sharp spike in interest since the turn of this century and new teams are sprouting up across the world.

Today there is organized cycle polo being played in Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Ireland, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland and USA.

The 1980s saw the rise of two new powers in cycle polo, India and USA. The Cycle Polo Association of India was officially created in 1966 and the Bicycle Polo Association of America was created in 1994.

International cycle polo matches staged a comeback in the 1990s with the first world championship organized in 1996 in the USA. Teams from India, USA and Canada participated with India winning the title.

Today the game has become more urban and is played on tennis courts and the like where a hard surface presents a fast and exciting game.

See the video below from cleancut62 of some action from a recent game which demonstrates there is more than just a little skill in riding a bike required – the crashes are pretty hard but it looks a lot of fun.

The final installment of this trilogy will be about Segway polo….stay tuned!

It all began nearly 500 years ago, the year 1520 to be precise, when a Swedish nobleman, Gustav Eriksson Vasa, fled the blood letting troops of King Christian II of Denmark, who only weeks before had executed Vasa’s father and brother with 80 other Swedes, in what became known as Stockholm’s bloodbath. Vasa fled to Mora where he attempted to persuade the people to rise in revolt against the Danes but before they gave him an answer the impending arrival of Danish troops was announed and Vasa fled.

Within days news of the Stockholm bloodbath had arrived in Mora and the people wished Vasa was still with them to lead the rebellion. They sent their two fastest skiers after him and they caught up with him at Salen and persuaded him to turn back. That was Sweden’s first Vasalopp. The rest is history as they say – 3 years later Gustav Eriksson Vasa was elected king of a free Sweden.

It was not until 1922 that the people of Mora voted to hold a race between Salen and Mora, a distance of 90 kms (56 miles) and on March 19th 1922 the Vasaloppet, as it became known, was again raced with 119 starters with the winner, Ernst Alm, coming home in 7 hours 32 minutes 49 seconds.

Today there is a whole week of fun, sking, music and festivities. The skiing now includes non competitive events, 30 kms races, races for girls only and for all ages – as many as 140,000 people have participated in one year alone! This is Europe’s greatest ski fest and the big race itself, which is now completed in as little as 3 hours 40 minutes has been won, other than by Swedes, by individuals from Norway, Finland, Germany, Russia and France. There have been many unique and sporting occurences in the 86 years of the race. Below you will see the profile of the 90 km course from Salen to Mora.

Entries for the 2009 event – which starts on February 20th and finishes with the Vasaloppet itself on March 1st have already reached over 30,000 and can be found on the official website – jusy click on the following link http://www.vasaloppet.se/wps/VasaCMS/generated/resources.Loppbasinfo/anmalan/enanmalan.html and choose which event is for you.

Finally you can see some of the fun in the video below from magnuslindgren – this sport is very tough and very extreme.

This inspired challenge for skiers aged 12 to 18 years (in 2008) and who live in Europe has been developed and created by ‘The North Face’ and judges young European skiers in both freeride and freestyle.

Freeride will be judged to demonstrate the individual’s technique, control, lines and general abilities.

Freestyle will be examined on the individual’s style, creativity, landing; difficulty and amplitude will also be rewarded.

There will be 5 qualifying events and the final in 2009 open to four categories:

• 12-13 year olds
• 14-15 year olds
• 16-18 year olds
• overall girls category

Each qualifying event will examine a maximum of 75 competitors with 60 competitors being selected for the final event in Val Thorens, France. An additional 10 competitors will be invited to Val Thorens at the discretion of the organisers. The top two skiers in the 16-18 year category at Val Thoens will be offered a sponsors contract by The North Face, Dynastar and Lange.

The dates of the qualifying events for the 2009 North Face Challenge are:

• January 31st – February 1st 2009 – Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany
• February 7th – 8th 2009 – Ruka, Finland
• February 14th – 15th 2009 – Are, Sweden
• February 28th – March 1st 2009 – Chamonix, France
• March 27th – 29th – Val Thorens, France

Registration for the events which are now open can be found on the following website http://www2.thenorthface.com/skichallenge/

Below you can watch a video from jpbaralo of the final day of the 2008 event: a great event guys so don’t delay – get registered!

A big shout of thanks goes out to Peter Fimrite of the San Francisco Chronicle who wrote this story of a US/Japanese attempt to break the time record for climbing El Capitan, currently held by the Huber brothers from Germany.

‘The climb straight up the Nose of El Capitan in the Yosemite National Park ended Sunday in dramatic fashion with Lafayette climber Hans Florine scrambling on his hands and feet, exhausted, his gear hanging off of him, as he desperately pushed to beat the world’s record. He came close, but missed by 2 1/2 minutes. Florine and his climbing partner, Yuji Hirayama, made the ascent up the 2,900-foot wall in 2 hours, 47 minutes and 30 seconds, the second-fastest time ever.

“I’m disappointed,” said Florine, 44. “I wanted it. I wanted the pressure to be off. … But I think we showed everybody today that we can break it.”

Florine, a former All America pole vaulter who grew up in Moraga, and Hirayama, 39, of Hidaka, Japan, plan to go for it again Wednesday. If they fail again, the record will be safe until September, when Hirayama plans to return for an all-out assault, complete with television crew.

The duo is trying to take back the record on the world famous Nose route from German brothers Thomas and Alexander Huber, who raced up the cliff face in a death-defying two hours and 45 minutes in October, smashing Florine and Hirayama’s previous record by three minutes.

“We can cut 15 to 20 minutes if we can take these next two days to recover physically and if we do better technically,” said Hirayama, after a confidence-boosting dip in the Merced River. “But that is a big hope. You have to have big goals, big hope, you know.”

Florine has been competing for 17 years with other climbers for the fastest time on the Nose, the most prominent and popular climbing route on El Capitan, but the quest for the record has become increasingly difficult and risky.

The Hubers, known as two of the strongest, most technically skilled and daring climbers in the world, accomplished the task after months of practice over two years. Two years ago, they had to suspend operations after Thomas Huber was seriously injured in a fall.

The competition for bragging rights became a spectator sport Sunday, as crowds with binoculars and telescopes gathered in the meadow, among the trees and along the road below the giant cliff. Climbers on El Capitan look like slow-moving ants in a sea of granite, and movement is usually hard to detect. Hirayama, one of the world’s best free climbers, always leads while Florine, the consummate strategist, belays and simultaneously climbs behind him, an extremely difficult and usually dangerous maneuver. In this scenario, a fall by Florine could be disastrous, as it would pull Hirayama off the wall. It is the ultimate team sport, in which the participants’ lives literally depend on each another.

“We are quite good working together,” Hirayama said. “I really need Hans. If he wasn’t there, I wouldn’t go.”

The crowd in the valley whooped and hollered after the duo completed the hardest sections of the 32 pitches, or rope lengths, including a maneuver known as the “King Swing,” in which climbers propel themselves 80 to 90 feet in the air more than a thousand feet off the ground. As they neared the top, it became clear to those gathered in the valley, including Florine’s wife, Jacqueline, and two children, Marianna, 7, and Pierce, 5, that it was going to be close. Climbers watching below were biting their nails, pacing about, yelling “go, go” as the two men reached the dreaded, difficult patch of granite known as the Glowering Spot.

“He’s at the belay,” one man yelled as Florine finished climbing a tiny crack in the wall. “It took eight minutes to do that pitch. I think they can do it.”

One could see them stepping it up, struggling to go faster near the top, but it was not to be. It was already too late by the time Florine made his scramble to the tree.

“I had a lot of little rope catches today,” Florine said later after he had hiked down to the valley to be with his family. “But a personal best is always a good thing. The yells from the crowd were fantastic.”

Speed competitions like this one are controversial in the insular world of rock climbing. Purists have criticized Florine’s competitiveness, forgetting that record setting has been almost an obsession, especially on the Nose of El Capitan ever since it was first climbed by Warren Harding, Wayne Merry and George Whitmore half a century ago.

The Hubers’ quest for the speed record inspired a movie, “To the Limit,” which depicts the brothers as transcendent climbers. Their competitiveness – which has driven them to subject themselves to ever more extreme dangers – is presented as a kind of spiritual journey toward a higher plane.

Realists simply call it reckless. After all, 13 climbers have been killed in nine separate accidents on the Nose since 1973 when Michael Blake, 19, of Santa Monica lost his grip on the rock and plummeted 2,800 feet to the ground after a bolt, a tie off and his rope failed. That’s just on the one route. Twenty-four people have died on El Capitan – elevation 7,569 feet – since 1905.

But the record for the fastest time is there, so Florine and Hirayama intend to grab it.’

Sure sounds kind of scary to me but good luck for Wednesday guys, I hope all goes well and you come back safely. I’ve included this excellent YouTube video from firstrunfeaturesnyc of the Huber brothers on El Capitan. This story has now been made into a major feature film by Pepe Danquart, called ‘To the Limit’ – it opened in NYC on June 6th.