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The Cup of African Nations for Amputee Football (CANAF) concluded last month in Ghana, and Liberia won the tournament by defeating Ghana in the final game 4-2. Link -via Buzzfeed
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Personally, I can’t get into watching sports on television, but the Puppy Bowl is another story and this video is the World Cup equivalent.
Via BuzzFeed
Comments Off You go, girl! This 600 meter sprint was part of the 2008 Big Ten Indoor Track and Field Championships. Heather Dorniden of Minnesota went into the race as the favorite, but the odds changed along the way. -via TYWKIWDBI
I'm
so bad at sports that the only dribbling I can do involves my chin and
saliva.
Today, I can even add a dog to a long list of living things that humiliate me in sports. Here's Petey, a dog that is better in basketball and volleyball than you and (definitely) me.
Laughing Squid has the video clips: Link
Comments Off Are you tired of the traditional extreme sports vehicles, such as motorcycles and skateboards? Are you looking to take it back to the good old days of first grade? Then check out this video featuring your new favorite extreme sport: extreme tricycling. Have fun explaining your injuries to your insurance agent while keeping a straight face!
-via Asylum UK
Personally, I’ve always hated athletic activities with the exception of those involving rollerskating,trampolines, tag and dodgeball, which is why I think this new and improved version of dodgeball looks like it might just be the most fun sport ever created. What do you guys think?
Via BuzzFeed
Football is definitely back this fall, but will the players show up after seeing this insightful video about what playing in the NFL does to your brain? Former player Dave Duerson donated his brain to the NFL Brain Bank so researchers can clearly see what happens when you knock your head around for a living, and the results aren’t very pretty. But did anyone really think being a professional football player would be good for your mental health? I think not.
Old-fashioned sports trading cards came with a piece of gum (they actually were a bonus for buying the gum). The next generation of trading cards comes with a LCD screen and 20 minutes of video about the player! Oh, they are still made mostly of cardboard, but will hold 2GB of storage. How do you get them?
The special video cards will be limited edition inserts in Panini’s Totally Certified Basketball card line. The packs will include normal cards as well. Apparently, you will never know if you are getting a video card or not. A pack of five cards is about $20.
Read more at SlashGear. Link
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If you think American football and rugby are rough, then you should check out some of these Ancient sports. While some may be comparable to modern mixed martial arts, boxing and wrestling, others are pretty extreme including “The Game” which was played by rowing out into the middle of the river and beating your opponent to death with your oar. Now I’d watch that on ESPN 2.
You don’t have to be a sports fan to know the crazy mascots of the various teams -but it helps! Today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss will uncover how well you know the animals that represent your favorite and not-so-favorite sports teams. I scored 40% just by wild guessing. You will do better! Link
Comments Off Did you know the third Thursday of every April is National High Five Day? That would be April 21 this year. While the best way to celebrate High Five Day is simply to give out your fair share of celebratory slaps, it can also help to know your history and when it comes to the high five, that history is actually rather recent.
Long before the high five, there was the low five, although, at the time it was known as “giving skin” and “slapping skin.” The low five started way back in the jazz age and while there seems to be no detailed record of how it was started, it was a fairly popular gesture amongst jazz musicians. This was immortalized throughout history when Al Jolson gives a low five in the 1927 film The Jazz Singer.
The 1941 Abbot and Costello film In the Navy takes note of this with the Andrews Sisters song, “Gimme Some Skin, My Friend.”
Slapping five continued to be a popular gesture in the African American culture and you can see black characters slapping hands in movies all the way up to blaxploitation films from the seventies
Image via Outsports
The high five that most people credit as the first took place in 1977. It was exchanged between Dusty Baker and Glen Burke at a Los Angeles Dodgers game. Burke gave Baker a raised hand to slap in celebration after Baker scored a home run.
Murray State University basketball player Lamont Sleets has challenged this story though, claiming that he developed the gesture while playing on his college team in the 1960’s. This isn’t the only high five challenge between basketball and baseball players. A number of basketballers claim to have started using the term “high five” during their 1979/1980 season. University of Louisville baseball player Derek Smith disputes this though and claims that he is the originator of the term.
No matter who originated or named it though, the gesture was an immediate success in sports circles as soon as Baker and Burke’s slap was seen around the country. It was soon being used by teams across the country, most notably the 1980 Louisville Cardinals basketball team, who high fived each other throughout their run for the title and helped bring it to the forefront of American consciousness.
Image via bgubitz [Wikipedia]
By 1980, the noun “high five” was in the Oxford English Dictionary and by 1981, it was added as a verb as well.
In the eighties, the gesture took on a life of its own and it seemed like every sitcom character was high fiving someone at least once per episode. It isn’t surprising that the high five took a dive in popularity through the nineties and popular culture tried to cleanse itself of the over saturation of the gesture. Even so, the high five has always continued to have its fans and in 2002, three University of Virginia Students decided to give the high five its due.
The three students decided they wanted to start their own holiday and they agreed that honoring the lost art of the high five would be the perfect reason to celebrate. The ultimate goal of the holiday was to better people’s days by giving high fives to strangers, who might then be inspired to give high fives to others. While the headquarters of the holiday started on the university campus, it quickly spread thanks to the power of the internet.
By 2005, the idea had gained enough momentum that the City of San Diego actually agreed to recognize National High Five Day as an official city celebration. (Being a long-term resident of America’s Finest City, I admit that I was highly upset that I had never heard of the city’s decree until I started writing this article.)
So now that you know about National High Five Day and about the gesture’s respectable origin story, it is up to you, dear readers to spread the word, and the skin. Share your support of high fives on April 21 and every day. Just remember to do it sparingly. After all, an overused high five is worse than no high five at all and we don’t want this great cultural connection to fade away every again.
Sources: Wikipedia, High Five Me, National High Five Project
At a Norfolk Admirals hockey game, 8-year-old Elizabeth Hughes was doing a bang-up job on “The Star-Spangled Banner” when her microphone quit working. Listen to what happened next. -via reddit
Fantasy meets fiancé and so much more in the latest Good Neighbor vid. You will laugh. I promise. (Warning: minor language in the beginning only)
REDSKINS DOUBLE THEIR BLUNDER
During the NFL draft in 1946, the Washington Redskins were giddy when they nabbed UCLA running back Cal Rossi. By pairing Rossi with star quarterback “Slingin’ Sammy” Baugh, Washington hoped to build a backfield that would give opponents nightmares. There was just one problem: Rossi was still a junior in college, and in those days, only seniors were eligible for the draft. How did the Skins fumble so badly? The team’s owner, George Marshall, was too cheap to send scouts across the country; instead, he just picked new players by scanning the sports page.
The team selected Rossi again the next year, but amazingly, it was yet another wasted draft pick. As soon as the team selected him, the Redskins learned that Rossi had joined the Navy and had no intention of playing pro football.
HOT POTATOES
As a 1987 minor-league baseball game, catcher Dave Bresnahan made what looked to be a critical blunder. He threw the ball over the third baseman’s head, and the opposing team’s runner trotted home as the ball rolled into the outfield. But when the player arrived at home plate, Bresnahan tagged him out. How could the ball be in left field and in Bresnahan’s mitt? A quick investigation revealed that the so-called ball Bresnahan had thrown into the outfield was, in fact, a potato. In his spare time, the catcher had carved a tuber to look like a baseball and stashed it into his mitt.
Creative? Definitely. Successful? Not so much. The umpire scoffed at the ploy and called the runner safe at home. The bush league play also enraged Williamsport’s manager, who yanked Bresnahan from the game, fined him $50, and kicked him off the team. The fans, on the other hand, loved the stunt so much that Williamsport retired Bresnahan’s number the following season. At the ceremony, he joked, “Lou Gehrig had to play 2,130 consecutive games and hit .340 for his number to be retired, and all I had to do was bat .140 and throw a potato.”
FISHY BUSINESS
Back in 2005, Paul Tormanen looked like a rising star on the bass-fishing circuit. When other anglers struggled to find a decent catch, he managed to fill his boat with trophy bass in less than an hour. But unbeknownst to his rivals, Tormanen was arriving at each tournament a little too prepared. He would hit the lake before the competition, catch a mess of fish, and then leave the biggest ones tethered to a stump underwater. On tournament day, he’d simply retrieve his catch and collect the prize.
Tormanen got away with the scheme for several months, but his plans went awry after another fisherman stumbled onto his stash one day. Fish and Wildlife agents secretly marked the illicit catch, and when Tormanen netted the fish, he was arrested for contest fraud. The dubious tactic earned hm 120 hours of community service and a lifetime ban from fishing competitions.
Tormanen’s dirty tactics may seem crude, but they’re masterful compared to those of Robby Rose. During 2009′s Bud Lite Trail Boss Big Bass Tournament, Rose tried to make his bass seem bigger by stuffing 16 oz. weights down their throats. Contest officials realized something was fishy when Rose’s leaden catch sank to the bottom of the holding tank.
__________________________
The above article by Ethan Trex is reprinted with permission from the Scatterbrained section of the November-December 2010 issue of mental_floss magazine.
Be sure to visit mental_floss‘ entertaining website and blog for more fun stuff!
Are you familiar with the exploits of the Bayside Tigers from the TV show Saved by the Bell? The athletic teams were featured in many episodes. Show off your smarts (or your memory) with today’s Lunchtime Quiz from mental_floss! I scored 60%, despite never having seen the show. Beat that! Link
Why do blacks excel at running track and whites dominate in the swimming pool? Scientists discovered the secret to why some athletes are so good at their sports: it’s in their belly buttons!
What’s important is not whether an athlete has an innie or an outie but where his or her navel is in relation to the rest of the body, says the study published in the International Journal of Design and Nature and Ecodynamics.
The navel is the center of gravity of the body, and given two runners or swimmers of the same height, one black and one white, "what matters is not total height but the position of the belly-button, or center of gravity," Duke University professor Andre Bejan, the lead author of the study, told AFP.
"It so happens that in the architecture of the human body of West African-origin runners, the center of gravity is significantly higher than in runners of European origin," which puts them at an advantage in sprints on the track, he said.
Conversely, the position of the belly-buttons in white athletes mean that they have longer torso and thus are usually better swimmers: Link
Superstitious fans and even players develop weird rituals to ensure a win for their team. Read the origins of some of the strangest, like how fans of the Detroit hockey team tend throw octopuses onto the ice after the Red Wings score a goal during a home game.
The origins of this tentacled tradition began in 1952 when fewer NHL teams meant that the road to the Stanley Cup only took eight playoff wins. Thus, the 8 legs on an octopus would symbolize the road to the Stanley cup with 8 winning games. Since then, hundreds of octopi have rained down onto the Redwing rink.
A list of recommendations state that the octopus should be cooked, as a raw octopus tends to leave slime on the ice. Link
Officiating at the FIFA World Cup is the greatest career challenge a football referee will face. The eyes of the world are on the referees and the scrutiny is intense. Becoming a FIFA referee entails strenuous fitness evaluations, workshops and aptitude tests to prepare physically and psychologically for the challenge.
For officials, the road to the World Cup is as competitive and demanding as it is for players. Referee and assistant referee candidates have their fitness monitored monthly in the three years leading up to the Cup. They meet with a psychologist who analyzes their game demeanor. They attend seminars on the rules in an attempt to apply them equally across every continent where soccer is played. They go online to a virtual classroom to discuss their doubts and concerns with instructors and colleagues.
Wear your spirit on your feet with these colourful World Cup socks. It’s an easy and chic way to show your team(s) you care.
Link – via The Style Notebook
The Makarapa is the official headgear of South African soccer fans. Inspired by the construction helmets of miners these custom decorated hard hats have been a feature of the South African football scene for over 30 years. Complete your FIFA look with a pair of oversized specs.
The Makarapa was originally created by Alfred Baloyi, who, in 1979, attended a Kaizer Chiefs match against Moroka Swallows at Orlando Stadium. As anyone who has attended a football match and has sat in the cheap seats will know, this is no casual business – in fact, it can be downright dangerous, as missiles are hurled from the upper seats. Baloyi’s friend Hendrik Langa worked on a construction site, and supplied him with a hard hat to protect himself during the match.
Made-up games from movies and literature (especially science fiction) can be awesome, because they don’t have to follow real-world safety and physics rules. This list is full of sports that would be popular if they were possible and (in some cases) survivable. Quidditch is ranked at number two.
Goals are scored by chucking a smaller ball (the Quaffle) through one of the opponents three goals without being knocked off your broom by a defense whose job it is to hit a large iron ball (the Bludger) into your body at bone-breaking speeds. The game only ends when a tiny, winged ball with a mind of its own (the Snitch) is captured by a member of either team. Catching the snitch is worth 150 points, regular goals are worth 10. Whoever has more points when the snitch is caught, wins.
A video clip from the “NFL Scouting Combine” showcase, showing how fast Jacoby Ford and other players runs the 40-yard dash compared to an average guy in a suit.
The Paralympics are awesome. These guys have got some major skills! The technology that allows them to perform at their best is pretty amazing, too. Take, for example, paraplegics playing hockey, which is called sledge hockey. The first hockey sledges were tacked together from regular skates.
Now, sledge hockey players sit on sledges made of aluminum or steel. Two standard skate blades are attached to the bottom of the frame of the sled and can be adjusted based on the player’s balance and skill level. Players’ feet, ankles, knees, and hips are strapped to the sled to ensure they are properly secured. The sledge has to have a backrest, but it cannot protrude laterally beyond the armpits. Players use two sticks – one in each hand — which have a spike-end for pushing the sledge and a blade-end for shooting the puck. Sledges are 0.6m to 1.2m in length with a curved front end.
Also see innovations for Paralympic skiers, sprinters, basketball players, and more. Link
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by 
I would have to agree that the Olympics would be improved with sports that people actually participate in during snowy weather. Snowball Fights, Snowman Building, and Hot Toddy Drinking are right up my alley, but I will leave Dogsled Racing to those who are more experienced. Video examples of each are included. Link
Some scientists say that bowling has existed since Egyptian times and that one of the earliest Egyptian pharaohs was uncovered with primitive bowling pins and balls in his tomb. Others dismiss these findings, but historians agree the sport has existed in some form or another since at least 300 AD in Germany. Needless to say, the sport has come a long way in the last millennia. In fact, it is now the most popular sport outside of soccer (football) worldwide and there’s even an active movement to make bowling an Olympic sport.
The sport was referenced in writing for the first time when the English King Edward the III banned his troops from lawn bowling in order to prevent their being distracted from archery practice. While the game is now considered to be largely blue collar, Henry VIII is said to have been a fan of the game and used cannon balls in sport.
Meanwhile, Germans continued playing a traditional outdoor version of the sport known as skittles, which used heavy balls to knock down small pins called skittles. This game served as the inspiration for the more popular modern forms of bowling, starting with ninepin, which was introduced in America in the colonial era. Unfortunately, the sport began being associated with gambling, workplace truancy, and crime, leading to its illegalization in many cities.
In 1841, the entire state of Connecticut banned ninepin bowling, which some claim led to the invention of tenpin bowling by people who were circumventing the law. Others claim the game started earlier though and that it only gained popularity in the area due to the outlawing of the more common ninepin game. It is said that the wooden version of the modern bowling ball was invented on December 29, 1862, but it’s difficult to find more information on this claim than the date. Regardless, the first standardized rules for tenpin were undoubtedly established in New York City in September 9, 1895.
Sources #1, #2 Image Via John McNab [Flickr]
In 1914, Brunswick improved the game switching out wooden balls with hard rubber balls. In 1936, bowling became a lot quicker and less expensive because the pinboys were replaced with semi-automatic pinsetters. In 1946, AMF created the first completely automatic pinsetter, which was soon replaced by a 1955 Brunswick model. The later versions of this machine are in operation in the majority of alleys today.
The game’s popularity exploded in the U.S. in the 1970s after automatic scorer became commonplace in bowling alleys across the country. Because the scoring for bowling is somewhat complicated, bowlers before this invention came out had to have a somewhat detailed understanding of the game. Nowadays, casual bowlers, professionals and kids can all share the same lanes and not have to worry about the difficulties of keeping score.
Source #1, #2 Image Via Hryck. [Flickr]
I’m sure most of you know that in bowling, when you knock down a pin, you get a point for that pin. The confusion about scoring comes into play when the bowler gets a strike or a spare. When you get a strike, you get 10 points, plus the points for the next two balls thrown. When you get a spare, you get 10 points and the points for the next ball thrown. So, if you got a strike and then you get four pins and then six pins (a spare) and on your next frame you get one gutter ball and then one pin, you would get 20 points (10+4+6) for the strike, 10 points (4+6+0) for the spare and then 1 point for the open frame, for a total of 31 points for all three frames. In the last frame, if you get a strike, you get more balls.
One reason the experts will still count their games by hand sometimes is that the pinsetter will occasionally knock down a pin that moved positions during play. The automatic scorer will often count these pins, but according to the official rules of the game, only pins that fall over on their own are supposed to be counted.
If you happen to make strikes the entire game, you get 300 points for the twelve roll game. This is known as a perfect game.
Source Image Via Roadsidepictures [Flickr]
While you may have laughed at the pathetic professionals in the movie King Pin, bowling celebrities, particularly in the 60’s were actually a big deal. In fact, the first athlete of any kind to receive a million dollar endorsement deal wasn’t a basketball or football player, but instead a bowler. Don Carter received this extraordinary deal in 1964 when he signed a multi-year deal with Ebonite International.
In more modern times, there are still some notable celebrities in the sport, like Jeremy Sonnenfeld, who, in 1997, became the first person to ever roll three perfect games in a row in a three-game series. Also impressive was 2006’s 10 year-old star Chaz Dennis who was the youngest person in history to bowl a perfect game.
With 1024 possible outcomes in a game of bowling, it is easy to see just how hard it is to achieve the perfect game. Still, a number of bowling purists claim that technology has been making this feat increasingly easy to accomplish. Changing materials in balls, synthetic lane materials, oiling machines that lay out the oiling patterns in ways that make it easier to hit the pins, have all made bowling increasingly easy. Reports of perfect scores have increased by several thousand percentage points between the 80s and today. As a result, these dedicated bowlers have developed a specific set of rules for what they call “sport bowling,” that makes the game more challenging, as it was in the 1970s.
Source Image Via Johnathan Cohen [Flickr]
Like all sports, bowling has its own jargon that can be difficult for non-bowlers to understand. In case you want to hold a conversation with some league players, here’s a few terms you may want to know (note the number of food-related terms, should bowling replace American football as the national Thanksgiving Day sport?):
-Bedposts: A 7-10 split
-Dutch 200: A game where the player consistently alternates between strikes and spares, resulting in a score of exactly 200
-Goal posts: A 7-10 split
-Golden turkey: Nine strikes in a row
-Ham bone: Four strikes in a row
-Six pack: Six strikes in a row
-Thanksgiving turkey: A perfect game
-Turkey: Three strikes in a row
-Turkey sandwich: When someone gets a spare and then a turkey, followed by another spare
-Wild turkey: Six strikes in a row
While most people have a less-than-athletic image of bowlers, the sport can actually be a good form of exercise and may help improve social relationships. Studies have shown it helps burn calories, regulates blood pressure and prevents osteoporosis and works muscle groups that are not normally exercised.
Source Image Via calaggie [Flickr]
Even if you’re not a particularly athletic person, there’s a sport out there for you. Whether you’re an avid ironer or are known for launching your cell phone 300 feet after dealing with an exceptionally annoying telemarketer, there’s something in the world that will play to your skills. Here are 10 of them.
1. Toe Wrestling. Yup – there’s arm wrestling, thumb wrestling… and now toe wrestling. As you might imagine, it’s a lot like thumb wrestling – competitors just use different digits. It apparently started when a group of men at a pub decided to find or invent a game that “the British could actually win,” and after a few beverages, they came up with just the thing. Ironically, the first-ever World Toe Wrestling Championships ended with a Canadian victor. Competitors have their own phalange-related nicknames: two of the most accomplished athletes are called the Itatoelion Stallion and the Toeminator. The face of the sport would probably be Alan “Nasty” Nash, a five-time champion who has appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno to show off his technique. “I don’t think the size of your toe has anything to do with it as I have short, stumpy toes,” he has said. Picture from Metro.
2. Cheese Rolling. You’ve likely heard of this one, but it’s too weird to leave out of the article. Every year at Cooper’s Hill in England’s Cotswolds, a large wheel of cheese is sent tumbling from the top of the hill (pictured)… and a bunch of Cheese Rollers come tumbling after. The first person to reach the bottom of the hill wins the cheese. This may not seem like an outstanding prize, but be assured that the race for the Double Gloucester round is a heated one: injuries have included concussions, broken bones and sprained ankles. Injuries are usually incurred by the Cheese Rollers themselves, but on at least one occasion the cheese (which usually weighs seven or eight pounds) took a wicked bounce at the bottom of the hill and careened into a spectator. Picture from Cheese Rolling.
3. Poohsticks. Children’s lit fans (or Disney fans) will be familiar with Poohsticks from The House at Pooh Corner, A.A. Milne’s 1928 book. Milne actually played the game with his son, although we’re not sure if the game was invented for the book and then played by Milne and his son Christopher Robin or vice versa. Fans started actually playing the game, which involves dropping sticks in a stream or river to see which one crosses the designated finish line first, in 1984. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution needed some money and the lock keeper thought a Poohsticks competition – donations accepted – might help their cash flow. His hunch was correct – since its inception, the World Poohsticks Competition has raised more than £30,000. Every winner receives a gold medal and a Winnie the Pooh teddy bear.
4. Extreme Ironing. There are a lot of us out there that probably dread the tedium of pressing wrinkles out of clothes, but there are others who look at it as the opportunity for an adrenaline rush – namely, Extreme Ironers. It started out as just a fun, quirky hobby, but for the past several years an actual competition sponsored by Rowenta has taken place. EIs send in a photo of themselves ironing in strange and extreme places and points are given for place and style (just standing there with an iron will get you minimal points; striking a graceful pose while ironing underwater will get you more). Bonus: the sport has inspired cellists to do the same thing. Photo from OneInchPunch.
5. Buzkashi sounds like something made up for Borat, but it’s a real sport in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, among others. It’s kind of like polo, except the focus of the game revolves around a decapitated goat or calf instead of a ball. If you’re a Rambo fan, you might remember seeing the game depicted in Rambo III. Photo from AfghanNetwork.
6. Cell Phone Throwing. Fed up with your cell phone? Join the club. But now you can do something legal to vent your frustrations (as opposed to going Naomi Campbell on someone). Since 2001, the Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships have been held in Finland. Categories include the traditional toss, freestyle (points for creativity!), team, and junior. If you’re not near Finland and don’t care to travel there just to chuck a phone, never fear: the U.S. held its first event in Massachusetts in 2008. And if you love your cell phone but hate outdated technology, you can join in the Rotary Phone Throw at Lawrence University in Wisconsin.
7. International Regatta of Bathtubs. La Regate des Baignoires was created to boost tourism in Dinant, Belgium. As you can imagine, bathtubs don’t float very well, so it’s a pretty entertaining “race.” In fact, speed really doesn’t matter at all when it comes to winning this thing. It’s more about the creativity of your tub and whether your tub actually makes it across the finish line or not. Photo from P&O Ferries.
8. Chess Boxing. The old stereotype of chess being for skinny, geeky guys with no athletic ability to speak of is totally out the window with this extreme sport. The game started out as kind of a joke in a graphic novel, but people eventually picked up on it and thought it had merit in reality. The first world championship was held in 2003 and regulated by the World Chess Boxing Organization. I like to think that when you call a checkmate, you get to punch your opponent in the face… but it doesn’t work like that. Boxing rounds are alternated with chess-playing rounds; the winner can be determined by knockout, checkmate, or a decision made by the referee. Photo from Time magazine.
9. Unicycle Hockey. It would seem to me that unicycling and hockey each have enough opportunity for injury all on their own, but combine them and you’re almost guaranteed to get a cool scar at some point. There are a few extra fouls, such as “sibbing,” which is poking your hockey stick in an opponent’s spokes to trip him or her up, but for the most part, the unusual mode of transportation is the biggest difference from regular hockey. Oh, yeah, and the lack of ice. Really, ice + unicycle = asking for a shattered femur. Here’s a group playing unicycle hockey in Telluride:
10. Rock Paper Scissors League. Yes, there’s a Rock Paper Scissors League (to be known as RPSL from now on), and yes, it’s serious. The world competitions take place every year in Las Vegas with Bud Light sponsoring. There’s skill to the game, for sure, but it’s more mental than anything else. For example, statistics have shown that women tend to start off a game with scissors and men tend to start with rock. Know your opponent and you could be a $50,000 winner like Sean Sears, who beat more than 300 contestants at Mandalay Bay last year. If that’s not your cup of tea, there are plenty of other tournaments to participate in: there’s the National Xtreme RPS Competition, the UK RPS Championship and the World Series of RPS.
A couple of weeks ago I posted about the robot that plays volleyball. Add this to the growing list of sporting droids: a robot that can pitch a fastball to another machine that can hit (although that looks like an easy play by the short stop… I bet the mad scientists are working on that one now). Will the Singularity take place in a sports arena?
Ever since the dawn of civilization, humans have had the need for speed. Indeed, raceways have been in existence for just about as long as we have cars, and although you may have
never found yourself in the middle of a Formula 1 competition, I’m sure
you’ve experienced the taste of racing in some form or another.
Perhaps our interests in speeding things are the result of an early childhood training. Take, for instance, Disney’s Autopia:
In 1955, Autopia was an example of the multilane limited-access highways which were still being developed. Before the park initially opened, the cars were tested without their rubberized bumpers. This is course resulted in some major collisions, although that was the fun part of the initial test drive. The cars at Autopia were eventually fashioned with rubber bumpers, and a guard rail was put in place to discourage reckless driving. What’s the fun in that!
Over the years, Autopia was updated using the very latest is fashionable vehicles including a 1967 Corvette
Stingray, a Volkswagen Bug, “Dusty, an off-road style car; Sparky, a sports car; and Suzy. Each was designed to be tied into the Chevron line of animated ‘Chevron Cars‘, and 4 versions of the Autopia cars were sold as toys during the 2000 summer season at Chevron stations nationwide.”
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by lannaxe96.
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George Foreman famously said, "Boxing is the sport to which all other sports aspire." Here’s a brief history of one of the most testing sports one could participate in.
All sports have the potential of becoming about much more than athletics, transforming into symbols of a culture’s and country’s mood, insecurities, conflicts, and hopes. But perhaps no sport lends itself to this kind of transposition more than boxing.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by msaleem.
This Italian sport originated in 16th century Florence. Called Bareknuckle Football, it’s a manlier version of, well, everything. Punching, head-butting, and choking are all legal. In 50 minutes each team tries to score as many points (cacce) as possible. In simpler terms this means that whichever team beats up the other more effectively will win. The closest thing we have to modern day gladiatorial combat. Seriously, they used to release prisoners to perform. Manly.
Most of the sports listed are violent or injury-inducing, but not all. Link -via the Presurfer
