Tag: sports

Robot Soccer

i laughed. (and i hate sports in general)

the day when we can replace the idiots in the NFL doesn’t seem that far off. everyone wins: no million $ salaries for robots, no concussions, much less wasted time by “fans” and no more spandex scholarships. universities will need the savings to compete with nimbler online rivals anyway.

Paralyzed Marathon

Dispatches from our nonlinear future.

A paralyzed British woman made history on Tuesday, when she became the first person to ever complete a marathon while wearing a bionic suit. Claire Lomas finished the race 16 days after it began, with the help of the ReWalk exoskeleton developed by Amit Goffer.

91-Year-Old Track Star

At last fall’s Lahti championship, Kotelko threw a javelin more than 6m farther than her nearest age-group rival. At the World Masters Games in Sydney, Kotelko’s time in the 100 meters — 23.95 seconds — was faster than that of some finalists in the 80-to-84-year category, 2 brackets down. World Masters Athletics, the governing body of masters track, uses “age-graded” tables developed by statisticians to create a kind of standard score, expressed as a %, for any athletic feat. The world record for any given event would theoretically be assigned 100%. But a number of Kotelko’s marks — in shot put, high jump, 100-meter dash — top 100%. (Because there are so few competitors over 90, age-graded scores are still guesswork.)

Jousting

The New York Times Magazine visits the Gulf Coast International Jousting Championiships, a new old extreme sport spun-out of Ren Faires. “This is the real deal. There’s a real possibility of getting hurt.” A member of the Chukchansi tribe in California, with tattoos of his spirit animals ringing his thick biceps. He doesn’t joust because he’s attracted to romantic notions of honor and chivalry or because he has an affinity for the medieval period. (“I don’t know jack about history, nor do I care”.) He does it because he considers jousting one of the most extreme sports ever invented, and he likes doing things that most other people can’t or won’t do.