kottke.org posts about sports
During an exhibition, Japanese volleyball player Yuji Nishida hit a courtside judge in the back with an errant serve. He immediately sprinted across the court and dove prostrate in apology. The gesture was a sort of sliding dogeza:
Even in a country where a sincere apology can go a long way, Nishida’s mea culpa was an extreme example. The most extravagant form in Japanese culture is the dogeza, which can also be used to express deep respect.
When used as an apology, the person in the wrong prostrates themselves and bows so that their forehead touches the floor between their hands. While the dogeza is rarely seen in public, scandal-hit politicians have used equally theatrical gestures to communicate their remorse.
Nishida followed up his slide with several more bows.
“Divers documents the restless anticipation of walking to the platform’s edge and the fleeting serenity found in jumping.” Lovely. Just lovely. (via colossal)
There’s a guy named Orion who surfs the St Lawrence River in the winter, sometimes dodging massive chunks of ice and sometimes riding them downstream, looking for waves. If you’ve ever been in Montreal near the river, even in the summer, you know how scary the water looks — churning & choppy with many eddies; I’m gobsmacked that someone goes out in that in freezing temperatures. The footage in this short film is incredible, otherworldly.
Skydiver & musician Gabriel Brown and astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy teamed up to capture these incredible photos of Brown transiting the Sun while skydiving. You can see a video of the jump and some behind the scenes calculations on Instagram.
We had to find the right location, time, aircraft, and distance for the clearest shot; while factoring in the aircraft’s power-off glideslope for the optimal sun angle and safe exit altitude. Then we had to align the shot using the opposition effect from the aircraft (shout out to the pilot @jimhamberlin) and coordinate the exact moment of the jump on 3-way coms!
As if that wasn’t hard enough, we had a myriad of malfunctions that almost led to the shot not being captured… But as you can see, against all odds, we got it on the sixth try!
That sounds….complicated. But the results speak for themselves. More coverage of this on Petapixel and Colossal.
As Petapixel notes, the photos are composite shots:
After he captured the shot of Brown, he then made the image “super high-res” by shooting the Sun on another telescope and “assembled a mosaic of the entire Sun”, which he later matched with the features in Brown’s photo.
(thx, alex)
I’m totally charmed by these snaps of some of the best sumo wrestlers in the world touring London.
The athletes were in London for a 5-day event at the Royal Albert Hall.
London’s Victorian concert venue has been utterly transformed, complete with six-tonne Japanese temple roof suspended above the ring.
It is here the wrestlers, known as rikishi, will perform their leg stomps to drive away evil spirits, and where they will clap to get the attention of the gods.
And above all this ancient ceremony, a giant, revolving LED screen which wouldn’t look out of place at an American basketball game, offering the audience all the stats and replays they could want.
Sumo may be ancient, and may have strict rules governing every aspect of a rikishi’s conduct, but it still exists in a modern world.
And that modern world is helping spread sumo far beyond Japan’s borders.
The tournament has already concluded; the winner, Hoshoryu, was given a giant bottle of soy sauce:
Todd Weaver uses analog & in-camera experimental techniques to achieve subtly geometric and colorful surfing photographs. Of one of his photos, Weaver says:
This one was taken on my half-frame camera at my favourite place to surf, First Point in Malibu. The colour is a one of a kind. I don’t think I could repeat it in a thousand tries. The stripe is an artefact of my pre-exposing process.
You can find more of Weaver’s work on his website and Instagram. If you like these surf photos, you might be interested in getting a copy of Dream Weaver Journal Volume 2.
Shane Schieffer is attempting to swim the entire 140-mile length of Lake Powell in 10 days, self-supported. Yeah, that means he’s dragging 215lbs of gear behind him on a paddle board while he swims. He’s documenting the whole thing on Instagram; here’s a video where he explains all the gear he’s taking with him.
I’m attempting to be the first person ever to swim across Lake Powell. Here’s how I’m preparing for this massive journey-
I will be swimming from Hite Crossing Bridge in Utah to Glen Canyon Dam in Arizona. This means that I will need to swim 140 miles in just 10 days. Ambitious, I know.
This journey will be completely unassisted. My safety crew will not be offering me food, navigation, or pacing.
To carry my gear, I’ve designed a floating rig from an inflatable paddle board with solar power, water filtration, and dry boxes for food storage, gear, and human waste (yes, I will be leaving NO trace).
Schieffer, 49, is going to be consuming 8000 calories each day on his journey and told a local TV station that “I’ve anticipated about 200,000 rotations of the shoulders out there in the water”.
He started on Sept 2, so this is day 3 of the trip. Again, you can keep up with the whole thing on Instagram.
In the mid-70s, Mike Mandel traveled around the United States photographing photographers as if they were baseball players, capturing the likes of Imogen Cunningham, Ed Ruscha, William Eggleston, and Ansel Adams.
I photographed photographers as if they were baseball players and produced a set of cards that were packaged in random groups of ten, with bubble gum, so that the only way of collecting a complete set was to make a trade. I travelled around the United States visiting about 150 photographic “personalities” and had them pose for me. I carried baseball paraphernalia: caps, gloves, balls, a mask and chest protector, a bat, as well as photographic equipment, and made a 14,000 mile odyssey. Out of this experience came 134 Baseball-Photographer images. I designed a reverse side for the card which would allow for each photographer to fill in their own personal data that in a way referred to the information usually included on real baseball cards: Favorite camera, favorite developer, favorite film, height, weight, etc. I used whatever information each photographer provided me.
You can hear Mandel talking about the project in this SFMOMA video — the gum he included in the packages of cards was donated by Topps:
You can find some of the cards on eBay for around $10-50 apiece and a complete set, signed by Mandel & Imogen Cunningham, can be had for $3,650. (thx, duncan)
I love these author cards from McSweeney’s in the style of baseball cards.
For years you’ve seen athletes, web-slinging superheroes, orcs, and pocket monsters get the trading-card treatment, while you’ve sat in your room hoping upon hope that the heroes of magical realism or giants of New Journalism would get their own. The wait is over, friends.
They have three sets: the first set is a part of their 74th issue, series 2, and series 3. The authors featured in the sets include Octavia Butler, Judy Blume, Lauren Groff, Toni Morrison, Stephen King, George Saunders, Sarah Vowell, and Kurt Vonnegut.
The other day I was surprised to learn that several years ago, FC Barcelona streamed the entire match of their Nov 2010 5-0 dismantling of Real Madrid to YouTube and you can still watch it in its entirety.
The El Clásico match was notable not only for how much Barça dominated the game1 but also for who played (Messi, Iniesta, Xavi, Puyol, Busquets, Abidal, Villa, Valdés for FCB; Ronaldo, Di Maria, Benzema, Özil, Xabi Alonso, Sergio Ramos, Casillas for RM) and coached (Pep Guardiola for FCB and José Mourinho for RM).
I remember watching this game. Messi didn’t score because the Madrid defense was trying to put him in the hospital but he assisted on two goals and famously walked off the pitch near the end of the match, right past Cristiano Ronaldo, looking at the scoreboard and grinning.
The teams met four more times that year, in just a span of 18 days: a 1-1 La Liga draw, a 1-0 Real Madrid victory in the Copa del Ray final, and a pair of matches in the Champions League semis that ended with an aggregate score of 3-1 in favor of Barça, who went on to a dominating 3-1 win against Man United in the final. That 2010-2011 Barcelona club is considered one of the best club teams of all time.
As an occasional yoyo-er, I’ve watched a fair amount of yoyo routines, but this championship-winning routine by 8-time world champ Hajime Miura is the best one I’ve ever seen. Miura’s routine falls somewhere on the spectrum between magical illusion & performance art; even the music is perfect. The result is mesmerizing. (via the kid should see this)
Meet Jackson Goldstone. He’s 6 years old, lives in British Columbia, and is already ripping it up on his bike. Here’s a video of him taking the long way around on his way to kindergarten:
Wow, if he keeps riding and improving, I wonder how good this kid could be? Ok, I’m funning you a little bit because that was several years ago and Jackson is starring in GoPro videos at the age of 10 and riding the hardest trails faster and better than many adult riders:
I mean, I think Jackson could really be world-class some da— Ha, more tricks! Jackson is actually 21 years old here in the present of 2025 and is actually now one of the best downhill mountain bikers in the world. Here’s the POV video from a recent win of his:
There are a couple of notable things about this video:
1. Watch the way he goes through a bunch of tree stumps at full tilt at ~1:10 by basically jumping over the whole thing with a couple of quick hops. Adjust the playback speed of the video to 0.5 or 0.25 to see how he does it. I’ve watched this like 10 times and it’s still bonkers.
2. And then at ~1:52, he screams through a tunnel and gaps directly onto a wooden berm — and you can hear how the crowd reacts. Here’s another view of that same gap and the rest of his run:
Other riders clear that gap too, but somehow not as big or direct as Jackson does it. I don’t actually know enough about mtn biking to know how Goldstone is doing what he’s doing, but if you want a hint, check out the “Bike Jesus” section of this video that starts at ~5:30:
3. Oh yeah, and just how ungodly fast he and the other riders are going past trees and through rocks and all sorts of other lurking assailants. Blimey.
ImillaSkate is a Bolivian female skate collective whose members dress in traditional cholita clothing. This is a great short documentary about the group, the challenges they face, and the change & joy they’re trying to bring to their communities.
Some people in my generation are embarrassed to wear a pollera [traditional skirt]. Because the pollera highlights your features. Your indigenous features. Highlight what we are as indigenous people, as the daughters of women of polleras. It’s a part of my family legacy. And without my family, I’m nobody. It’s about giving the pollera new meaning.
I wrote about ImillaSkate a few years ago as well. I poked around to see if they were raising funds for their activities (lessons, building a skatepark) because I wanted to contribue, but didn’t find anything — if anything pops up, I’ll let you know. You can follow their adventures on Instagram and via their website. (via @lizziearmanto)
From an excerpt of his new book, It’s Only Drowning (Amazon), David Litt writes about the frustrating and humiliating experience of learning how to surf at the age of 35.
Yet I didn’t quit. I returned to the dog beach twice more the week of my first solo session, and four more times the week after that. I could count my total number of successful pop-ups on my fingers, so it wasn’t the rush of riding waves that kept me coming back. It was something deeper. During each surf session I felt frustrated, exhausted, humiliated, terrified, depleted, confused, and sore — but never depressed. While flailing in pursuit of whitewater may not have been fun, it was something different to think about. It paused the spin cycle in my mind.
I started mountain biking almost 5 years ago, at the age of 46. The sport is not so geared towards young learners as surfing, but it presents sufficient physical challenges and danger for the older human that feeling “frustrated, exhausted, humiliated, terrified, depleted, confused, and sore” is guaranteed. But also: exhilarated, fulfilled, happy, and engaged. While my cardio could still use some work, I’m no longer terrible at mountain biking and continue to improve, which is both a source of satisfaction at my progression and hunger to keep getting better.
See also: To Air Is Human and The Joy of Fortnite.
Derek Bolz made a video about what biking does for his mental health. A partial transcript (boldface mine):
Life has been rough lately. I don’t want to air my dirty laundry on the internet, so I won’t go into detail. But for a number of reasons, I am quite stressed out, maybe more than I’ve ever been before. To put it simply: everything is not ok.
But then, suddenly, everything is ok. My hands are on the bars, my feet are on the pedals, the wind is in my face, my mind is clear. All I have to do is clear that jump, rip around that corner, clear that other jump, land that trick, hold that manual, hold that wheelie, hold on for dear life, pedal harder and harder and harder.
That is the beauty of biking. It demands so much of your attention that you have no option but to live in the present. There’s no time to worry. It’s like meditation while moving. And then you always feel a bit better after.
This is one of the reasons I’ve fallen in love with mountain biking over the past few years — riding is so all-encompassing that it forces me out of whatever past or future crisis is occupying my thoughts and into thinking no more than a second or two into the future. And moving through physical space feels like you’re making progress, which is amazing when you’re feeling stuck in the rest of your life.
Depending on the trail, if I lose concentration for a second while biking, I might get seriously injured or die. As someone who has never been into extreme sports, I have no idea why I decided being on the edge of death is fun and stress-relieving, but it is. 🤷♂️
Mountain biking isn’t for everyone — I know others get a similar sense of presence and focus from running, skiing, throwing pots, woodworking, photography, walking, surfing, writing, knitting, meditation, gardening, painting, reading, and the list goes on and on. I feel lucky to have found my thing and would love to hear if you’ve found yours. (via @mmilan)
Trans athlete Soren Stark-Chessa finished first in the 1600-meter race at a recent track meet in Maine. Republican state representative Laurel Libby complained about Stark-Chessa’s win on a Fox News appearance, saying that trans athletes are “pushing many, many of our young women out of the way in their ascent to the podium”.
Freshman Anelise Feldman finished second to Stark-Chessa in that race and wrote a letter to the newspaper (archive) calling Libby a bully and asserting that she didn’t feel pushed out of first place. Here’s her letter:
Rep. Laurel Libby, R-Auburn, recently used my second-place finish in the 1,600-meter run, and that of my teammate in the 800-meter run, to malign Soren Stark-Chessa, the trans-identified athlete who finished first.
One of the reasons I chose to run cross-country and track is the community: Teammates cheering each other on, athletes from different schools coming together, and the fact that personal improvement is valued as much as, if not more than, the place we finish.
Last Friday, I ran the fastest 1,600-meter race I have ever run in middle school or high school track and earned varsity status by my school’s standards. I am extremely proud of the effort I put into the race and the time that I achieved. The fact that someone else finished in front of me didn’t diminish the happiness I felt after finishing that race. I don’t feel like first place was taken from me. Instead, I feel like a happy day was turned ugly by a bully who is using children to make political points.
We are all just kids trying to make our way through high school. Participating in sports is the highlight of high school for some kids. No one was harmed by Soren’s participation in the girls’ track meet, but we are all harmed by the hateful rhetoric of bullies, like Rep. Libby, who want to take sports away from some kids just because of who they are.
Anelise Feldman
Freshman, Yarmouth High School
Yarmouth
This is a fun story about Sam Bartram, a goalkeeper who was accidentally left on the field when a 1937 game was called off during the second half due to heavy fog.
On Christmas Day 1937, Bartram was in the papers once more after a bizarre incident in a match against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge. With the score at 1-1, the game had to be called off on 61 minutes due to thick fog. Unfortunately for Bartram, he was the last to be made aware. “Soon after the kick-off, [fog] began to thicken rapidly at the far end, travelling past Vic Woodley in the Chelsea goal and rolling steadily towards me,” he wrote in his autobiography. “The referee stopped the game, and then, as visibility became clearer, restarted it. We were on top at this time, and I saw fewer and fewer figures as we attacked steadily.
“I paced up and down my goal-line, happy in the knowledge that Chelsea were being pinned in their own half. ‘The boys must be giving the Pensioners the hammer,’ I thought smugly, as I stamped my feet for warmth. Quite obviously, however, we were not getting the ball into the net. For no players were coming back to line up, as they would have done following a goal. Time passed, and I made several advances towards the edge of the penalty area, peering through the murk, which was getting thicker every minute. Still I could see nothing. The Chelsea defence was clearly being run off its feet.
“After a long time a figure loomed out of the curtain of fog in front of me. It was a policeman, and he gaped at me incredulously. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ he gasped. ‘The game was stopped a quarter of an hour ago. The field’s completely empty’. And when I groped my way to the dressing-room, the rest of the Charlton team, already out of the bath and in their civvies, were convulsed with laughter.”
London fog is no joke.
P.S. BTW, the photo that frequently accompanies other online accounts of this story is not of Bartram. kottke.org: carefully fact-checking internet fun facts since 1998. 🤷♂️
If you’re one of those people who watches the Olympics and wishes they’d put a normal person in the competition so we can see how fast the athletes really are, this one’s for you.
Eight-time Olympic gold medalist and a 10-time world champion sprinter Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce recently announced her comeback and for her first 100m race, she competed against the other parents at her son’s sports day event. And completely demolished them.
I love how she goes flat-out…no Usain Bolt showboating or looking around near the finish line. All business. (via @rebeccablood.bsky.social)
Update: She did it back in 2023 too.
Writing for the New York Review (archive), Sally Rooney profiles “genius” snooker player Ronnie O’Sullivan. But much of the piece is spent on the mystery of how O’Sullivan and other athletes are able to do what they do without thinking.
Take the last frame of the 2014 Welsh Open final. The footage is available online, courtesy of Eurosport Snooker: if you like, you can watch O’Sullivan, then in his late thirties, circling the table, chalking his cue without taking his eyes from the baize. He’s leading his opponent, Ding Junhui — then at number three in the world snooker rankings — by eight frames to three, needing only one more to win the match and take home the title. He pots a red, then the black, then another red, and everything lands precisely the way he wants it: immaculate, mesmerizing, miraculously controlled.
The last remaining red ball is stranded up by the cushion on the right-hand side, and the cue ball rolls to a halt just left of the middle right-hand pocket. The angle is tight, awkward, both white and red lined up inches away from the cushion. O’Sullivan surveys the position, nonchalantly switches hands, and pots the red ball left-handed. The cue ball hits the top cushion, rolls back down over the table, and comes to a stop, as if on command, to line up the next shot on the black. O’Sullivan could scarcely have chosen a better spot if he had picked the cue ball up in his hand and put it there. The crowd erupts: elation mingled with disbelief. At the end of the frame, when only the black remains on the table, he switches hands again, seemingly just for fun, and makes the final shot with his left. The black drops down into the pocket, completing what is known in snooker as a maximum break: the feat of potting every ball on the table in perfect order to attain the highest possible total of 147 points.
Watch a little of this sort of thing and it’s hugely entertaining. Watch a lot and you might start to ask yourself strange questions. For instance: In that particular frame, after potting that last red, how did O’Sullivan know that the cue ball would come back down the table that way and land precisely where he wanted it? Of course it was only obeying the laws of physics. But if you wanted to calculate the trajectory of a cue ball coming off an object ball and then a cushion using Newtonian physics, you’d need an accurate measurement of every variable, some pretty complex differential equations, and a lot of calculating time. O’Sullivan lines up that shot and plays it in the space of about six seconds. A lucky guess? It would be lucky to make a guess like that once in a lifetime. He’s been doing this sort of thing for thirty years.
What then? If he’s not calculating, and he’s not guessing, what is Ronnie O’Sullivan doing? Why does the question seem so strange? And why doesn’t anybody know the answer?
You can watch that final frame on YouTube:
There’s also a short interview with Rooney about the piece and other things.
I also mention that frames of snooker are expected to continue even after competitive play has concluded. Players don’t just get to a certain number of points and then stop because they’ve won the frame; they continue until the break imposes its own conclusion. There’s something so strange and excessive about that—it seems to belong to the realm of aesthetics rather than sport.
I used to write a lot about what Rooney examines in her essay — the effortless brilliance of top performers — under the subject of relaxed concentration. Still as fascinating as ever.
Good news: at least for now, Lucy Welch remains employed by Sugarbush. From the Boston Globe (archive):
In a statement to the Globe, Sugarbush spokesperson John Bleh said the resort respects “the voice and opinion” of its employees but “determined that the snow report was not the appropriate medium to share that information.”
He would not comment on whether Welch had faced disciplinary action but said she “remains a member of the snow reporting team.”
JD Vance visited Vermont this weekend and skied at Sugarbush; Welch wrote the widely shared snow report for the resort that, in direct and plain language, detailed her distaste for the administration that Vance represents. Bill McKibben called Welch “a hero for the moment” — here’s a portion of her missive:
I am really scared for our future. Acting like nothing is happening here feels way scarier than losing my job. I want to have kids one day, and I want to teach them to ski. The policies and ideals of the current Administration, however, are not conducive to either of these things, because, at least how things look now, I’d never be able to afford a good life for a child anyway, and snow will be a thing of Vermont history. So please, for the sake of our future shredders: Be Better Here. It has truly been a pleasure writing your morning snow reports — I hope this one sticks with you. With love, peace, and hope, Lucy Welch
Judging from the comments on Sugarbush’s most recent Instagram photo and other social media platforms, Welch has achieved the status of folk hero in the state. Well deserved, IMO. (thx, caroline)
JD Vance, fresh off of helping his boss ambush & insult a foreign leader in the White House yesterday afternoon, is on vacation in Vermont with his family this weekend and will be skiing at Sugarbush Resort in Warren, VT, a 15-minute drive from where I live.
This morning, Sugarbush snow reporter Lucy Welch took the opportunity to make some good trouble by sending out a message of resistance against Vance and the administration he represents. The message went out via email to all Sugarbush daily report subscribers and appeared on the website for a brief time before it was removed. Here is the text of her message:
Mar 1st, 2025, 6:49 AM: Today of all days, I would like to reflect on what Sugarbush means to me. This mountain has brought me endless days of joy, adventure, challenges, new experiences, beauty, community, and peace. I’ve found that nothing cures a racing mind quite like skiing through the trees and stopping to take a deep breath of that fresh forest air. The world around us might be a scary place, but these little moments of tranquility, moments I’ve been fortunate enough to enjoy as a direct result of my employment here, give me, and I’d guess you, too, a sense of strength and stability.
This fresh forest air, is, more specifically fresh National Forest air. Sugarbush operates on 1745 acres of the Green Mountain National Forest. Right now, National Forest lands and National Parks are under direct attack by the current Administration, who is swiftly terminating the positions of dedicated employees who devote their lives to protecting the land we love, and to protecting us while we are enjoying that land.
This Administration also neglects to address the danger, or even the existence of, climate change, the biggest threat to the future of our industry, and the skiing we all so much enjoy here. Burlington, VT is one of the fastest-warming cities in the country, and Vermont is the 9th fastest-warming state. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA), a resource I use every day for snow reporting, is crucial in monitoring extreme weather events and informing public safety measures, and is also experiencing widespread layoffs and defunding at the hands of the Administration.
Sugarbush would not be Sugarbush without our wonderful community. Employees and patrons alike, we are made up of some of the most kind hearted, hardworking people I have ever met. Our community is rich with folks of all different orientations, ethnicities, and walks of life, who all contribute to make this place what it is. They all love Sugarbush because it is a place where they can come to move their bodies, to connect with the land, to challenge themselves, to build character, to nourish their souls with the gift of skiing.
Many of these people are part of the LGBTQI+ community. Many (well, that’s a stretch, we all know this is an incredibly white-washed industry) are people of color. Half are women. Many are veterans or adaptive skiers who, through Vermont Adaptive, are able to access snow sports in part thanks to federal grants through the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is also facing devastating cuts. Many of our beloved employees moved across the world through an exchange program on the J1 visa to help this resort run, and they are not US citizens. ALL of these groups are being targeted, undervalued, and disrespected by the current Administration.
The beauty of National Forest land, is that anyone and everyone is welcome to enjoy it. Anyone and everyone can buy a lift ticket. I also imagine it is incredibly difficult, and likely impossible, to say “No” to the Secret Service. I hope that, instead of faulting Sugarbush management or employees for “allowing this to happen”, you can direct your anger to the source — the Administration that, in my oh-so-humble opinion, is threatening our democracy, our livelihoods, our land.
I want to reiterate how much I admire and respect my fellow employees and managers — they work so hard to make this place operate, to keep you coming back and enjoying it and making lifelong memories. Many of them may feel the same way that I do, but their hands are tied, and for good reason. They have families to support, they have benefits and health insurance to receive, they face far greater and more binding pressure from Corporate. I am in a privileged position here, in that I work only seasonally, I do not rely on this job for health insurance or benefits, and hey, waking up at 4:30 AM isn’t exactly sustainable. Therefore, I am using my relative “platform” as snow reporter, to be disruptive — I don’t have a whole lot to lose. We are living in a really scary and really serious time. What we do or don’t do, matters. This whole shpiel probably won’t change a whole lot, and I can only assume that I will be fired, but at least this will do even just a smidge more than just shutting up and being a sheep.
I am really scared for our future. Acting like nothing is happening here feels way scarier than losing my job. I want to have kids one day, and I want to teach them to ski. The policies and ideals of the current Administration, however, are not conducive to either of these things, because, at least how things look now, I’d never be able to afford a good life for a child anyway, and snow will be a thing of Vermont history. So please, for the sake of our future shredders: Be Better Here. It has truly been a pleasure writing your morning snow reports — I hope this one sticks with you. With love, peace, and hope, Lucy Welch
But hey, while we’re here…1-3” of fresh snow to kick off this interesting weekend. Chance of scattered mixed precip showers today, with warmer temps reaching 36 at the base and 28 at the summit. Right now, the snowpack is a mix of machine groomed and frozen granular, with more winter-like conditions near the summits, but the new snow may help nudge conditions into the powder/packed powder category in certain aspects and elevations. Enjoy 60 groomers and 100% open terrain today! For Saturday, we’ll be rocking 111 trails, 484 skiable acres, and 60 groomed runs. Temps are expected to be in the mid-20s and mid-30s under cloudy skies with winds out of the WNW ranging from 15-40 MPH. With all the new snow we saw this month, it is more important than ever to be diligent when skiing and riding in the woods — tree wells pose a greater risk with all this fresh pow.
Thank you, Lucy — that was wonderful.
The rest of the towns around here and in the surrounding area have turned out for protests as well…some pics and video here, here, and here. There were some protesters spotted earlier on one of the Sugarbush webcams as well.
Update: There are a bunch of updates on the protests and links to photos and videos in the comments below. Two of the photos embedded above (HIT A TREE and the pride flag one) were taken at the protest yesterday by KDO field reporter Caroline. 🙏
When Fairlee, Vermont’s Lake Morey freezes over in the winter, a 4-5 mile loop is cleared by a local resort for wild ice skating. I was able to get out on the ice with my family for a couple hours on Friday; it was great fun, and I’m looking forward to going again soon.
I hope you got out this weekend and did something outside or active or new or comforting…we’re going to need to replenish our reserves in the coming weeks and months.
I did not think I was going to watch this whole video when I started but I totally did. Some absolutely incredible shots & rallies in here. (thx, dunstan)
In June 1971, the BBC aired a segment on a “mysterious” and “niche” sports imported from America called “jogging”. It’s in black & white, which makes it feel even older than it is, and they interview (while jogging!) Tory MP Ernest Marples, who says he often jogs to Parliament from his house in a lounge suit. This is something straight out of Monty Python…more interviews with people while they are running please.
BTW, Wikipedia has this to say about Marples:
In later life, Marples was elevated to the peerage before fleeing to Monaco at very short notice to avoid prosecution for tax fraud.
Once a runner, always a runner. (thx, dunstan)
Following on from last year’s successful trial, the Australian Open is once again broadcasting all their matches, nearly live and in their entirety, on YouTube — but with animated avatars in place of the players. Here’s how it looks in practice, kind of Wii Tennis; this is a match between Coco Gauff and Jodie Burrage from a few days ago (the animation starts just before the 35-minute mark:
The matches are only delayed by two minutes (the system needs some rendering time) and viewers get to hear the the audio & commentary from the actual match. From The Guardian:
The technology made its debut at the grand slam last year and audiences peaked for the men’s final, the recording of which has attracted almost 800,000 views on YouTube. Interest appears to be trending up this year and the matches are attracting roughly four times as many viewers than the equivalent time in 2024.
The director of innovation at Tennis Australia, Machar Reid, said although the technology was far from polished it was developing quickly. “Limb tracking is complex, you’ve got 12 cameras trying to process the silhouette of the human in real time, and stitch that together across 29 points in the skeleton,” he said. “It’s not as seamless as it could be – we don’t have fingers – but in time you can begin to imagine a world where that comes.”
Re: not seamless, here’s a recent blooper reel:
Back in 2023, the NFL and Disney collaborated on a Toy Story version of an NFL game, the NHL broadcast an animated hockey game in 2024, and last month the NFL did another animated broadcast with characters from The Simpsons playing key roles.
I’ve shared animator Nick Murray Willis’ videos before — he takes snippets of sound & dialogue from sports commentary & movies and creates context-shifted animations from them. For instance, in the two videos above with football (soccer) commentary, a commentator’s chant of “Messi, Messi, Messi” becomes a French street performer thanking the crowd (“merci, merci, merci”).
(Ok, I’ve caught myself attempting to explain humor, so I’m gonna wrap this up by urging you to watch the videos if you want.)
I just spent my lunch hour watching the 22 nominated goals for the 2024 Puskas & Marta Awards, given to the most spectacular goals scored by men’s & women’s footballers last season.
The Marta Award is new this year; here’s a playlist of the 11 nominees. Fun fact: one of the nominees is Brazilian legend Marta, after whom the award is named. She was 37 when she fizzed this goal in against Jamaica.
Here’s a playlist of the nominees for the Puskas Award. Generally, I prefer goals with a bit of buildup to bicycle kicks or rockets from outside the 18-yard box, but these were all fun to watch.
Icelandic photographer Haukur Sigurdsson captured this aerial image of Nordic skiers looking like musical notes on a staff. Someone on YouTube played the tune:
Sigurdsson’s photo is available as a print.
In a piece for Vogue, Edith Zimmerman writes about trading one addiction for another: A Former Drinker Asks, Am I Addicted to Running?
And running is good. I don’t have to lie about it or hide it. It makes me happy, and it makes my life better. There are little parallels between running and drinking, though: I feel antsy, for instance, on days when I can’t run (that itch!). And I backpedal on the days I plan to rest — I’ll just go for a quick one right now and take tomorrow off instead. And I don’t understand the people — my friends — who run only once or twice a week. Why not more? Wouldn’t you want to do it every day?
Edith and I traded Insta memes this morning about running and mountain biking. I’ve been mtn biking for four years now but this year was the first time it felt urgent — every few days, I had to get out on the bike. And each time I did, I wanted to ride harder and faster and better. I pushed it so hard I almost died and didn’t ride for a month, during which period I wasn’t feeling apprehensive about getting back on the bike, I was impatient and antsy that I couldn’t. Since getting back to it, I’ve modified my approach — less aggressive, more life preserving — but the need to get out remains. I don’t know what I’m going to do this winter without it.
Kasso is a Japanese game show that’s like a skateboarding version of Ninja Warrior. A group of skaters is challenged to navigate a series of obstacle courses that require the street and park skating skills. Some of the obstacles are truly diabolical — to get the gist, check out these videos:
You can catch more of Kasso on their YouTube channel. (via @mathowie)
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