Sport: November 2007 Archives
Have you ever been so determined to do something that you’re willing to risk actual bodily harm, if not the permanent use of your body, to get it done? Have you ever wondered what it might be like to try something that hadn’t been done before, to redefine the boundaries of your discipline, to rewrite certain rules, to seek change rather than settle for straight up passive acceptance? Have you ever dreamed of being at the forefront of the thing you love most? Have you ever set out to get there? Have you devoted your entire life to getting there? And did you get there?
Zach Shaw has done all the above. That’s why we’ve signed him up - because he’s retained that same attitude throughout his career as a rider, that imagination, that creativity and that determination to succeed, to be at the front not the back, to change the way people think about the things he does. He invented the 360 flip on a BMX. Today it’s called the Zakflip, although we’ve no idea why.
How the trick came about tells you everything you need to know about what it takes to succeed, not just in BMX and others sports, but in anything. He imagines something in his head. It seems crazy; no one has done it before. Even so, he then sets out to learn how to make it happen. And he doesn’t give up.
“I came up with the idea after doing the Mansfield Demo with Mat Hoffman in 1990 where he pulled the first flair. It got me thinking that a 540 flair was possible but I had to learn flips first! When I finally got the opportunity to learn flips I started messing with flipping and spinning (on a jump). I could do 180 flips no problem but getting the extra rotation was really hard and I never could get more than flip 270s until I went to the jump at Crowhurst in Hastings.
When I first jumped there I realised that this was THE jump i could do it on. I didn't say anything to anyone there and just rode in to try it. The first one I rotated full 360 and landed then my back wheel slid out. The second attempt the same thing happened and on the third attempt I landed sideways and blew the spokes out of my back wheel and had the wind taken out of me as I landed on my ribs. I vowed to pull the trick the very next weekend. When I went back to Crowhurst it took me 2 attempts to pull what’s now known as the Zakflip.”
Zach’s won pretty much everything in his time, yet he still bases himself in the UK and continues to give something back to the sport here by nurturing local talent.
And so you don’t all go to bed tonight disillusioned by football, take a look at this. This is football as it should be. It’s been lovingly put together by someone for whom the great man clearly meant a great deal; check the sound effects that go with it...
Why do we love football? Because it’s the beautiful game. Because of the artistry. Because of the little half turn. Because of the angled pass with the outside of the boot. Because of the team. Because of togetherness. Because of the fight, the heart, the steel, the passion, the belief. Because of the power. Because of the love. Because of the control. Because of the subtleties, the unseen touches, the flicks and the feints. Because of the theatre, the crowds, the loyalty, the support, the devotion, the passion. Just because.
Year upon year of predictable failure and campaigns devoid of any of the above left me clinging to a few faint traces of hope leading into last night’s game. Might we, for once, play well? Might I actually enjoy an England game? 90 minutes later, all hope was gone. What is the point exactly? I’m not happy we failed. Nor am I hopeful that this will elicit some kind of reaction deep within the FA or at grass roots level so that, in a gazillion years time, we’ll win the World Cup. Nope. I’m just beyond caring. I woke up this morning entirely ambivalent about the whole thing. The Euro will be a better place for it. When have we ever contributed anything to major tournaments beyond false dawns writ large across back pages. We will win the world cup, we scream. The rest of the world just laughs, and rightly so.
Last night, Lawrenson described Croatia as a ‘technical’ team. Um, yes, they are technical insofar as they can control a ball, turn around, keep hold of it and pass it accurately to a teammate who can then do something similar. But we’re not talking about Zico, Platini and Best here. This is Croatia. What Lawro should have said, perhaps, was that Croatia are a ‘technical’ side compared to England, who, as a collective, are a sad and abject wasteland devoid of anything even resembling technique.
Continue reading THE GREAT CREATIVE VOID.
Cyclists. Unnecessarily tight clothing. Difficult to get past in your car. That’s about as much as I knew about those who choose to cycle mile after mile on their beloved weekends. But that’s because I didn’t understand the sport at all. And not understanding something invariably means it means nothing.
So I began Tim Krabbé’s much acclaimed cycling classic The Rider with some hesitation. I’d enjoyed The Vanishing, but a book about cycling? Please.
A hundred and fifty short pages later, I was thinking about getting some tight shorts myself while browsing through lightweight bike frames online. Through the story of a single mountain race (the Tour du Mont Aigoual) and all its little nuances - the strategy, the relationships, the climbs, the descents, the flats - seen through the eyes of a rider, and interspersed with intriguing anecdotes plucked from the annals of cycling history, Krabbé perfectly describes what is, in fact, a wonderfully rich and complex sport. The structure of a single race lends itself ideally to a narrative such as this, and with his story - based on fact, with a few details elaborated - we experience the slightly disturbing tactical ingenuity required to succeed, all played out on a unique canvas of peer-to-peer etiquette.
But besides all that, what makes cycling all the more extraordinary is the sheer will of the riders who partake. Surely there are few places where determination is made more explicit than on a mountain climb, four hours into the race, aboard two wheels and a saddle - in a pair of tight shorts...
Continue reading WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT EH?.
So Roger Federer lost his first game in the Shanghai Masters. You just know it will only make him more determined to win the tournament outright. It’s just the nature of the man (and all great sportsmen for that matter), to overcome adversity despite not performing at his peak. The will is the wings that carry talent across the line, and pure determination so often the difference between maestro and wasted talent, between fully fledged genius and meaningless potential.
And for a reminder as to just how brilliant Roger Federer is, take a look at this piece by David Foster Wallace (it’s over a year old now but no less evocative today) that compares watching the great man to something verging on religious experience -
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/sports/playmagazine/20federer.html
Here’s an excerpt to whet your appetite:
“Roger Federer is one of those rare, preternatural athletes who appear to be exempt, at least in part, from certain physical laws. Good analogues here include Michael Jordan, who could not only jump inhumanly high but actually hang there a beat or two longer than gravity allows, and Muhammad Ali, who really could “float” across the canvas and land two or three jabs in the clock-time required for one. Federer is of this type - a type that one could call genius or mutant or avatar. He is never hurried or off-balance. The approaching ball hangs, for him, a split-second longer than it ought to. His movements are lithe rather than athletic. Like Ali, Jordan and Maradona, he seems both less and more substantial than the men he faces. He looks like what he may well (I think) be: a creature whose body is both flesh and, somehow, light.”
And for a reminder as to just how brilliant Roger Federer is, take a look at this piece by David Foster Wallace (it’s over a year old now but no less evocative today) that compares watching the great man to something verging on religious experience -
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/sports/playmagazine/20federer.html
Here’s an excerpt to whet your appetite:
“Roger Federer is one of those rare, preternatural athletes who appear to be exempt, at least in part, from certain physical laws. Good analogues here include Michael Jordan, who could not only jump inhumanly high but actually hang there a beat or two longer than gravity allows, and Muhammad Ali, who really could “float” across the canvas and land two or three jabs in the clock-time required for one. Federer is of this type - a type that one could call genius or mutant or avatar. He is never hurried or off-balance. The approaching ball hangs, for him, a split-second longer than it ought to. His movements are lithe rather than athletic. Like Ali, Jordan and Maradona, he seems both less and more substantial than the men he faces. He looks like what he may well (I think) be: a creature whose body is both flesh and, somehow, light.”
