flickering pictures

All you Italian soccer players out there can skip this lesson — hell, you could probably teach the class.
The BBC asks the asinine question: “Could a rugby injury be faked?” Yes, yes it could — and Nick Asbury of the Royal Shakespeare Company has put together a tutorial video to show you how, complete […]

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Smacker: “May I just whack you on the head with this shovel?”
Smackee: “You may.”
A new orange goo called D3O remains soft until you smack it with something (a shovel, say) at which point it becomes extremely rigid — hard enough to protect your head from a tumble over your handlebars, or from a good smack […]

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When I stumbled across a brief history of bartitsu on the Web, I assumed it was a Simpsons joke at best or a ninth-rate Shaq-Fu clone at worst. But as it turns out, bartitsu is a legitimate blend of jiujitsu, sumo wrestling, French kickboxing, stick fighting, and other martial arts. And despite all […]

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From the indefatigable Cool Things in Random Places:

The sport of shin kicking has been around since the 17th century [and was] reborn in 1951 at Chipping Camden, England. Although the games are not quite as brutal as the earlier versions, I’m sure players are secretly rejoicing that they now prohibit iron-capped boots. Players used to […]

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You likely know that just before the Beijing Olympics, Russia invaded the neighbouring Republic of Georgia. The move earned widespread international condemnation, and the resulting war of words with the West has been making headlines for weeks.

You may not know that last July the International Olympic Committee (IOC) awarded the 2014 Winter […]

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If you’re sick of all those tired old “greatest Olympic moments” round-ups, check out Neatorama’s collection of five truly bizarre moments in Olympic history, including a British ski jumper with Coke-bottle glasses who had never seen a ski jump, two Kenyan cross-county-skiiers who had never seen skis, and a German track star who was […]

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The New York Times has put together a nifty interactive timeline-map highlighting how many medals each country has won in every Summer Olympics since 1896. You can click on a year to see the medal counts from a given Olympiad by country, and view the results by geographic distribution (as above) or as a […]

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The CBC reports that the International Olympic Committee has blocked Iraq from participating in the Beijing Olympics two weeks from now because “the country’s government dismissed officials in favour of its own appointees, who weren’t recognized by the IOC.”
A similar ban was imposed in May — and then repealed — by FIFA, soccer’s governing body, […]

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Six Maasai warriors from the African nation of Tanzania are in England to run in today’s London Marathon, which will see 35,500 competitors run 26.2 miles (42.16 km). The Guardian chronicles one of their diaries:

Our elders told us we can do the marathon because we have been running all over, killing a lion and […]

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The Washington Post reports that protests over Tibet may lead the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to cancel the worldwide torch relay ahead of the Games. As torchbearers jogged through streets in London and Paris, they were met with everything from boos and jeers to pro-Tibet activists who chose a more direct approach, managing to […]

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