Orson Swindle Posts

Mike Richter, seen above making a freaky save on a goal you could not have possibly prevented, has found a few more things to do in post-hockey life to make you feel small, you sad little person, you.

Aside from raking in piles of cash as a partner in a private equity firm, raising three sons with his wife and finishing a degree in ethics, politics, and economics at Yale, Richter has decided to start a little side gig as a triathlete.

Last summer, Richter competed in his first half-Ironman. Last month in Lake Placid, N.Y., he took part in his first Ironman: He swam 2.4 miles, cycled 112 miles and ran 26.2 miles in 12 hours 49 minutes 10 seconds.

Richter, just to make you feel bad, also just finished his advanced level Sudoku in two minutes and seeded a Pomegranate without staining his hands in one minute and twenty-three seconds. Oh, and this one's for real: he's running the ING New York City Marathon on November 4th, too, and doing it for charity. Take that, Mr. "30 minutes on the elliptical machine and I'm good."

In case you lose sleep at night wondering things like, "Can one play golf in Mongolia," the answer is a resounding yes. (Warning: "Mongolian rap song" included in background of this clip includes non-Mongolian English profanities.)

The country seems ripe for golf, being mostly flat grasslands, few water hazards, and only one large sandtrap called the Gobi desert to avoid. (And if you can't avoid a thousand mile-wide bunker, you're beyond any golf pro's help.)

These guys are clearly amateurs in the sport of Mongolian golf, though, compared to Andre Tolme, who in 2004 walked 1,234 miles across the country in the process of literally golfing his way across the length of the country. Tolme lost 509 balls on the way to shooting 12,170 strokes. In case you wondered, Mongolia is a 2,322,000 yard hole that Tolme estimates to be a par 11,880.

The video you're seeing shot by a tourist on Tiananmen Square is what constitutes problem number one for the organizers of the Beijing Olympic games: the deplorable and possibly dangerous air quality prevalent in all major Chinese cities including the capital and host city of Beijing.

With under a year to go until the opening ceremonies of the Games, the problem remains a serious enough one for Olympic Committee Chairman Jacques Rogge to announce that certain endurance events might have to be postponed due to the air quality in Beijing, something authorities have vowed to tackle by limiting the number of cars on the road during the games. A test run was supposed to take place this month, but as with most decision in China, a mysterious cancellation occurred, and Beijing's air remained thick enough to paddle through with a sturdy oar.

How bad is the air in Beijing on the average day? The Canadian Women's Soccer Team trained briefly in Beijing earlier in 2007, and the results were disturbing. According to an NPR report, the players suffered "low grade inflammation" in the back of their throats and a "burning sensation in the lungs" after training for even short periods in Beijing. Greg Anderson, a physiologist working with the team, also reported that the best pollution index they saw while in China was a 170, with the worst being a 240. In comparison, Washington D.C. at its soupiest ranks somewhere around a 40 on the pollution index, with 90 being the level where public health authorities warn people to stay indoors.

If there's no other benefit to this, though, the sight of a marathoner lighting up an unfiltered Marlboro to catch their breath should be comic relief enough. If only golf were an Olympic sport again--we'd send the only man for the job, and his name ain't Tiger. John Daly, Beijing could have been your masterpiece.

Big men don't cry--unless they're sumo wrestlers who've just suffered through a major scandal and are "on the verge of a nervous breakdown," as <i>yokozuna</> Asashoryu is. Then, yeah, you can cry, because you weigh over 300 pounds and have a very quick first step on the attack.

The scandal began with this video...

...which shows a shockingly nimble Asashoryu, winner of the 21st Emperor's Cup, playing soccer in a charity game in his native Mongolia. (Note that at that weight, he's just a few cheeseburgers north of Ronaldo's physique, actually.) Asashoryu was dribbling around in Mongolia while he was allegedly too injured to appear in a summer exhibition tournament, a big no-no for most wrestlers and a definite faux pas for the high-profile <i>yokozuna.</I>

With the appearance of the video, the Japanese Sumo Association suspended Asashoryu for two tournaments and docked his pay 30 percent for four months. Both are unprecedented punishments. The Mongolian has responded by locking himself in his apartment and hovering close to a nervous breakdown.

Psychiatrist Masaki Honda examined him and said the wrestler was depressed and could be on the brink of a nervous breakdown due to a shock from the punishment. He said the wrestler was barely able to talk, and his trainer said Asashoryu was "holding back tears."

In a summer of athletes being indicted for dogfighting, allegedly giving Jessica Alba herpes, and up and killing their whole families...this seems appropriate. More than anything else, though, all the big man probably needs is a hug, along with three hundred pounds of popcorn chicken and the latest edition of Microsoft Outlook to keep his dates straight.

And we thought executing an ollie over a trash can was a big deal. As it turns out, our sadly depleted dictionary of essential skateboarding tricks culled from repeated watchings of old Bones Brigade videos needs a refresher course, since promising Albuquerque skater Nick Jojola pulled off an amazing trick, indeed: stealing over a half million dollars from local big box merchants, often while masked and drunk.

Jojola, 17, seen executing a precise stair drop above, wasn't quite as precise with his costuming, as he and his accomplices robbed stores with disguises but also without, leading to an easy video ID for prosecutors looking for the culprits. Jojola was originally charged with up to 80 counts total, many of which he claims he was too drunk to remember even doing. He plead guilty to eight charges, earning a year in juvenile detention as part of the plea and avoiding real jail.

We'd say that robbing stores after hours was a most dangerous and inadvisable thing to do, and it is. However, if the alternative is taking some of the risks skateboarders take, we might choose a one-time appointment with a Best Buy and a crowbar, though---especially if the alternative is something like Jake Brown's punishing return to earth in last week's X games. If those are the hypothetical choices, then hand us the ski mask, please.

(HT: Lat34)

It's time for Britain's Tough Guy competition, a semiannual competition involving a six mile course loaded with massive haybales, ramps, cargo nets, mud bogs, electrified wires, underground tunnels, flooded trenches, and ghastly combinations thereof designed for the abuse addict in you.

The competition is the brainchild of Willy Mouse, who owns the property west of Birmingham where the competition takes place. Mouse has run the event in one form or another for over 20 years, and suggests that if you are American and thinking about showing up, don't.

"Don't bother to come," Mouse said. "You can't compare to the English."

Hasn't he seen American Gladiators? Nitro could have aced this thing blindfolded, all while getting nary a speck of mud on his glittery jumpsuit. Nationalist egotism aside, we totally want to do this. As in, like, this afternoon kind of doing this. Ted Nugent's backyard should be perfect. Anyone got his number laying around?

As an announcer, you might think the nadir of your career would be the point someone looks at you and asks you to explain the technique involved in eating a hot dog dangling off a string while riding very slowly on the back of a motorcycle. It gets worse, though, when you're asked to break down this:



"Yeah, she's got that technique down pat." As an announcer covering the Wienie Roast, you have no choice but to a.) announce the entire event in Spanish, or b.) commit suicide on air before the event begins. And even that wouldn't be the most awkward moment in the whole thing, which comes when the winning contestant says her husband "makes my job easy."

Damn you, Speed Channel. We're going to see this in our nightmares.

It's time for some tension-filled post-colonial cricket between India and England, and things are already off to a momentous start as Zaheer Khan of India has already accused the English of something truly dastardly: throwing jelly beans at him during India's thumping of England on July 30th.

Zaheer claimed that England's fielders had tried to put him off by throwing jelly beans onto the wicket when he was batting at Trent Bridge on Sunday... He said: "I felt it was insulting - I wasn't sure where it came from but it definitely came from a fielder."

Dastardly indeed! Cricket players sometimes take jelly beans onto the field with them during matches for energy, which explains what they're doing on the scene in the first place. England, who lost to India in a test match for only the fifth time on their soil, made no effort to deny their bombardment of Khan, with Paul Collingwood playing the part of spokesman for the team.

"Zaheer wasn't too pleased - I think he prefers the blue ones to the pink ones."

Should tensions get too high, however, we can always count on Indian squad member Sri Sreesanth to keep things light with his irresistible dancing. Dance, you beautiful man, dance!

If Youtube hasn't done anything else for humanity, it's extended the lifespan of horrible music and images the world would have been better off letting drift off into the oblivion of history. Did we say horrible? We meant awesome, as in the 1988 Calgary Olympic Games and their rockin' theme song, "Can't You Feel It?"

The feeling refers to the pain in your lower intestine you'll feel when you listen to it. The singers must have known how dangerous the song was--being awesome enough to cause your intestines to cramp, they've taken the precaution of wearing red rubber suits for safety, capped with flame-retardant hats to complete the ensemble.

As a bonus, listen to announcers Jim McKay and Peter Jennings exchange solemnities about how absolutely important and serious the closing ceremonies are without a single hint of irony--it made us realize that Anchorman could have actually been a documentary. Also marvel at how wrong you would have been if asked which man would still be alive in 2007: the boyish, urbane Peter Jennings, or Jim McKay, who already seemed ancient in 1988.

The Tour de France, c'est fini. The tour closed today with a whimper, not a bang, as 24 year-old Alberto Contador stayed securely in the peloton to cross the finish line in Paris as the nominal winner of what has been a scandal-plagued Tour de France 2007. Contador's individual accomplishments were meritorious enough: superb mountain stage performances, including a thrilling duel with Michael Rasmussen at the finish of stage 14. Contador ran an intelligent and ferocious race, biding his time on the flatter, more sprint-y stages and making his bones in the mountains. Events beyond his control have sadly diminished his accomplishments in sport's most grueling race.

Cadel Evans did Australia proud by finishing just 23 seconds behind Contador, and American Levi Leipheimer squeaked in just eight seconds behind Evans for third.

The controversy, not exactly fini. The fallout from the numerous high-profile doping cases exposed during the tour--most notably Alexandre Vinokourov's positive read for blood doping late in the tour--has unleashed a storm of invective from critics and the accused themselves. The Herald called their post-race analysis "a post-mortem;" the Independent called Contador's victory "hollow."

At least the International Herald Tribune kept its sense of humor, suggesting that the scandals provided entertainment for fans. Which had to be a joke. Right? Right?

And yet...a close race. Yet even with the catastrophic doping scandals, this should not be overlooked: this Tour featured a new generation of riders who, notable and openly punished exceptions aside, rode slower times than prior tours. The rule, suggests Richard Williams of the Guardian, is simple: as older "dope-generation" riders step down from the ranks, cycling will become a cleaner but slower sport.

Hard as it may be for those inside the sport to accept, standards will have to be lowered. The Tour is slower in overall terms this year, probably because fewer people are doping. Yesterday's 211km stage from Cahors to Angoulême, for instance, was ridden at an average of around 40kph, rather than the predicted 42-46kph.

The tour may not be dead...but it's definitely slowing down, a possible testament to doping standards actually working.

And the jerseys are... Alberto Contador wins the yellow jersey of the leader, as well as the white jersey for the best rider under 25. Tom Boonen takes the sprinter's green jersey for the tour, and Juan Mauricio Soler takes the polka-dotted King of the Mountains jersey. Amets Txurruka takes what we have to argue is the most fun ceremonial award of all, the "Most Aggressive Rider" award, for which he gets to wear a special number on his jersey.