THE MOST POWERFUL MAGAZINE EVER
SPORT / ART / POLITIC / MUSIC / LIFESTYLE
introduction
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Power. Many had the opportunity to reach the top, but not so many have had the power and the willfulness to stay there. Because to stay on the very top you need to have the force to crush the obstacles to the way of success, the strenght to be unstoppable and to dominate the elements. Also, you may need the energy to be the number one of the top chart, the cockiness to look down on the world and a strong attitude to rewrite the history. And, to do that, you absolutely need power. Now, let’s find out who’s already done.
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stories ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER
PAG 8
OUVERTURE SPECIAL TRIBUTE DONALD TRUMP
PAG 22
MAN OF THE MONTH MAVERICKS
PAG 36
EVENT ROBERT DOWNEY JR.
PAG 40
5-WAY MANIFESTO 50 CENT
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PAG 42
6633 ULTRA
PAG 50
EVENT CONOR MCGREGOR
PAG 54
KEN BLOCK
PAG 66
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF SHAUN WHITE
PAG 68
BAJA 1000
PAG 82
EVENT BEAR GRYLLS
PAG 84
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Arnold
Schwarzenegger
Arnold schwarzenegger
OUVERTURE SPECIAL TRIBUTE
o other bodybuilder in the history of the sport has made the same impact. Indeed, Arnold Schwarzenegger remains the greatest, and most influential, bodybuilder of all time. In many ways, Arnold helped to change public attitudes toward a sport regarded as deviant and on the margins of what was acceptable social practice at the time.
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Indeed, prior to the 1970's, the period in which Arnold made his mark as the greatest bodybuilder of all time, bodybuilding and its adherents were together seen as a strange and somewhat insular subculture of social deviants. These attitudes still prevail in some sectors, but due in large part to Arnold's popularization of the sport, bodybuilding has become not only accepted as a legitimate sporting choice, but as a way of life for many. Appointed chairman of the inner City ( 10 )
Specs 6.15 ft LB
235 lb July 30, 1947 Bodybuilder, Actor, Politician
Why we chosen him Not need no introduction. He is simply Arnold, what's more?
OUVERTURE SPECIAL TRIBUTE Games and the Presidents Council on Physical Fitness, in addition to stanch advocate and mover and shaker of the Special Olympics Movement, Arnold has always been a big supporter of sport and active living as life changing pursuits. Arnold has also shown that bodybuilders, to belie [define] their often narcissistic and insular reputation, can be multi-dimensional, and succeed in all facets of life, while helping others in the process. By 1983, Arnold had achieved the American dream, had become a successful actor,
one of the worlds greatest athletes, and a wealthy businessman. Still, he never lost touch with the foundational element of his success: the bodybuilding lifestyle. Wherever possible, Arnold would promote bodybuilding and, practicing what he preached, kept himself in great shape - the kind of shape that could be seen in the many films he acted in. In 1989, Arnold's dream of promoting his own show came to fruition, and The Arnold Schwarzenegger Classic (The ASC) was born. The many great bodybuilders who have competed in the ASC over subsequent years have been granted the opportunity to realize their dreams through the efforts of the man who started it all, a man who will remain the backbone of the sport. Arnold has become an icon, a symbol of a cultural movement, one who has defined, and re-defined, what it means to become one of the few - a bodybuilder, proud of ones healthy physique and the concomitant benefits. We at Bodybuilding. com salute Arnold and his contribution to bodybuilding and hope he will continued to be respected as a great bodybuilder, and, more importantly, a great human being. In 1947, in the small Austrian village of Thal, just outside of Graz, born to parents Gustav and Aurelia, Arnold Schwarzenegger made his way into the world. He would go on to become a household name and revolutionise the fitness industry. Arnold's desire to ( 11 )
Arnold schwarzenegger become a great athlete emerged early when in 1953, at the age of six, his father took him to Graz to see Olympic swimming champion Johnny Weissmuller.
Arnold picked up a barbell for the first time and, as they say, the rest is history. Arnold said at the time, "it was something. I suddenly just seemed to reach out and find, as if I had been crossing a suspended bridge and finally stepped onto solid ground".
" Failure is not an option.
Arnold found his body morphing into something quite spectacular. "I was six-feet-tall and slender weighing 150lbs, but I did have a good athletic physique and my muscles responded surprisingly quickly with weight-training" More importantly, at the time, girls began to notice his results. Around this time, Arnold decided that his new goal was to become the "most pumped up guy in the world". Fascinated by the physiques of cinematic heroes Reg Park and Steve Reeves, Arnold made it his overarching goal to become the most phenomenally built man in the world and conquer the film industry in the
Everyone has to succeed
Arnold was impressed by the physical prowess of Weissmuller and decided to emulate his example. Indeed, Arnold went on to become a multitalented athlete, running, swimming, boxing, throwing shot-put and javelin, but excelling in Soccer. It was during his soccer playing days, at age 13, that Arnold first began his quest for physical supremacy. In 1960, Arnold's soccer coach took Arnold along with the rest of his team to a local gym, to gain strength for future games.
"
OUVERTURE SPECIAL TRIBUTE
HOT post
I may be 68 but I still know how to terminate young pussy.
process - he knew exactly where he was going at such a young age. In 1961, Arnold began a friendship with professional bodybuilder and former Mr. Austria, Kurt Marnul, who invited Arnold to train with him at the Athletic Union in Graz. Under Marnuls guidance Arnold's physique blossomed. Bodybuilding formed a major part of Arnold's life in the early sixties, so much so, his father, Gustav, imposed a limit on the frequency of Arnold's gym training sessions. Gustav became concerned with Arnold's "obsessional" interest in "Austria's least favorite sport" and limited Arnold to three-sessions-perweek. To negate this training shortfall, Arnold built a gym at home and conti-
nued to train with a vengeance. In 1965 Arnold, very muscular and strong for his age, won the Austrian Junior Weightlifting championships. After this win, Arnold enlisted in the Austrian army, at 18, for mandatory service, only to go A.W.O.L to win the Junior Mr. Europe bodybuilding championships. He would serve 7-days in the big house for this 'aberration' but interestingly enough, following this time inside, Arnold would resume his military training with the added status of bodybuilding hero, and receive commensurate treatment - extra time off to train for his next big show.
Arnold schwarzenegger
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Arnold schwarzenegger A year later Arnold took his, by this stage, massive physique, to the Mr. Europe competition, and won. A week after this win, Arnold would go on to win Europe's best built man. The same year, Arnold competed in the amateur Mr. Universe, finishing second. However, the following year Arnold was to become the youngest man ever, at 20, to win the NABBA Mr. universe. Winning was some thing Arnold would become accustomed to over subsequent years. People often questioned Arnold in light of his involvement in what was at the time considered a strange sport. Arnold, however, had already planned his life over a long-term and knew exactly what he was doing. The year 1968 is a definite milestone in Arnold's quest for
this was not to stop him from achieving the American dream. During 1968 Arnold would win the IFBB Mr. international, start a mail-order business and gain sponsorship from Joe Weider. Poignantly, Arnold would suffer a defeat at the American Mr. Universe, at the hands of the ripped and symmetrical Frank Zane - a defeat that would help to propel Arnold to bodybuilding immortality. "I'm going to pay them back. I will show them who is really the best" said Arnold at the time.
" Just remember, you can't climb the ladder of success with your hands in your pockets
greatness, for it is the year he arrived in America. He arrives with $20 and can barely speak English. However, ( 16 )
"
Arnold's words would prove prophetic as he came back, the following year, to win both the IFBB and NABBA Mr. universes in one
OUVERTURE SPECIAL TRIBUTE weekend. Arnold, again won the Mr. Universe in 1970, defeating his boyhood idol Reg Park in the process. Arnold's bodybuilding and entertainment careers were advanced during this year, as he won both the Mr. Olympia and the main role in the low-budget film "Hercules in New York". Arnold would go on to win a further six Olympia's and star in some of the best action films of the 80's and 90's - indeed he would become a household name the world over. 1974 would prove to be monumental year for Arnold, both in entertainment and bodybuilding terms: cast as a good-guy in the film Stay Hungry, as himself in the highly successful cult-classic Pumping Iron, and to top it off, the winner of a fifth Olympia, beating the popular Franco Columbu and massive Lou Ferrigno. In 1976 Arnold officially retired from bodybuilding, opting to focus more on the promotional side of the sport - prize money would exceed $100,000 due, in part, to Arnold's efforts as a promoter. Life was not any less hectic for Arnold following his retirement; in 77 he writes bestseller "The Education of a Bodybuilder", poses nude for Cosmopolitan Magazine, wins a Golden Globe for Stay Hungry, begins an involvement with the Special Olympics and meets future wife Maria Shriver.
Arnold achieves his academic goal and graduates from the University of Wisconsin Superior with a B.A. in Business and International Economics in 1979. Arnold & Dave Draper Working Out."ARNOLD & DAVE DRAPER WORKING OUT." The same year he inauspiciously appears in the movie The Villain - regarded by some reviewers as the worst film of the seventies. However, Arnold would redeem himself with arguably two of his best films, Conan the Barbarian and The Terminator, in 80 and 81 respectively.
DID YOU KNOW?
When Arnold was training in the gym, he noted that his upper body was developing very well but his legs and calf muscles were very thin. To motivate himself he would cut his pants up to the thigh and walk around like that. People would laugh at the man with chicken legs and eventually it worked.
Arnold schwarzenegger By 1983 Arnold had achieved what many thought to be the impossible: status as a successful actor, the greatest bodybuilder of all time, and one of the most astute businessmen in America. Arnold becomes an American citizen. In 1984, Arnold treats his Conan fans to a follow-up: Conan the Destroyer. The same year, the Terminator is released to rave reviews. In 1985 the successfulness of Arnold's acting career is cemented when he receives the National Association of Theatre Owners International Star of the Year Award. Another of Arnold's classic films opens in 1986: Commando. Also in 86, Arnold marries the woman he proposed to the previous year, Maria Shriver. Arnold's cinematic prowess reigns in 1987, with the opening of both Predator and The Running Man. The Hollywood Walk of Fame star (Arnold's was the 1847th star) is a fitting testimony to a wonderful acting career. Read Heat and Twins open the following year. 1989 is a busy year in a business sense for Arnold, as, along with Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis, he opens the first planet Hollywood. Around this time, Arnold's first child, Katherine, is born, and, most importantly for bodybuilding fans, the first Arnold Schwarzenegger Classic in Columbus Ohio (the richest bodybuilding tournament to date) showcases some ( 18 )
of the greats of the modern era. In 1990, Arnold is appointed as both the chairman of the Inner-City games and the Chairman of the Presidents Council on Physical Fitness. This is also the year Arnold makes his debut on the other side of the camera, directing Tales From the Crypt. On the acting front, Total Recall and Kindergarten Cop open. Arnold's second child, Christina, is born in 1991, the year the most expensive film ever made up until that time opens: Terminator 2. In 92, Arnold opens his restaurant Shatzi on Main and appears again in the directors chair for Christmas in Connecticut. Between 93 and 00 Arnold appears in many films including, The Last Action Hero, True Lies, Junior, Eraser, Terminator 2: 3D, Jingle All The Way, Batman and Robin, End of Days and The 6th Day. In 2001, Arnold is awarded with a lifetime achievement award (presented by Muhammad Ali) at the World sports Awards in London and is honoured as the AFMA World Box Office Champ for his contribution to film. The year is capped off with Arnold leading a delegation of statesmen, celebrities and Special Olympics athletes to South Africa to further the Special Olympics cause. Arnold assumes his well entrenched role as an action hero in Collateral Damage in 2002. He also receives and honorary degree (a Doctor of Humane Letters) from Chapman University - the second such degree he has received,
the first given by Arnold's alma mater, the University of Wisconsin Superior, in 1996. Prop 49, the After School Safety and Recreational Act, was passed in the California election in 02. Arnold considered this a victory for the whole state of California. In 2003 Terminator 3 opens and Arnold the action hero is back. Arnold is also back as a major political force: the newly elected Governor of California. On October 8 2003, Arnold's political yearnings came to fruition as, at the age of 56, he becomes the chief executive of Americas most populus state, and the worlds fifth largest economy. Looking back on Arnold's life it is inspiring to see how one man, having begun with so little, could achieve so much. Sport in general, and bodybuilding in particular, have undoubtedly helped to elevate Arnold to the amazing heights he reached. Indeed, bodybuilding and the fitness movement still factor heavily into Arnold's life: he promotes his successful Arnold Classic bodybuilding contest annually, supports numerous sporting events including the Special Olympics and maintains a fit and healthy body and mind as he approaches age 60. Truly a life worth aspiring to.
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Donald Trump
DONALD TRUMP
NEED MORE POWER? BECOME PRESIDENT t was almost 3 a.m. when the President-elect finally took the stage, his blue suit, white shirt and red tie perfectly matched to the phalanx of flags arranged behind him. The polls and the experts and the data modelers predicted it would be a woman for the first time in the nation’s history — but no, it was another man, another blue suit, another red tie. And yet, if it had been the woman, everyone would have known what to expect.
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Donald John Trump, political novice, self-promoter and gleeful provocateur, was elected the 45th President of the United States on Nov. 8 in one of the most extraordinary and unforeseen developments in American history. Universally dismissed as a vanity candidate when he entered a field crowded with Republican talent, the former Democrat and former Independent mowed down 16 challengers while breaking every rule in the book. ( 24 )
Then he pivoted to take on one of the most seasoned and famous politicians in the world, a former Secretary of State, U.S. Senator and First Lady, lost three straight debates to her (according to opinion surveys) and earned the disapproval of roughly 60% of all Americans. A dozen women accused him of sexual assault. He bragged about earning tens of millions of dollars each year while never paying income tax. His margin of victory in the Electoral College was on track to be the largest any Republican has achieved since 1988. What would he say? What could anyone say? Of his plans, which have always been lightly sketched, at best, Trump said: “America will no longer settle for anything less than the best." Instead, he proclaimed a Republican dawn. With the GOP in control of the White House and Congress, he said,
MAN OF THE MONTH
Specs 6.2ft LB
236lb June 14, 1946 Businessman, Politician
Why we chosen him He already had a proper empire, but it wasn't enough. So, now he's the president of the most powerful empire ever. Pretty cool, isn't it?
the party will heal around a mission to repeal Obamacare. Trump will be expecting Americans to trust his family as they run the large international business he built, the one that rests mainly on selling the family name, after he devoted his campaign to attacking his opponent for commingling the national interest with personal gain. The President-elect has no track record, few associates, very little in the way of policy positions. He believes America is broken. He said at his convention: “I alone can fix it.� A bloodied veteran of the casino business, where he built an empire and lost a fortune, Trump knows what it means to push all your chips into the center of the table and blow on the dice. That’s how he ran his unprecedented campaign, gambling that Americans would elevate a man who toyed with their prejudices, tickled their ids, dodged his taxes, exaggerated his
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DONALD TRUMP philanthropy, skimmed over policy and flouted the truth. He took people seriously when they told pollsters, year after dismal year, how sick they were of politics as usual.
The man hates to finish second. Second is for “losers” — a favorite Trump epithet — and life presents endless chances to win or lose. Who but Trump would have mentioned, on the very day the Twin Towers were destroyed, that he now owned the tallest building in lower Manhattan? Who else would think to create a hierarchy of Vietnam heroes, and say of former POW John McCain, “I like people who weren’t captured”? Finding himself late in the campaign in a room with Medal of Honor winners, he entertained the idea that they might be braver than him. Then he dodged
" You have to think anyway, so why not think big? " Nothing in politics is more unusual than Trump. Trump’s favorite bets are on himself.
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MAN OF THE MONTH the implication by redefining the competition: “I am financially brave,” he concluded. In this ultimate victory, Trump credited himself with leading “the single greatest movement in the history of this country,” as he put it in the final hours of the campaign. His promise: to “win, win, win and win.” His aim: to “make America
DID YOU KNOW?
It is almost shocking how many times Donald Trump has sued people for libel for what he believed were lies about his net worth. He went on the stand during one lawsuit to say that his net worth is constantly fluctuating and is based on a number of factors, including how he “feels that day.” He also argues that the worth of his brand should be included in his net worth, and he ranks himself as being worth over $7 billion.
" Without passion
you don't have energy, without energy you have nothing
"
great again.” His genius: to convince people by the millions whose lives are utterly unlike his that he alone could be trusted with their grudges, their passions, and their resentments. The former Democrat from Manhattan and longtime donor to liberals persuaded the hardest right-wingers to fall into line. The billionaire channeled anti–Wall Street energy. The Wharton graduate found the wavelength of noncollege voters. And Trump rode this movement, exactly as he said he would, on a straight line from the edge of Philadelphia to the streets of Green Bay, Wis., winning Great Lakes states that Republicans have not won in years, or in some cases decades. His triumph was the Rust Belt’s revenge, an expression of the same economic and racial unease that gave these states to Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s. The supposed job stealers were in Japan in those days; now they are in China and Mexico. The children of the Reagan Democrats are Trump Republicans now, and that fact was fatal to Clinton. He called plays no quarterback had ever called ( 27 )
DONALD TRUMP and executed them for touchdowns, yet Trump should not be viewed as a tactician, his former adviser Corey Lewandowski explained in an interview with TIME, nor as a performer, though he held his audiences spellbound for more than a year. Trump won because he is a tribune, as all wave-catching leaders must be, Lewandowski said. For all the strange originality of Trump’s triumph, the essential element “is
DID YOU KNOW?
Trump has hosted several WWE events at Trump Plaza in Atlantic City, NJ, and was often seen in the front row of the stands. But in 2007, he rose to WWE fame when he dropped tens of thousands of dollars from the rafters in order to upstage Vince McMahon. After that came the Battle of the Billionaires, in which Trump earned the right to shave McMahon’s head. ( 28 )
what it always is” for one winning the White House. “It’s a snapshot in time that says, ‘I’m the messenger. I’ve harnessed what the American people are tired of and sick of, and I’m just going to give that a voice.’” That voice was thunderous, but it spoke a familiar language. Trump made himself the messenger for a faction of Americans that has cried out at irregular intervals down through our history. Suspicious of governing elites, opposed to open immigration, resistant to free trade and international entanglements, this faction was Jacksonian in the 1820s, populist in the 1920s and now Trumpist in 2016. He brought them out of the shadows of the Republican coalition, where they have been neglected stepchildren for half a century, fed on scraps of anti-Washington rhetoric. Trump’s crude and reckless style signaled that he shared their contempt for established order. He chose one of their clarions, Steve Bannon of Breitbart. com, to serve as his right-hand man. Trump’s closing message, conveyed in a two-minute television ad, could have been written at almost any time over the past two centuries for consumption by this audience: international bankers and their Washington puppets
MAN OF THE MONTH are conspiring to weaken the nation and rob the American people. Many GOP leaders refused to be found in such company. The election of Donald Trump has no historic parallel.
billion on a single year’s tax return as a sign of “genius.” But to win the grand prize he needed more than just those votes; he needed the people who figured that he was bluffing his way through the race and decided it didn’t matter — the people who had come to
HOT TWEET @realDonaldTrump If Hillary Clinton can't satisfy her husband what makes her think she can satisfy america? #realDonaldTrump #2016president
No doubt there were many Trump voters who looked at the skyscrapers and jets and helicopters with his name emblazoned on them and figured any man who could do that could do anything. These same folks may have nodded when Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani cited Trump’s loss of nearly $1
suspect that being President might not be so hard after all, if what it mainly entails is reading botched intelligence reports, muddling through intractable crises and making promises you have no way of keeping. And there was a deeper current that also ran toward Trump. For all their Davos conferences ( 29 )
DONALD TRUMP
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DONALD TRUMP and TED talks, world leaders are flailing around for an agenda. No one really knows how to cope with the revolution sweeping the world. It is a technological revolution, yes, and the lords of Silicon Valley spin endless hours of jargon about its magical possibilities. But its social and political impacts — already overwhelming and rapidly multiplying — are coming much faster and more furiously than governments can digest them. What does it mean to put a computer in the palm of every human being, and to link each palm instantaneously with every other? When Gutenberg’s revolution of movable type first made it possible to share ideas widely across space and time, the political and social follow-on effects included the Reformation, the Enlightenment, the rise of democracy and the industrial and scientific revolutions. In other words, everything from daily routines to international order was scrambled and re-scrambled. How much change, and how rapid, will this massively more powerful technology cause?
causing, in concert with globalization: the manufacturing jobs lost not just to China or Mexico but to robots. The coal jobs lost not just to green liberalism but to higher efficiency in
" Owning a great golf course gives you great power "
Elites have been riding high on the back of this beast, and have not yet seen its teeth or felt its claws. But many millions more Americans, living outside the best zip codes, feel it breathing down their necks. This matters for Trump because he lasered in on the dislocations that technology is ( 32 )
generation and consumption. The asymmetrical warfare made possible not by American weakness but by social media. The retirement and health care time bombs set ticking by more people living longer lives, which is in part made possible by computer power unraveling disease.
Trump tapped the pain of dislocation, though he misplaces the blame. The failure of American leaders to solve these mind-boggling questions helped get him elected—but now he is the leader, and it’s his turn to be baffled by them. The technology revolution mattered for another reason too: Trump was the first successful candidate to realize that these same forces must disrupt the political sphere. Communication is the wiring of democracy; the more communication you have, the easier it is for people to find what they want, and to organize with others who are seeking the same thing. This is true whether the people want the right thing or the wrong thing, whether they seek evil or good. For this reason, many of the Founding Fathers feared an excess of democracy. But one voter’s excess is another voter’s
just-enough, and Trump was able to connect with just enough voters to win the election. Much as Amazon has barreled over the retail giants and Facebook is gobbling up the media, Trump used technology to cut out the middlemen of politics: the reporters and editorial boards, endorsers and political parties, even the mega-armies of door knockers and phone bankers who were the fabric of analog democracy. His relationship to the voters was direct—or felt direct— through the digital idioms of Twitter, Facebook and reality TV. The people wanted him, even when the intermediaries did not, and in the hyper-democracy of the smartphone age, the people can get what they want, when they want it. And some of them may have wanted it despera( 33 )
DONALD TRUMP tely. In some neighborhoods that still looked middle class a major issue in 2016 was opioid addiction. Trump understood that campaigning is a performance, and he geared his
star turn to a particular audience. His convention in Cleveland told the tale. Experts panned the event as a train wreck, but Trump understood that train wrecks are interesting to watch. Every day a new member of his family appeared, every night ended on a cliffhanger. The leading man normally steers clear of the hall until his speech, but Trump was a hovering presence all week, stalking, glaring, emerging from billowing smoke. Trump disclosed the meaning of his method earlier this year in an interview with TIME as he winged across America on his private jet and watched himself dominate the news on a giant flat-screen TV: once you build an audience, “that gives you power,” he said. “It’s not the polls. It’s the ratings.” His rambling late-night Twitter rants and his loose-limbed, jazz-riff, factfree speeches would have killed his chances if the middlemen still reigned. Instead, by some strange alchemy, they made him more real to his followers. More real, obviously, to the bigots and trolls who made him a hero of the so-called alt right. All their polls. All their models. All wrong. A veteran of decades of Washington politics stared at his television on that dumbfounding night as a question took shape in his mind. “What is it that has won?” President Trump represents
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a victory for seismic forces roiling under the mantle of history, the same forces that are shaking Berlin and Beijing, Paris and Mosul, Scranton and Flint. He is a symptom, not a cause, but he is the symptom that cannot be ignored. “America was always a pillar of stability,” says Dhruva Jaishankar, an expert in U.S.-India relations who, like all experts everywhere, was trying to get his arms around the news. “Suddenly we don’t know what’s going to happen.” Let that be the lesson of Trump’s feat and a motto for our future—America’s, the world’s, for a long time to come. Suddenly, we don’t know what’s going to happen. We probably never did, but in times of slower, smaller change we could lull ourselves into believing that we did. We could organize ourselves around elites who claimed to know. We could entrench ourselves for endless political battles over years and decades,
play self-serving games with our institutions, ignore nascent threats as we feathered our nests, all because we thought we knew what would happen. We must reorganize ourselves around creativity, flexibility, experimentation and goodwill. We don’t know what will happen. But we can know what matters. Freedom matters, dignity, opportunity, kindness. The list goes on, and for most people it is written in their hearts. And there it was in the first official message of the newly elected President Trump. He spoke of teamwork, gratitude and mutual respect, and promised: “I will not let you down.” So much hangs on his ability to live by it.
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mavericks
INTO MAVERICKS, THE GNARLIEST CONTEST IN THE WORLD Every winter, the world's best and bravest big-wave surfers wait for the call. And most years, the call come.
he waves, the weather, the wind — everything's perfect, the pros are told. The contest starts in two days. You have 48 hours to get here. The Mavericks Invitational (arguably big-wave surfing's most epic contest) is on. Waves, sometimes with faces measuring over 50 feet, will give surfers the rides of their lives. That, or batter them mercilessly — oftentimes both. Spectators attending equal parts party and competition cheer from ashore. On the line: A $12,000 grand prize. But, more importantly: Glory and immortality in big-wave surfing lore. It's got cold water, giant sharks, giant waves and giant rocks. It's like nothing else.
T
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And so they come, the lucky invitees, to the deadly surf spot called Mavericks, a break that lies out to sea just beyond a jutting hill of land called Pillar Point some 40 minutes' drive south of San Francisco. Men have died there, but the surfers come from up and down the California coast. They come from elsewhere, too, from as far away as Brazil, South Africa and Australia. Some hop red-eye flights to make the last-minute call. Local heroes Kenny "Skindog" Collins and Peter "The Condor" Mel drive up from nearby Santa Cruz. South African charger Grant "Twiggy" Baker, who won it all in in 2006, makes it too, along with the field's 21 other contestants. On event day crowds descend from near and far. Thousands of fans pour into the tiny hamlet of Prince-
event
ton-by-the-Sea, overtaking it like a flash flood. They pack the bar and the outdoor patio and the dozens of indoor tables at the Half Moon Bay Brewing Company. They pay to enter a fenced-off festival area and crowd around giant screens broadcasting aerial and up-close footage of the competition. So for many, a secondary sport nearly equals surfing's importance on event day: Trying to sneak, climb or otherwise finagle a trip up to the old viewing spots. A constant procession of fans arrives at the access road that begins where Stanford and West Point avenues meet. Without fail, those fans are turned away by volunteers from the San Mateo County Sheriff's Office, who block the access road with a cruiser. Some find a path up anyway, but most turn back toward the center
of town in disgust or resignation. Minds are blown. Homage is paid. The Old Princeton Landing bar shows the Mavericks Invitational live on seven screens. But the best time to go is likely after the contest, after the awards ceremony, when $10 gets you into the after-party. The sun's not down yet, but folks are already starting to trickle in and the energy is already palpable. Mavericks isn't just one of the most extreme things to ever hit the sports world. It's also a celebration, a tribal gathering of surfing greats and those who admire them. But more than anything, Mavericks is a spectacle to behold.
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robert downey jr.
5-WAY SELF-CONFIDENCE MANIFESTO BY ROBERT DOWNEY JR. Things you have to do to manage your power more self-confidently
L
ook at the person you are speaking to, not at your shoes, because keeping eye contact shows confidence. Last, speak slowly. Research has proved that those who take the time to speak slowly and clearly feel more self-confidence and appear more self-confident to others. The added bonus is they will actually be able to understand what you are saying.
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N
ever give up. Never accept failure. There is a solution to everything, so why would you want to throw in the towel? Make this your new mantra. Succeeding through great adversity is a huge confidence booster. The next time you hear that negativity in your head, switch it immediately to a positive affirmation and keep it up until it hits the caliber of a self-confidence boost.
5-WAY MANIFESTO
B
e positive, even if you're not feeling it quite yet. Put some positive enthusiasm into your interactions with others and hit the ground running, excited to begin your next project. Stop focusing on the problems in your life and instead begin to focus on solutions and making positive changes.
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earn everything there is to know about your field, job, presentation--whatever is next on your "to conquer" list. If you are prepared, and have the knowledge to back it up, your self-confidence will soar. Stop focusing on the problems in your life and instead begin to focus on solutions and making positive changes.
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it down right now and make a list of all the things in your life that you are thankful for, and another list of all the things you are proud of accomplishing. Once your lists are complete, post them on your refrigerator door, on the wall by your desk, on your bathroom mirror--somewhere where you can easily be reminded of what an amazing life you have and what an amazing person you really are. If you feel your self-confidence dwindling, take a look at those lists and let yourself feel and be inspired all over again by you. ( 41 )
50
Cent
50 Cent
50 SHADES OF CENT
Specs 6 ft LB
214 lb July 6, 1975 Rapper
Why we chosen him Parental advisor chronical crusher, maybe the most influential rapper of the decade. For a reason.
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hen a rapper with as high a profile as 50 Cent declares bankruptcy, you could power a small nation with the schadenfreude. Twitter wags – inevitably – weighed in, with various puns on Curtis Jackson’s chosen alias, while others laboured to make jokes about the EU bailing him out.
W
Newspapers printed pictures of him festooned with gold and captions advising him to visit the nearest branch of Cash Converters. There were few well-wishers, or people organising volunteers to run “a mile for Fiddy”. On the face of it, this gleeful celebration of misfortune is hardly surprising. The setback follows hard on the heels of a jury ordering Jackson to pay $5m in an invasion of privacy case that saw him delivering a tasteless and unfunny narration over a sex tape. 50 Cent’s larger than life approach – encompassing a hugely successful rap
career (2003’s album Get Rich or Die Tryin’ sold over 12m copies that year alone), high-profile business ventures (his stake in Vitaminwater is rumoured to have made him $100m), spats with other rap stars such as The Game and Rick Ross, and acting (he plays the trainer in the recent Jake Gyllenhaalfilm Southpaw) – was bound to have commentators chiding him for his hubris when he hit a bump in the road. Despite the fact that he’s only filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy, actually seen by many financial experts as a wise move to protect assets and investments, the nuances of his financial situation have hardly stemmed the tide of hatred and smirks. It’s a cliche that the first things rappers buy when they get a deal are a gold chain and a house for their mother Why do people love to hate 50 Cent so much? Perhaps for the same reasons they laugh at Diddy, line up to lambast Kanye West or delight in the ups and downs of Lil Wayne: they simply don’t understand the hip-hop mindset. If you wanted to be simplistic, you could level accusations of racism. These people are delighting in the downfall of a black man who rose from nowhere to have his wings burned like Icarus. They want him back in his place. And undoubtedly some feel that way. But the majority of people warming their souls on 50 Cent’s “downfall” aren’t really racists, they just don’t understand what drives him and many rappers-turned-entrepreneurs like him.
HOT TWEET @50cent So i get to orlando and a guy comes to me and says puffy James Cruz told him they are gonna put me out of business. I looked at the guy and said, you can't see that Junky James on drugs. #Nopuffyjuice
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50 Cent
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50 Cent The privileged few prize what they see as “authenticity” in music, and they don’t think commercially successful rappers provide that. In their view they’re churning out mush for the clubs and the masses, rather than making difficult material that only connoisseurs can appreciate. And they’re not just making hit records, they’re wearing jewellery and being all brash and arrogant about it. Couldn’t they do with a reality check? Down to his last 50 Cent? Rapper files for bankruptcy of course, as anyone who has grown up with hip-hop will tell you, this is par for the course. (Largely) white critics and commentators have always loved telling us what “real” hip-hop should be: it should be intelligent, fierce, political and, it goes without saying, friendly to liberals. But what about “actual” hip-hop? The stuff that (largely) black people actually buy in their millions, the stuff they dance and listen to? Stuff like 50 Cent, Diddy, Kanye, Young Thug, Future, 2 Chainz? The real stars of hip-hop are seen as gaudy figures of fun to these critics, rather than what they are: the true leaders of a still restlessly inventive music form. Hip-hop’s roots in the abject, drug-ruined poverty of New York’s South Bronx in the late 1970s aren’t just a historical fact, they have shaped its aspirational worldview. What many of its detractors don’t recognise is that these millionaire rappers they instinctively hate largely grew up in that world – one of ( 48 )
absent fathers, crack cocaine, racist policing and hustling to survive. It’s a hip-hop cliche that the first two things rappers buy when they get a record deal are a gold chain and a house for their mother. It’s also instructive – the first is to show you’ve made it against the odds, the second is to reward and
DID YOU KNOW?
Most people know he was shot in the face, hand and arms. Having been shot nine times, he is very lucky he survived. One of the worst injuries he had was to his jaw. There is still an open wound in his lower jaw where the bullet was lodged. His shooter was murdered, but it is unclear if 50 Cent had anything to do with his demise. However, Colombia didn’t like the image 50 cent portrayed and dropped him right after he was shot. Since he was shot and almost died, he doesn’t trust his life to his three bodyguards and wears a bullet-proof vest, plus he had his SUV customized so it is bullet-proof and it cannot be blown up by a bomb, either.
protect the key figure in your life. In 50 Cent’s case, he couldn’t buy a house for his mother – she was murdered when he was a boy, in the tough New York neighbourhood of
" Get rich or die tryin’
"
South Jamaica, Queens, and his father was nowhere to be seen. Raised, along with nine others, by his grandmother, he was selling crack on the streets by the age of 12, carrying a gun by 15. If he hadn’t been mentored by Run DMC’s Jam Master Jay, he’d probably have
died on those very streets. When a rap career offers the promise of freedom from that life, you grab it and you make everything of it as quickly as you can. After all, rap is no country for old men. Money and success is important to black US rappers because not so long ago they were legally secondclass citizens, and as recent events in Ferguson and Charleston have shown, life for young black men can be short and brutal. For 50 Cent and his generation, Get Rich or Die Tryin’ isn’t just an album title, it’s a mantra born of a struggle. One that people slinging puns on Twitter just don’t understand.
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6633 ULTRA
6633 ULTRA, THE TOUGHEST FOOT RACE ON THE PLANET 350 Miles, Arctic temperatures, Only 11 people have completed the 350 mile race. Challenge geography.
ome people collect stamps. Others like bird watching. Some collect races (especially ones that claim to be the ‘toughest’ or the ‘longest’). It’s something that amuses friends, puzzles mothers, and keeps long suffering other half in a constant flux of worry.
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The relative difficulty of a race is subjective and dependent upon a myriad of variables, such as fitness levels, experience, age and one’s genetic make up. But generally speaking there are four factors that l use ( 50 )
to determine how hard a race will be: distance, the amount of climbing/ descending required, terrain and climate. If that sounds like a complicated rubric, there's always one simple fact that gives you a fair indicator of how touch a race is: the number of competitors who finish. When a race describes itself as the ‘Toughest, Coldest and Windiest Extreme Ultra Marathon on the Planet’ you know it’s not going to be particularly pleasant. Even if you choose the paltry 120 mile version over the hardas-nails 350 mile mammoth yomp, the non-stop and self sufficient 6633 Ultra
event will still succeed in spitting out the toughest of endurance athletes. Competitors will be expected to carry or pull on sleds all their provisions for the race including food, cooking items, clothing, sleeping kit and other safety gear. Racers going all the way to Tuktoyaktuk will be allowed 2 drop bags for limited essential gear at approx. 120 miles (Fort McPherson) and 230 miles (Inuvik).
All racers will be allowed to have a bag at the finish line for spare warm clothing etc. Checkpoints will be spaced along the route at between 23 and 70 miles apart, where racers will be able to rest for a while and be able to prepare their own food. Hot water and Shelter are the only things guaranteed at the checkpoints. Your only chance of sleep and rest is at one of the checkpoints – which happen to be 26 to 70 miles apart. With a fully laden pulk and in sub zero temperatures, competitors run/shuffle along the Dempster highway, almost exactly crossing the Arctic Circle, at a latitude of 66 degrees and 33 minutes (hence the name). How tough is the 6633? “It is flippin tough. I mean really tough. No seriously, I really do mean it”, says its founder, Mike Likey. Also, 2017 is going to be the last chance for athletes to actually race on the entirety of the Ice Road from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk. This is the final 120 mile section of the 350 mile race. From 2018 the route of this latter section of the race will be changing as the Ice Road to Tuktoyaktuk will no longer exist. Only 11 people have successfully completed the 350 mile race in its six year history.
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Conor
McGregor
Conor mcgregor
UNDERSTANDING HISTORY WHILE MAKING IT onor McGregor ended 2016 the same way he started it: by asking someone to bring him his damn belt. McGregor had just dispatched Eddie Alvarez with shocking ease in the main event of Saturday's UFC 205. The four-punch combination he landed to knock out the dazed and demoralized lightweight champion three minutes into the second round was as historic as it was chillingly effective.
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Yet in the immediate aftermath, McGregor wasn't happy. He was annoyed.
" When I say something's going to happen, it's going to happen
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"
The stoppage victory made him the first fighter to simultaneously hold UFC titles in two different weight classes. He was already the company's featherweight champion after KO'ing Jose Aldo in 13 seconds in December 2015. Now, he'd added Alvarez's 155-pound hardware to his collection. Somehow, however, no one at the UFC had thought to bring both belts into the cage to present to McGregor as referee John McCarthy raised his hand and the particulars of his win were announced to a crowd of more than 20,000 at Madison Square Garden. This, admittedly, was a gaffe. It showed that the fight company—either willfully or subconsciously— hadn't prepared for the magnitude of the event. More importantly, it disrupted McGregor's own mental image of what the moment was supposed to look like. "They should have had them two belts ready, spit-shined for me," he crowed to UFC color commentator Joe Rogan as part of a profani-
ty-laced post-fight interview. "They [should have] both in the Octagon. It's never been done before." As usual, the bombastic Irishman had a point. McGregor's win couldn't have come at a more important place. His knockout of Alvarez was the featured attraction in the UFC's star-studded maiden voyage at Madison Square Garden and the fight company's first
event in New York since 1995. It had already brought in $17 million at the gate, setting records both for the UFC and one of the most hallowed arenas in all of sports. According to Fox Sports' Damon Martin, UFC President Dana White said the event would also break McGregor's own company record for pay-per-view buys, making it the most lucrative
Specs 5.9 ft LB
154 lb July 14, 1988 MMA Fighter
Why we chosen him He's able to crush everything comes between him and "his" damn belt. Veeery susceptible to criticism, handle with care.
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Conor mcgregor single night in UFC history. Yet the only person who seemed to really grasp the scale of what was happening was McGregor. Oddly enough, this wasn't the first time the UFC had failed to live up to his standards for presentation. Actually, it was nearly an exact repeat of the pre-fight press conference for UFC 197 in January. Back then, McGregor was set for a champion vs. champion bout against Rafael dos Anjos. When the 28-year-old Dublin native showed
DID YOU KNOW?
McGregor is viewed as a brash trash-talker who says things to get attention or irritate his opponents — and it’s easy to believe it. However, when you dig a little deeper, you discover that every seemingly outlandish thing he has said has come to fruition. In 2008, he declared that he would not only fight in the UFC, but he would become the UFC champion as well. He has accomplished both of those things. ( 58 )
up on the dais for the media event, he found that dos Anjos' 155-pound title was in position on the table, but McGregor's featherweight belt was nowhere to be found. Obviously, this sent McGregor into a lather. "This is a superfight," he declared at the press conference, while also lambasting the somewhat lackluster posters the UFC had printed up for the bout. "Where are all these historic images?" At the time, White, who was also at the presser, and the UFC didn't seem to have a great answer to that question. Fast-forward nearly 10 months to UFC 205, and it appeared as though they hadn't learned much from it. McGregor didn't get the chance to fight Dos Anjos for the lightweight title. The Brazilian champion pulled out of the event, which had had been rebranded as UFC 196, with an injury. The UFC tabbed Nate Diaz as a late replacement, and then he and McGregor embarked on the high-profile blood feud that defined most of this year. While McGregor and Diaz were off settling that score, Dos Anjos lost the 155-pound championship to Alvarez, and McGregor's date with destiny got put off until this weekend. When he captured the title and put Alvarez in his rearview mirror, he did it with an effortlessness that undeniably ensconced him among the UFC's all-time greats. Even if the UFC momentarily seemed oblivious to that fact. As the cage filled up with officials following the fight, McGregor could be heard exchanging
terse words with White. The fighter demanded to know where his second belt was, and the executive who has ruled the UFC with an iron fist since 2001 could only shrug and send someone to try to find it.
weekend's superfight, the outcome became just as obvious. The fight was over the first time Alvarez got hit. He was shook. Look at his eyes.
Thus, McGregor had put all three facets of his greatness on display.First, there was his slick and powerful straight left hand. That punch has been McGregor's calling card since he arrived in the
It took McGregor another handful of minutes to pound the final nail into the lightweight champ's coffin, but this was McGregor's fight from the opening salvo.
My God this McGregor is some man.
HOT TWEET @TheNotoriousMMA I have decided to retire young. Thanks for the cheese. I'll catch you later.
Octagon in 2013, and with the notable exception of his lone loss to Diaz at UFC 196, it has defined his career on the big stage. It was the same punch McGregor used at UFC 194 to unceremoniously end Aldo's six-year reign at 145 pounds. When he dropped Alvarez with it during the first significant exchange of strikes during this
The second part of McGregor's greatness was underscored after the fight, when he once again showed a unique ability to understand history even as he made it. McGregor knew he needed that second belt in the Octagon during UFC 205's final minutes. Long a proponent of visualization, he has talked at length about his devotion to positive ( 59 )
Conor mcgregor
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Conor mcgregor
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thinking and the best-selling self-help book The Secret. Clearly, when he imagined his victory over Alvarez, he envisioned himself holding up those two belts. But it was more than that. McGregor understood the optics of the moment. In the world of MMA,
him straddling the top of the Octagon fence with those two belts might define his stellar career. So he jumped up there and stayed until the camera people got their shots. To McGregor, that part was nearly as important as winning the fight in the first place.
he has flashed an unprecedented command of shaping and controlling a story. When White finally brought him his second title belt, McGregor was acutely aware it was important for the UFC's cameras to get a long look at him with both of them draped over his shoulders. He knew photographs of
McGregor finally got his two belts. Oh, and the third part of the new lightweight and featherweight champion's greatness? Once he noticed the second belt's absence, he sent White off to fetch it. Perhaps never before in MMA history
has a fighter so effectively recognized the moments in which the UFC needs him more than he needs it. He has consistently kept the upper hand during his public negotiations with the promotion. On this night, he took that understanding to the next level. The UFC's highest-paid athlete, McGregor came to the post-fight press conference (warning: NSFW language) talking not just about his next megapayday, but also about obtaining an ownership stake in the company. "People have shares in the company. Celebrities. Conan O'Brien owns the UFC nowadays. Where's my share? Where's my equity?" McGregor said. "If I'm the one that's bringing this— they've got to come talk to me now, that's all I know. I've got both belts, a chunk of money, a little family on the way. You want me to stick around? Do you want me to keep doing what I'm doing? Let's talk, but I want the ownership now. I want the equal share. I want what I deserve. What I've earned." So, even as he exalted in historic victory, McGregor was setting the stage for his next negotiation with the UFC. This is a man who never takes his eyes off the prize. McGregor and longtime girlfriend Dee Devlin are expecting a child in May 2017. He indicated he'd take some time off to ease into fatherhood and plan his next move. He's beefed with lightweight contender Khabib Nurmagomedov and welterweight champion Tyron Woodley. A trilogy fight against Diaz with the title
on the line would undoubtedly do big business for all involved. If McGregor's intent on keeping his featherweight title, a unification bout with interim champ Aldo is also there for the taking. If history is any indication, McGregor will make the smart move. He'll do it with a clear understanding of what it means and how best to go about it. For now, he'll also do it with a UFC title hanging from each fist.
Ken Block
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF KEN BLOCK Mr. block dayjob? driving in the world rallycross championship, of course
Start 5.15am: Wake up, turn off my alarm, and turn on my iPhone to check emails, text messages and social feeds. Make a protein shake to get my metabolism going, then FaceTime my wife and kids. 6.00am: Out the door of the hotel and off the track for breakfast. our team chefs usually prepare me something: usually, sausages, rice and mixed fruit. Review in-car footage from the day before.
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A DAY IN THE LIFE 7.30am: I'll meet with my team director, derek dauncey, and talk about our set-ups for the day with the car, then begin my warm-up routines - reflex drills and some Muay Thai pad work to get my blood flowing and get my body in a state of readiness for door-to door combat. 8.15am: Sitting in my rallycross car ready to go. We typically get two warm-up laps on Sunday of a race weekend. 9.30am: Qualifying race 3 and 4. This is where you find out if you're going to make it on the semi-finals or not. Noooooo pressure. Ha! 12.30am: By now i'm back in the paddock and focused on one thing: lunch. Usually a small salad, some grilled chicken and some rice. Occasionally I'll break out the Nando' Peri-Peri sauce. 1.00pm: At every round of the World Rallycross Championship, Monster throws these Huge parties with DJs, Monster Girls dancing, prize giveaways and autographs for the fans are all part of it. 3.30pm: As long as I am in the top three of one of the two semis, then I am in the big show, the final. Six cars face off to try to win in the biggest race of the weekend. 4.00pm: Post- race trophy presentation, media interviews. My driving suit might now be soaked through with champagne. Great for the first five minutes, then just sticky and smells like sweat mixed with champagne going sour. 7.30pm: Post-race debrief to discuss set-ups and car issues and to prepare for the next race. This is a VERY important part of the weekend. 8.30pm: Back at the hotel, I can finally grab and end-of-day shower and call home to my wife and kids. Depending on how well the weekend went, I may head out for some adult beverages with the team or friends. 10.00pm or 2am: Depending on how much we have to celebrate, back into bed and trying to get as much sleep as possible before 5am departure for the airport.
End
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Shaun
White
shaun white
GO WHITE ach morning during the Olympics, Shaun White tried to grab shotgun in the Team USA van headed to the mountain, but fifth-placer Louie Vito always beat him to it. "It pissed me off so much, because that meant he got to control the music," White says with a slight smile. "He'd play stuff he knew I hated, like Miley Cyrus' 'Party in the U.S.A.,' which is just painful. It's bumming me out even thinking about it."
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White was the snowboarder to beat in Vancouver – he's been that guy forever, actually – so it wasn't a bad idea to try to psych him out. Vito played a lot of Miley, every day, plus Dr. Dre and terrifyingly long bouts of reggae. "A lot of guys on the team are so into reggae," says White. "They'd all be like, 'Yeah, bumbaclot nation!' I'd just be sitting there, like, 'Jesus.'" He shudders. "They knew that all I wanted to hear was rock & roll." ( 70 )
Specs 5.9 ft LB
154 lb Sept. 3, 1986 Pro Snowboarder, Skater
Why we chosen him Enfant prodige, he revolutionized the concept of "snowboarding" forever. Since he was 6.
White may rule snowboarding, one of the coolest youth cultures in America, but he's such a bundle of energy, ambition, discipline and competitiveness that the sport doesn't quite express who he wants to be. Rock fandom, as it turns out, is essential to White's "new zone, my whole new deal," as he puts it. "Getting into music has changed my personality and way of doing things," he says. "I'm far more open now." Tonight, no longer encumbered by the
capacious red-white-and-blue jerseys of Team USA, White's arms are festooned with a main-stage wristband he's been wearing since last year's Coachella festival, a red-and-black cloth bracelet from a vintage-rock store, and a lot of heavy silver jewelry, including an onyx cuff that's similar to one owned by Robert Plant, his musical hero and all-around obsession. (His favorite song in the world is Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love.") White's jacket is black leather, babyskin soft and cut to highlight muscle.
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Shaun white "I met Matt Sorum from Guns n' Roses in L.A., and he told me to come by his clothing store on Melrose," says White, digging his hands into his pockets. "Apparently, Slash only smokes a certain kind of cigarette, but they're super-long, so he made the pocket on this jacket extra long to fit them. As
DID YOU KNOW?
White is an elegant athlete, strong and precise, so good that keeping up with him means literally taking your life in your hands: Double corks, a trick that White pioneered, put top-ranked snowboarder Kevin Pearce in the hospital with a brain injury right before the Olympics. "Doing these tricks is the most vertiginous feeling you can ever get, especially during the day, when the snow matches the sky," says White. "You're up there spinning, like, 'Where am I?' and your life depends on finding the blue line marking the pipe. It's kind of like tennis: You have to be quick and react quick." ( 72 )
soon as I heard that, I was like, 'I'll take it! I'll take it!'" He breaks into a grin. "Then, since I was in the presence of rock heroes, I decided that I had to get the pants to match." So here he is, our leather-ensembled two-time gold medalist ßber rock fan, 23, holding court with his team manager, bodyguard and two PR reps at a table in an upscale bistro in downtown Manhattan a day after leaving Vancouver, with only a brief stop in Chicago to school Oprah in the rigors of the double McTwist 1260: his showstopping trick, made up of two flips and three and a half spins, that he stuck at the Olympics after he won the gold – a "righteous victory lap," as he put it. With his flowing carrot top, White, who stands five feet nine and is built like a bantamweight boxer, is recognizable from across any room, and bejeweled matrons keep rushing over to offer him a big thumbs up. A waitress nearly pees her pants reading him the specials. "I used to hate on New York because it was cold and I didn't understand it, but now it's one of my favorite places," says White. "After the Turin Olympics four years ago, I went to Madison Square Garden for a Knicks game. They put me on the JumboTron, and the whole place stood up. It was unbelievable. I sat down, and I was shaking." His first gold medal at Turin in 2006 may have blown White's mind, but the second one cemented his reputation as athletic and pop-culture legend.
"Honestly, I'm never that proud of my performances, but this time at the Olympics feels different," he says. "I was able to get that last run in on the pipe, and I think that truly affected people. It showed something about myself to them, something more than what they knew." Before he digs into a New York strip steak, White messes around with his iPhone, scrolling through some messages. He stops at a picture of Vice President Joe Biden at a news conference in Vancouver, with a video screen set up behind him to show clips of medalists' performances. "Man, I worked so hard to set this picture up right," says White, wriggling with excitement. "Check it out," he guffaws. "I'm shredding on the VP's head." Snow boarding is a young sport, only
15 years into its mainstream popularity, but every year, the halfpipes get bigger and the tricks get wilder – in Nagano, Japan, in 1998, the longest rotation was only 720 degrees – and a lot of that has to do with the influence of White. On TV, White may play the eternal
"I wasn't your average kid. I was
signing autographs in Japan at 12
"
radical little dude – a goofy guy whose radicalism is sweetly unthreatening – but in person, he's not only intelligent and sophisticated but a stone-cold killer. Like Tiger Woods, whom White has called a "great guy deep down who just made some bad calls," he's as competitive about business as he is about sports: Between his own video game and his endorsements, including
shaun white
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shaun white Target, Burton and Oakley, he made an estimated $9 million in 2008. Bud Keene, the halfpipe coach for the U.S. snowboard team, puts it this way: "Imagine an experiment where you mix the DNA of the most naturally talented athlete of a generation, say a Michael Jordan or a LeBron James, with the DNA of the hardest-working athlete imaginable, a Rocky Balboa or a Cal Ripken. Finally, you throw in the DNA from the most driven and uncompromising athletes you can think of, a Lance Armstrong or a Tiger Woods, and – voila! Out pops Shaun."
someone approaches me and says, 'Dude, it's snowing in Mammoth!' I don't know what to say, because I could really care less. In fact, none of White's friends are snowboarders: He's too much of a loner for that, and too competitive. "The show Entourage always intrigues me because that guy's got his homeys
DID YOU KNOW?
White turned pro about a decade ago, and since then he has won every major snowboard contest at least once. Though White is the most recognizable face of snow-boarding, and possesses the clan's core value – fun is good – he's cut from a different cloth. He's never lived in the mountains full-time, usually drinks alcohol on a full stomach (he gets a headache otherwise) and has zero interest in watching snowboard or skate videos. "I'd rather do it, not watch it," he says. When he goes to the mountain, he prefers to ride for an hour or so and then cruise – at which point, he puts thoughts about snow-boarding entirely aside, listening to his favorite bands, like T. Rex, Roky Erickson and the Kinks, or watching concert footage on YouTube. "I love the sport of snowboarding so much, but I just don't want to talk about it, ever," says White. "When ( 76 )
Last year, when White realized that his celebrity was creating a problem at public halfpipes – he was afraid to try new tricks because there always seemed to be a kid around with a cameraphone, ready to post a YouTube video of him falling on his butt – one of his sponsors, Red Bull, put together a plan out of a sci-fi movie: For an estimated $500,000, the company built White his own private halfpipe, a 22-foot monster with a foam pit, in a backcountry bowl near Silverton Mountain, in Colorado.
with him everywhere, and I never roll like that," he says. "I've never had a crew. I've just been on my own, always." Those who know White well say he is remarkably unchanged by his success. "What I respect about Shaun is that he is down-to-earth," says his friend Andre Agassi. "Even with insane talent at such a young age, he conducts himself with no pretense or sense of entitlement. I imagine Shaun has the same fun and intensity in the Olympics at 23 that he had on a family vacation at six. It's just built in." But being the king of the world isn't as easy as it's cracked up to be, and White starts to open up about the past few years, which have been hard for him. "I was ready for the 2006 Olympics," he says. "I wanted it. I wanted the attention. But afterward I freaked out a little
bit." We think of White as a symbol of freedom and rebellion, but he's been sheltered in a lot of ways. He loves fashion now, particularly when it intersects with rock history – "Think about Robert Plant onstage with a smoke and a drink, holding a dove, in a frilly white shirt. How do you beat that?" – and genuinely likes designing his Target line, but before he was an adult, he never bought clothes in a store. "I've always ridden for a company, so since I was a kid I've gone shopping by walking into a sponsor's warehouse and filling my bag," he says. "The concept of a dressing room just blew my mind. I was like, "You're going to let me put on these pants, right here? Just drop drawers?" But it's downtime that kills White more than anything else. "I just can't relax," he says. "I've been competing since I was seven years old, so when I ( 77 )
shaun white have time off, I can't handle it." A few months ago, when he had some dead space between contests, he bought four surfboards and almost ran off to Hawaii. "Then I realized that the winter waves are 24 feet tall," he says. "I didn't think it was a good idea to drown before the Olympics." He can't go out much anymore; he gets mobbed, and it's no fun anyway, because he always has to be vigilant about spit-shining his image. "Times have changed, and it's such a bummer," he says. "I was just in a bar in Colorado, and someone told me Hunter Thompson was sitting right there once and threw a stick of dynamite behind the bar. Do you know what
would happen if I did that? If I put the TV out the window right now, it would be international news. You still want to rock-star out and do weird things, but I guess now you have to do it more creatively." But White didn't wallow in these feelings: Instead, he decided to commit himself more deeply to skateboarding. "It was the best decision, because it made everything new for me," he says. "In that sport, I'm still the underdog. I buy all the trucks and wheels myself – and I don't have many sponsors." He loves the feeling of skating, plus he prefers to hang out in cities rather than mountains. Now he spends all summer
in skate competitions. "I love skating in Cleveland," he says, "because I can go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame afterwards, losing my mind looking at Freddie Mercury's jacket." In New York, he usually gets around by skateboard, too. "If I'm walking on the street, I have to put my hair in a bun so I don't get recognized," he says. "But if I'm skating, I can let it out, because by the time people have seen me, I'm gone." From White's perspective, the evolution in snowboarding that he has
witnessed and catalyzed over the course of his career is a good thing. "Times have changed, but it's rad, you know?" he says. "When I first learned to snowboard, we weren't allowed on mountains, and now they compete to have us. Nineteen-year-olds are making six figures as snow-boarders. There's even skate P.E. and surf P.E. in schools. Can you imagine going to school in California and not wearing skate shoes? You'd be laughed at." To White, snowboarding is a metaphor for achieving your dreams.
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baja 1000
TAKE A SPIN IN THE SCORE BAJA 1000 think about the most brutal rallycross race in the world, there you have it.
he Baja 1000 is many things at once: a logistical nightmare, a multi-front war, a feat of endurance, a test of patience. It’s a modern-day Targa Florio charging down the freakish, 775-mile finger that is Baja California, the last race of its kind to uphold the glorious tradition of non-stop semisane feats of endurance on two and four wheels.
T
Its roster of celebrity entrants includes Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, Don Prudhomme, Ted Nugent and Ken Block; many have opted not to return for a second go. ( 82 )
There’s nothing quite like it left on the planet. The format of the race -- you’ll hear it called “the 1000” or just “Baja” -alternates annually between one-way sprints down the peninsula (Ensenada to La Paz) and a loop (Ensenada to Ensenada). The precise route changes with each running, and despite its name, organizers don’t seem particularly concerned about making it 1,000 miles in length. 2015’s race, officially the 48th Annual Bud Light SCORE Baja 1000 and held Nov. 20-21, ran 821.38 miles of access trails, open country, silt beds, dry washes and public highways. Futbol may be Mexico’s national sport,
event but desert racing dominates Baja, and it is estimated that as many as 1 million fans spectate the 1000. So the easiest way to feel like the Pope, or at least a B-list telenovela star, is to bring a couple thousand team stickers to Ensenada on the Thursday before the race: contingency day. A few boxes of branded Frisbees will bump you up to the A-list, easy. Contingency is so named because race entrants must ride, drive or roll their vehicles down Ensenada’s Boulevard Costero and into the pre-race tech inspection. Along the way, teams have the opportunity to qualify for dozens of so-called contingent prizes offered by sponsors. Either way, contingency is a firmly rooted Baja tradition -- a slow-motion parade/street festival complete with street music, vendors and sleazy dance-off competitions, all centered around the race teams and their vehicles. No matter what you think you know about it, though, it’s impossible to understand until you experience it firsthand. Even then, it might not make a whole lot of sense at first. It can, at times, be tedious, anticlimactic and tragic. But it doesn’t need an easily digestible, nitro-fueled storyline to be compelling. Baja is not Formula One; it is not the Indianapolis 500. It’s not even the much-longer Dakar rally, which is a different, though equally brutal, flavor
of insanity. Accidents happen during all forms of racing, and sometimes people are killed. This is neither glorified nor glossed over by the desert racing community. It’s an acknowledged fact and a very real risk that each and every participant must weigh on his or her own. Spend time with those who are passionate about racing, though, and it is impossible not to at least respect their decision to continue doing what they love despite the danger. You might as well learn to respect it, because they’re going to keep doing it. Baja has the same magnetic pull of Mount Everest, or of the prospect of dog-sledding to the South Pole, or of the dangerous romance crossing the Pacific alone in a sailboat. As long as there is sand and silt on Baja and a handful of crazies with bikes and trucks and the will to pit themselves against it all, there must be a Baja 1000. There are some people who can’t resist the allure of a Herculean challenge, and I’ve come to realize that they’re exactly the sort of people it’s worth spending time with. Still can’t wrap your head around it? Go and see it for yourself; it won’t take you long to figure out if you understand it or not. Either way, you’ll take a part of the race back with you. Baja dust has a way of getting in your blood.
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Bear
Grylls
BEar grylls
MEET THE ULTIMATE ALPHA MALE
Specs 6 ft LB
170 lb June 7, 1974 Adventurer, Businessman
Why we chosen him A man who incarnate the idea of dominate the elements.
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ear Grylls has been getting things done for most of his life. He is a successful businessman, a best-selling author, the UK’s Chief Scout and one of the most recognisable TV stars in the world. He learned to climb and sail young, got a black belt in shotokan karate as a teenager and went hiking in the Himalayas after leaving school. He failed his first try at SAS selection – too slow on one of the marches through the Brecon Beacons – but was invited back and made it second time around.
B
These days, Bear Grylls is a global megabrand. His TV shows have been seen by over a billion people, and his biography was voted ‘Most Influential Book’ in China in 2012. But he’s also a father of three sons who hasn’t lost his love of adventure, and being in shape is a top priority. How does he get that done? That’s what we’re here to talk about. "I’m fitter
now, at 40 years old, than I’ve ever been," says Grylls. "When I was training with the military, it was mostly about endurance, so I never felt as strong then as I do now. After that it was climbing stuff, which was all endurance again, and then I did that classic male thing where I went to the gym but never felt very fit. Then three or four years ago Natalie and I started training. I’ve totally changed in shape, in fitness level, in basically everything during that time." Natalie is experienced personal trainer Natalie Summers, who was training Olympians and rehabilitating athletes when she started working with Grylls’s wife, Shara. "It was actually Shara who
arranged it," says Grylls. "And I thought it would be a girly workout, which was my first mistake. I thought, 'How can you train in half an hour?' But it was revolutionary." Grylls’s new training plan combines kettlebells, bodyweight moves and primal stretching in short, high-intensity workouts that are designed both for function and form. "I wasn’t able to do huge weights but over the months I was getting leaner, stronger and more flexible," says Grylls. "Suddenly I realised it was all coming together. I only run occasionally these days but the strange thing is, I’m much better at it than I used to be. My heart and lungs are so much bigger because we do so
HOT TWEET @BearGrylls in honour of all yours @replies about pee drinking. Am on vacation in LA. Looks like I'll have to drink my own pee.
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BEar grylls
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BEar grylls much high-intensity stuff. My VO2 max has actually gone up. And I still get that 'shaking muscles' feeling a day later – I used to have to train for three hours to get that. It’s changed my whole approach to fitness."
camel carcass he’s sheltering inside… and, of course, the many, many
" You only get one chance at life and you have to grab it boldly
On screen, Grylls’s culinary achievements are near-mythical, the subject of countless YouTube clips and internet lists: there’s the one where he eats a rhino beetle ("crunchy"), the one where he bites the head off a tick, the one where he takes a bite out of a
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times he drinks his own secretions. Off-screen, his attitude to nutrition is far more conventional. "Basically I don’t have wheat, sugar or dairy, and when I have meat it’s
good-quality, lean, grass-fed stuff," he says. "I cooked last night, actually – got back from filming in the mountains for three days and said, 'right, I’m cooking'. I did a big spaghetti bolognese made out of buffalo mince with buckwheat pasta – non-wheat but it’s great, really healthy, delicious stuff – and then I made a big chocolate mousse with raw cocoa, maple syrup and coconut oil and an egg." Perhaps inevitably, Grylls has a nutrition book due out next summer. "That means I’m experimenting with a lot of recipes – and the boys love it as well. I wish at school someone had taught me to eat healthy. If I ran a school I’d teach how to train, how to eat healthy, how to build teams, how to lead people, how to take risks… life stuff." Grylls doesn’t run a school (yet, anyway) but he’s created the next best thing. The BG Survival Academy now runs courses for all ages, including a parent-and-child option that’s booked up for years in advance. So does he think these skills are being lost? "I think people love to challenge themselves," he says. "They want to feel they have some of these traditional 'man' skills – which really apply whether you’re a girl or a boy, of course – and feel they can look after themselves." And they don’t just do what Grylls calls "the boring bushcrafty stuff" – a lot of it is based on the UK special forces training he knows well. "That’s changed a lot now," he says. "In the old days we just carried heavy packs over
long distances, and now it’s a much more dynamic sort of strength. I’m an honorary colonel to the Royal Marine Commandos now and I’m down at the commando training centre at Lympstone a lot, and I see soldiers diving over walls and carrying their buddies over their shoulders, sprin-
DID YOU KNOW?
In 1996, Gryll suffered a free-fall parachuting accident in Zambia. His canopy ripped at 16,000 ft, partially opening, causing him to fall and land on his parachute pack on his back, which partially crushed three vertebrae. His surgeon said it was questionable whether he would ever walk again. Gryll spent in and out of military rehabilitation for the next 12 months. But, just 18 months after breaking three vertebrae in that parachuting accident, Gryll proved that hard work and great determinations can do any wonder. On 16 May 1998 he achieved his childhood dream; he climbed the summit of Mount Everest. ( 91 )
BEar grylls
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ting, rolling, moving. What we do is definitely inspired by that, and also by the wilderness – a lot of crabs, crawls, leopard and panther stuff. Plus the stuff I do when I’m on the road – improvising with jerrycans or whatever weights we can find." That improvisational approach to training has informed Grylls’s latest venture. BG Epic Training currently occupies four warehouse-sized spaces
"I said, 'Let’s start a gym in the worst place in the world to start a gym,’" says Grylls. "It’s a terrible demographic, but already we’re seeing people who never train getting massively into it. We don’t have Jacuzzis and showers – people want to train, to get it done before work or on the way back. They turn up, do half an hour and come out absolutely knackered. My new approach to fitness has made it fun instead of
dotted around the UK, each decorated with little more than a few pull-up bars, a rack of kettlebells and a couple of suspension trainers. The flagship is half an hour’s drive from the nearest train station, in Marlborough, a town of 8,400 people – and it’s already packed.
a chore – people love the concept of pay-as-you-go, turn up and get it done. That’s the reason these gyms have exploded so quickly." And that, as Grylls gives out handshakes and prepares to head off, seems
to be the point. For Bear Grylls, fitness – like jumping out of a plane, climbing a mountain or drinking yak blood – is what outdoor people call Type 2 fun: tough, frightening or downright awful at the time, but life-enhancing in retrospect. "You don’t have to go to the ends of the world for adventure," says Grylls. "We live in an incredible country with great wilderness. We run survival courses all over Wales, Scotland, Devon, so many of the great mountainous regions of the UK. Just grab a tent, get a friend, tell someone where you’re going and go climb a mountain. We all want to climb mountains in life – but it’s a case of doing it and not just dreaming it." And with that he’s gone, heading off to climb his next mountain. With most people you’d assume it was a metaphorical one. With Grylls, you never know.
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50 Cent
POWERED BY
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