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Editor’s letter
FINDING A WAY FORWARD It’s part of human nature not only to solve problems, but to be able to use these challenges as a positive for our development. During times of extreme hardship, humanity has been able to overcome existing limitations by thinking creatively, allowing us to view threatening situations from new perspectives and to come up with inventive countermeasures. Thanks to these incredible adaptive abilities, we’ve survived environmental shifts and countless illnesses and famines. And all sorts of examples of this transformative capability have emerged from technological, social, economic, artistic and philosophical communities. This ability to adapt to new situations is the foundation of our existence.
SPACE CALLING…
For this issue, we made a lot of calls. Tahira Mirza’s was the most unusual: our photo editor chatted to astronauts on the International Space Station. Page 46
BEN THOUARD (COVER), NATURE PHOTOGRAPHERS LTD/ALAMY
FARGO CIRCLE STUDIO/TOBY LEIGH
Perhaps the most important lesson from our history is this: each of us has the ability to make adjustments in our thinking and actions to unlock this amazing capacity within ourselves. That’s the idea behind this special issue, in which 100 people with significant insights into this sort of resilience and adaptability share their personal experiences. Through stories, images, quotes, interviews and drawings, they tell us how they’ve managed to identify opportunities in situations that could otherwise have been bleak. This issue of The Red Bulletin curates 100 contributions from top thinkers, athletes, authors, innovators, photographers, musicians and other artists from all over the world, to create a collection of unique stories able to encourage, empower and remind us of what we’re capable of, both as individuals and as a community.
HOME HELP
Psychologist Adam Yearsley explains what working from home has in common with space travel, and how it will make us all better listeners. Page 40
NATURAL REMEDY
Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien reveals a surprising source of inspiration: the sound of birdsong. Page 94
We hope you enjoy the issue.
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CONTENTS June/July 2020
100 heroes share their stories JoJo
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Lindsey Vonn
1 BEN THOUARD 2 ALE X DE MOR A 3 NORMAN KONR AD 4 CHRISTOPH VOY 5 MICHAEL MULLER 6 CHRIS SAUNDERS 7 KONSTANTIN RE YER 8 KRYSTLE WRIGHT 9 TOMASZ GUDZOWAT Y 10 PETER RIGAUD 1 1 DAN KR AUSS 1 2 PIP HARE 1 3 CYRIL DESPRES 14 MIKE HORN 1 5 DAVID ‘GR ANDPOOBE AR’ HUNT 16 MICHAEL STR ASSER 17 PAROV STEL AR 1 8 BILL M c KIBBEN 19 BEN STOKES 20 Y VON CHOUINARD 21 MAVI PHOENIX 22 PK SUBBAN 2 3 LINDSE Y VONN 24 CRISTAL R AMIRE Z 2 5 ALISA R AMIRE Z 26 K ATIE HENDERSON 2 7 M c KENNA PET T Y 28 ADAM YE ARSLE Y 29 DAN ATHERTON 30 GEE ATHERTON 31 R ACHEL ATHERTON 32 MARK VAIL
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Dan, Rachel & Gee Atherton
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Mavi Phoenix 08
53
Neymar Jr
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pineappleCITI
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69 JULIUS HALLSTRÖM 70 VL ADIK SCHOL Z 7 1 TRENT ALE X ANDER-ARNOLD 7 2 RYAN PESSOA 7 3 MA X VERSTAPPEN 74 RYAN SHECKLER 75 CHARLI XCX 76 K ATIE ORMEROD 7 7 JIMMY SPITHILL 78 ADRIAN MAT TERN 7 9 THOMAS DREßEN 80 SEVEN 8 1 MASSIMO BUONANNO 82 R APHAEL JAKOB 8 3 ROSE ANN DIMAL ANTA 8 4 JIMMY CHIN 8 5 CORINNA SCHWIEGERSHAUSEN 86 FANNY SMITH 87 ALE X HONNOLD 8 8 DANITSA 89 ROSALÍA 90 ED JACKSON 91 MARC WALLERT 92 B-BOY JUNIOR 93 SASHA DIGUILIAN 94 HIL ARY KNIGHT 95 MIKE M c CASTLE 96 K ATSUYA EGUCHI 97 TITOUAN BERNICOT 98 ANDRE AS BREITFELD 99 ED O’BRIEN 1 00 SÉBASTIEN THIBAULT
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Trent AlexanderArnold
73 Max Verstappen
76 Katie Ormerod
Dominic Thiem
3 3 GÉR ALDINE FASNACHT 3 4 ZUNA 3 5 HIL AREE NELSON 36 DOMINIC THIEM 37 VIK TORIA WOLFFHARDT 38 K ARINA HOLLEKIM 39 MA X HEINZER 4 0 ANDREW MORGAN 41 JESSICA MEIR 4 2 CHRIS CASSIDY 4 3 JILL KINTNER 4 4 K ATE COURTNE Y 4 5 STACY BARE 4 6 TOM ÖHLER 47 BRIAN ENO 4 8 JOJO 49 PHILIPP VENETZ 50 MICHÈLE IMHASLY 51 DOMINIK IMHOF 52 STEPHAN DREESEN 5 3 NE YMAR JR 5 4 WILL CL AYE 5 5 PASQUALE ROTELL A 56 WOLFGANG Z AC 57 MARCO WALTENSPIEL 5 8 FELIX SEIFERT 59 MARCO FÜRST 60 MA X MANOW 61 PINE APPLECITI 62 MAT THIAS WALKNER 6 3 ANGY EITER 6 4 CEDAR ANDERSON 6 5 ROMAN HAGAR A 66 HANS-PETER STEINACHER 67 RHYS MAR A 6 8 MARK SPAERMANN
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Kate Courtney
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Ben Stokes
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84 Jimmy Chin
74 Ryan Sheckler
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Charli XCX
Cyril Despres
99 EdO’Brien THE RED BULLETIN
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Surf photographer, 34, FRA. The Tahiti-based surf specialist won Red Bull Illume – the world’s largest action and adventure photography contest – in 2019
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Ben Thouard
Into the light “This is an underwater shot of Teahupo’o, the famous spot off Tahiti where the 2024 Olympic surfing competition is due to take place. By then, all our current concerns will be just a vague memory. For me, the photo is a symbol of how we have wonderful times to look forward to again.” Instagram: @benthouard
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Portrait photographer, 38, GBR. De Mora specialises in portraits with impact, immortalising rock legends – such as Slash – and underground artists alike
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Alex de Mora
Gold standard “I photographed Goldie for The Red Bulletin in 2017. The guy is now not only a talented graffiti artist, drum-and-bass producer and actor – he had a minor role in the James Bond film The World is Not Enough – but an MBE, too. To cut a long story short, he inspires me to enjoy life in every possible way.” Instagram: @alexdemora
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Portrait photographer, 43, GER. Konrad has won many plaudits, including the European Design Award, and is famous for his mix of surreal elements and humour
Norman Konrad
Hello, neighbour! “I often try to question our view of normality with my pictorial compositions. This photo was originally about help within the neighbourhood. But now it has taken on a new meaning. If you can’t go out to see your nearest and dearest, it becomes all the more important that you speak with them.” Instagram: @norman.konrad
normankonrad.de
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Portrait photographer, 48, GER. Berlin-based Voy has got up close with film stars, models and rock icons, and has many Red Bulletin covers to his name
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Christoph Voy
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Blue-sky inking “I believe in beauty, humour and solidarity. You can find that in almost anyone in one form or another. Take this woman, for example, who caught my eye at a festival. Her tattoo – ‘This too shall pass’ – works for most things in life, doesn’t it?” Instagram: @christoph_voy
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Photographer, 59, USA. Muller likes spending his time snapping Hollywood stars, but for years he’s also been an activist for shark conservation
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Michael Muller
Saving the situation “When you swim with great white sharks for years on end, you’ll always come across objects attached to the animals that have no place in nature – things like hooks in their mouths, and tracking devices on their bodies. But even we were flabbergasted by what we saw on the expedition that morning in the Pacific: a great white with a piece of plastic hanging from its right pectoral fin. The good thing about us humans is that we can step up when needed.” Instagram: @michaelmuller7
mullerphoto.com
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Street-style photographer, 36, RSA. Jo’burg-born but based in Paris, former fashion photographer Saunders documents culture both at home and around the world
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Chris Saunders
Freedom to inspire “This is Manthe Ribane, a South African musician and dancer, dancing on the roof of Bree Street taxi rank in Johannesburg. I’ve been working with Manthe for years, and she has this ability to not only thrill people with her performances but transport them somewhere else. Anyone who watches her would say she even imbues the environment with her freedom and positivity.” Instagram: @chrissaundersphoto
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Photographer, 33, AUT. Reyer is always close to the action, be it on the monster wave at Portugal’s Nazaré or on numerous shoots for The Red Bulletin
Konstantin Reyer
Light in the darkness “I was in Cape Cod [in Massachussetts, USA] with my girlfriend shortly after my 30th birthday when a terrible thunderstorm hit. Then suddenly I saw this rainbow far off in the distance. ‘No way!’ I thought, and I took this shot. The image has stayed with me ever since as a sign of optimism. It’s now in a frame on my studio wall.” Instagram: @konstantinreyer
konstantinreyer.com
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Adventure photographer, 33, AUS. This leading light in outdoor photography has followed the journeys of adventurers, researchers and tornado-hunters
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Krystle Wright
Nature shows us the way “This photo was taken during a BASE-jump expedition to Baffin Island in the far north-east of Canada, when a blizzard kept us in our tents for days on end. You can imagine my surprise when I saw an Inuk and his team of dogs approaching the camp. I just about managed to get two shots before the snowstorm devoured him. And what did I take away from my time in the camp? The fact that when nature forces us to forget all the things that might distract us, we develop extraordinary abilities.” Instagram: @krystlejwright
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Documentary/portrait photographer, 48, POL. Gudzowaty has won nine World Press Photo Awards, visited more than 100 countries, and shoots mostly in black and white
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Tomasz Gudzowaty
The first step “I gave this picture the title of a verse from the Tao Te Ching, a collection of sayings by the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu. The verse reads, ‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.’ For me, this image symbolises [humankind’s] stamina and resilience.” Instagram: @tomaszgudzowaty
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Portrait photographer, 52, AUT. Salzburg-born Rigaud’s portraiture has appeared in publications including Vogue, Vanity Fair and National Geographic
Peter Rigaud
Wise head “This picture from 2015 shows the Viennese geneticist and virologist Josef Penninger, who is currently working intensively with his team to research a vaccine for COVID-19. Pictures of clowns and monkeys hung inside and outside his office. All the interviews with him that I’ve read are full of both scientific seriousness and humour. I find his appearance and his selfconfidence during the crisis remarkable.” Instagram: @rigaudpeter
peterrigaud.com
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Outdoor photographer, 31, USA. Formerly a photojournalist for The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, Krauss specialises in epic outdoor shots
Dan Krauss
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The strength of belief “This photo shows Moses Potter climbing the very tough Once Upon a Time route in the San Jacinto Mountains in southern California. I had to wait a year to find someone who could boulder this UFO-shaped rock. For me, the shot represents the strength and self-belief an individual can draw from themselves, and the ‘golden hour’ light on the misty clouds gives a hopeful feeling, as if they’re helping to lift him.” Instagram: @dankrauss
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Sailor, 45, GBR. Later this year, Hare will aim to become the eighth woman to navigate the world unaided, in the Vendée Globe race
Pip Hare
“Bad weather doesn’t last for ever” With her yacht-racing preparations on hold due to lockdown, Hare looks back on the hours that made her a sailor Interviewed by JESSICA HOLLAND
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RICHARD LANGDON/OCEAN IMAGES
V
ery early in my ocean-sailing career, on my way from the Canary Islands to the UK, I found myself upside down in a boat as it slid, mast first, down a wave. It was terrifying. The waves were more than 40ft [12m] high – above mast height – and there were hurricane-force winds in excess of 70 knots [130kph]. When you’re in the trough of a wave, it blankets out all the wind so it’s utterly still, eerily silent. And then, as you rise up to the top, you hear the rumbling and feel the vibrations of the wave breaking – it’s like a freight train approaching. When it hit, it was like being rammed from the side by an elephant. I was thrown around. I was helpless. I couldn’t be on deck or I’d have been thrown over the side or broken some bones, so all I could do was hide down below during the six-hour peak of the storm. When the boat rolled, I fell onto the ceiling. Everything that wasn’t secured rained down on top of me. A couple of glass jars of chilli sauce fell from the fridge and smashed: there was glass and chilli sauce everywhere. I can still remember that smell, 20 years later. When the storm eventually subsided, I was left with a boat in tatters, but I was alive. The experience should have put me off sailing for ever
Hare sails out from her home port of Poole and into the English Channel on a training day
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– it’s still the worst weather I’ve ever seen – but it taught me a lot. You don’t really understand how strong you are as a person until you get put in those situations, and even though I was frightened I just carried on doing what I needed to do. I learnt that I can rely on myself in an emergency. It also taught me that weather doesn’t last for ever. There are terrible storms – and lightning still scares the bejesus out of me – but you have to accept the fact that there isn’t anything you can do to change those situations. Sometimes all you can do is take all the sails down and wait – there’s always something on the other side.
O
ne of the feats I’m proudest of is my solo mast climbs. The first time I climbed the mast while the boat was sailing was terrifying. It was on my first single-handed transatlantic race – to Brazil – in this 21ft [6.4m] boat. They’re capable of speeds in excess of 20 knots [37kph], like crazy little bullets, with masts around 12m high. There are no satellite comms, no contact. I’d been racing about two weeks and I was physically drained. I’d lost a lot of weight, I was exhausted. I was in the middle of the Atlantic, the furthest possible point from help. There was a bad storm, and a piece came loose at the top of my mast. It got wound around the mast, and the boat would have been in danger if I hadn’t fixed it. I realised I’d have to climb to the top under full sail and sort it out. I’d practised solo mast climbs while docked, but not when the boat was sailing. One of the biggest dangers is swinging out, away from the mast. When you swing back, you accelerate towards it and you could either hit your head or break a limb – and, because there’s no one to help, you’d be stuck up the mast, just swinging like a pendulum. It was so hard to stop my brain going through all the things that could go wrong. And the amount of adrenalin coursing through you is ridiculous. My hands were shaking, I could hear my heart in my ears, and my brain was just going over and over things. Plus you’re completely reliant on autopilot, this machine, not to change direction or have a problem while you’re up there. But this is the sport that I choose to do, so these are positions that I put myself in voluntarily. It’s like grabbing yourself by the lapels and giving yourself a big shake and saying, “This is the person I want to be.”
The start of the Fastnet Race, just off Cowes, in July last year
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MAXIME HORLAVILLE
B
ecause I’d lost so much weight and my upper body strength had gained so much, when I’d got halfway up I just kind of dragged myself to the top with my arms. When I got there, I thought, “Wow, I didn’t know I could do that.” It’s amazing what you can do when you’re scared, though. I managed to fix it, take the all-important selfie [laughs] and make it back down. After you’ve done something like that, you get an incredible feeling of pride and endurance. It makes you feel a lot stronger as a person, and it gives you huge confidence that you can deal with whatever is coming. Most of the time, the thing that limits us is ourselves: we underestimate what we’re capable of. We tend to be cautious, to want some sort of positive guarantee we’ll be able to do something before we’re even prepared to try it. Actually, it’s just giving yourself the permission to have a go. When you’re on your own in the middle of the ocean, you don’t have a choice – you have to push yourself beyond the limits of what you’re capable of. It might be something that terrifies you, that you are not sure you can physically deal with, that you’ve never done before, but there’s no other option. There’s no one else who can help you; you can’t bail out; you can’t say no. It’s a feedback loop that continues to help you grow and become stronger. When I’m solo sailing, I am the best version of me.
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Rally driver, 46, FRA. Despres won the Dakar Rally five times on a motorbike, then switched to cars. He has known Mike Horn for 12 years
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Cyril Despres
Adventurer, 53, RSA. The world-famous Horn has been around the globe dozens of times, but until this year he’d never done the Dakar Rally
Mike Horn
“Mike is quite simply superhuman”
Having barely escaped a testing Arctic trip, Mike Horn launched into a new challenge: the Dakar Rally. Cyril Despres tells the story “It’s the end of October 2019, and I don’t have a codriver for the Dakar Rally. Immediately, I think to myself that Mike is the only person who could do this on the spur of the moment. When I manage to get through to him in early December, he’s in a tough spot, backing up and cutting across the ice on an expedition to the Arctic [from which he was subsequently rescued]. But he says yes there and 30
then. The idea of the desert really motivates him, because he always wants to learn new things. “I pick him up in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, at 6am on January 3. By 11am, he’s on my right in the buggy where we’ll be spending 12 hours a day in just two days’ time. Physically, Mike has just been through one of his toughest-ever expeditions. He still hasn’t recovered, or seen the sun in four months. He’s very thin and covered in blisters. Despite his exhaustion, he sleeps under the stars in zero temperatures, and takes in two months’ worth of data in 48 hours. In the car, his energy makes me excel and go faster… “When we’re forced to retire from Dakar 2020 to give our engine to the Red Bull Motorsports team, he reacts quickly and positively. I remember a very emotional moment when one of the young drivers who’d given up hope of finishing in a good position was almost in tears. Mike told him that the most important thing was how quickly he got back on his feet. He always has incisive things to say, and when he sensed the team was tired he made a speech: ‘If we hang on for two more minutes and make one mistake fewer, we’ll be stronger.’ There’s one thing I’ll take away from this Dakar Rally spent by his side: Mike isn’t a superman, he’s superhuman.” Instagram: @cyril_despres; @mikehornexplorer
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Horn agreed by text to join Despres in the Dakar Rally – even though he was cutting across the ice in the Arctic at the time (left)
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Video game streamer, 35, USA. Hunt has built a loyal fanbase as one of the best and most theatrical speedrunners around
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David Hunt
Professional cyclist, 37, AUT. In 2018, Strasser rode across the Americas in a record-breaking time. Now he’s hosting Instagram workouts set to music by Stelar
Michael Strasser
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DJ and producer, 45, AUT. Stelar, aka Marcus Füreder, is co-creator of the electro swing genre. In 2018, he topped the US Electronic Charts with The Sun
Parov Stelar
Bike messager Gamer country
CAMERON BAIRD, JAN KOHLRUSCH, CRAIG KOLESKY, SAMUEL RENNER
JEN SEE, CHRISTIAN EBERLE-ABASOLO
The streamer known as GrandPOOBear reveals how he found community online After David Hunt was seriously injured while snowboarding, he wondered how he would replace his favourite sport. A lengthy recovery period meant long hours at home alone. One day, a friend invited Hunt to watch him play Halo via an online stream. To his surprise, Hunt was hooked immediately.
Instant friends “[Streaming] is like suddenly having a lot more friends. Whatever your passion is – whether it’s video games or shittalking Harry Potter or, like, One Direction pornographic fan-fiction – there may be only 50 people in the world who like what you like, but they’re right there on the internet! That’s what’s great about it.” Find your people “Let’s say you’re really interested in Fortnite. Go on Twitch in that category and look for people you think look cool. It’s like, ‘I’d probably hang out with that person!’ You can THE RED BULLETIN
kind of tell, right? Then, if you enjoy them, see who they interact with. With a lot of my favourite streamers, I’ve found them because they’re my friends’ favourites.”
Start your own stream “Nobody’s that great at anything right when they start. It’s really hard to play a video game and talk to 2,000 people at the same time. You need to be a part of the community, especially in gaming. You can’t just be your own community at first. The first 10 viewers are the hardest to come by. Get into it to have fun.” Be yourself “Don’t feel that you need to be like someone else. You’re always better off appealing to your niche. It’s impossible to please everyone – let’s face it, the internet is not the nicest and most rational place! Understand what niche you’re in, then rock out that niche. And enjoy it. Chances are that if you’re having a good time, so are other people.”
Michael Strasser cycled 22,642km from Alaska to Patagonia in 84 days, 11 hours and 50 minutes. What kept him going through 100kph gales in Peru? Music and constructive words, sometimes from the same person, as the chat excerpt below shows…
Dear Michael, this is Marcus. You probably know me better as Parov Stelar. I hear that you have really thrilling, exciting times ahead of you. So, first off, my deepest respect. I think it’s wonderful that there are still people who show others all the things that are possible
It reminds me of when I was starting out in music. Everyone was always telling me all the things that were wrong with the business. But I think you’re a fighter, too. And if you really want something enough, you’ll achieve it. So, with that in mind, I wish you all the best for the adventure you have planned. And if my music gives you the strength to go the extra mile here and there, then of course I’m delighted to hear that, too. Good luck!
Thanks, Marcus! Your words have motivated me through 11 countries now. Hi from Peru!
Oh, and by the way, Mambo Rap alone on loop kept me going for 2,000km
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Writer and environmentalist, 59, USA. McKibben has written 17 books and was a founder of 350.org, a movement for global climate change
Bill McKibben
Reality matters How a tiny pathogen may finally force the world to take science seriously. It could save the planet
T
he small, spiky microbe might as well be an armada of alien invaders: it appeared from the blue, it struck across the planet within days, and it threatened us with real destruction. For once, we had a truly common enemy, and that enemy called on us to define ‘human’ in our time. Some of our answers to that question were ugly. There have been leaders who tried to blame other countries, and people who have used the illness as a cover for their racism. You could see that kind of nastiness almost from the start: consider the Asian-American head of the emergency department at a Manhattan hospital who went to a hardware store to try to buy
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protective masks for his staff, only to be assailed in the parking lot by three thugs on the grounds that “the Chinese” caused the virus. But, most of the time, people have been remarkable. Consider that doctor from the Manhattan hospital: his staff, like doctors around the world, had willingly gone to work even when they lacked the proper protection. From the very first physician in Wuhan, who was willing to expose himself not only to the disease but to an inquisition from local authorities, doctors and nurses have faced down their fears and done all they could. And it hasn’t only been doctors, who have been trained for this all their lives. Cashiers. People who stock the bread shelves at THE RED BULLETIN
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Words BILL M cKIBBEN Illustrations SÉBASTIEN THIBAULT
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supermarkets. Guys on motorbikes, delivering groceries to those not allowed to leave their apartment. Every last one of them knew they were taking some risk, and they also knew they were providing an essential service. So they sucked it up and got it done. And, in the process, they all – by their actions, not their words – said something truly important: science is real. Reality matters. This sounds trite, but it’s not. For generations now, too much of our society has acted as if reality was optional. We’ve watched the world through our screens. Scientists told us that the temperature was rising, that it was an emergency. Satellites
“For generations now, too much of our society has acted as if reality was optional”
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told us that the Arctic ice was melting, and oceanographers reported that the chemistry of seawater was shifting, becoming more acid. But we didn’t pay much attention. In fact, sometimes it seemed like the only people who took the changes seriously were those – ever smaller in number – who spent serious time in the outdoors. Farmers who couldn’t plant their crops; firefighters dealing with ever-bigger blazes; athletes who were finding ice too crumbly to climb; skiers searching for snow during record warm winters. If you’re halfway up an icefall, relying on crampons and an ice axe to keep you alive, you need to pay serious attention to physics: the temperature of the air becomes a matter of life and death. But most of us, most of the time, didn’t feel it quite that way. We started to convince ourselves that maybe science was negotiable, that maybe physics would meet us halfway. It’s easy to retreat to a fantasy world if you spend most of your time on Facebook and Instagram. Coronavirus ended that, at least for now. All of a sudden, we were forced to realise that biology was real. There was no way to spin the COVID-19 microbe, no way to force it to compromise. We had to change, because it wasn’t going to – and hence we started turning our lives upside down. We sheltered in place, we kept our distance. All of a sudden, every one of us had something in common with the adventurer pulling a sled across the Antarctic or mountain-biking the Continental Divide: THE RED BULLETIN
“We talk a lot about courage when discussing adventures: the courage to face down your fears, the courage to go into the unknown, the courage to risk your life” the real world was calling the shots. We were going to have to dance to its tune, not to our own. For many people, nothing in their lives had prepared them for this moment: they’d grown up in cities or suburbs where the natural world was buried under layers of engineering. (Do you know where your water comes from? Where your sewage goes?) And, all of a sudden, nature was setting the rules: you have to stay 2m apart. You have to wash your hands 10 times a day. You have to stay in your home. Break the rules and you might well die.
O
ne of the most noticeable features of physical reality is time. It matters. If you’ve got three hours of oxygen in a tank, you better be headed back to the surface at 2:45. If the forecast says the storm will hit the mountain at five o’clock, your turnaround time had better be calculated to let you get back to the parking lot, or at least below the tree line, before the lightning starts. If you’re in a race, there’s a clock ticking. But, in the abstract world of politics, time gets suspended: you can literally have the same debate for years and years and years, from one election to the next. Think how long Americans have been fighting over health care, or Europeans over their union. It never ends. That’s one reason questions like climate change have been so hard for political systems to deal with. Because these physical troubles are based in concrete reality, they demand timely action: if you do nothing, they get steadily and irrevocably worse. The carbon dioxide molecule can’t be spun, or persuaded, or forced to compromise. Physics and chemistry don’t negotiate; they just do. If you pour X amount of carbon into the atmosphere, the temperature will rise Y degrees; it’s no use arguing that it shouldn’t. It’s like telling an avalanche it shouldn’t slide: if the angle and the snow are right, it’s going to go. Your only choice in the matter is whether you’re standing in the way.
THE RED BULLETIN
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o, say we’d taken the warnings of scientists seriously 30 years ago when they told us that we were raising the temperature of the planet and that it was going to be disastrous. We could have made some modest changes and we’d have got through the worst of the climate crisis by now. A small tax on carbon and the supertanker that is our global economy would have been knocked a few degrees to starboard – and, as any sailor knows, those three degrees soon multiply. Eventually you’re sailing into a whole other ocean. But we didn’t do that – we went straight ahead, and now we’re in big trouble, facing massive change that, even if we take it, won’t forestall all the trouble. It’s always easier for the powerful to keep doing what they’re doing; inertia is profitable and forceful. So we ended up living in a fantasy, and we decided to live in that fantasy because it was easier for all of us not to change. The coronavirus pandemic throws this problem into high relief. Those countries that took very quick action – testing patients, shutting down larger gatherings – dealt with some disruption and took a hit to their economy, and then the worst was past. Those countries that delayed – that decided to wish and hope their way past the trouble – ended up with far more lives lost, far more money wasted, far more fear and anxiety. The point is, reality can’t be evaded. A world used to living via screens forgets this. If something goes wrong in a video game, you can reset and start over. But if something goes wrong in the real world, you have to deal with it. If you don’t deal with it quickly, or you make the wrong call, trouble quickly cascades. Forgetting to take a feed leads to dehydration leads to foggy-headedness leads to a serious knock; choose the wrong descent down a couloir and you’ll find yourself at an overhang that can’t be negotiated. In the real world, there’s no cheat code. We talk a lot about courage when discussing adventures: the courage to face down your fears, the courage to go into the unknown, the courage to risk your life. But it’s possible that the ultimate courage simply involves facing facts and not trying to fool yourself. There’s nothing good about the pandemic that’s consumed this year, that’s consumed so many people. But most of us didn’t die, and that which doesn’t kill you should at least make you smarter. In this case, smarter means understanding that reality isn’t optional. Bravery means grappling with the world you live in, not the world you’d like to be living in. It means getting very real, very fast.
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Cricketer, 28, GBR. The ICC Cricketer of the Year led the England team to World Cup victory in 2019
“Sport is never the most important thing going on in the world; there’s always a bigger thing happening to other people,” says cricket hero Ben Stokes of a summer that’s shaping up markedly differently from 2019’s, when he snatched a last-second World Cup triumph and scored what has been called ‘the greatest Test innings of all time’ in The Ashes. The all-rounder is now applying his
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THE RED BULLETIN
GREG COLEMAN/RED BULL CONTENT POOL
The all-rounder
adaptability on the pitch to life at home: “I’m a PE teacher for my kids – 45 minutes a day.” He has also joined the F1 season via an online simulator. “I came last,” he says of his debut. “But I’ve always learnt from bad experiences; they make me a better player.” And he has taken up a new hobby: “Understanding stocks and shares. History has shown us that every time everything drops, it always comes back up.”
TOM GUISE
Ben Stokes
MAŠA STANIC, GETTY IMAGES, IMAGO/AURORA FOTOS SEBASTIAN FASTHUBER YVON CHOUINARD QUOTATION FROM THE BOOK “SOME STORIES: LESSONS FROM THE EDGE OF BUSINESS AND SPORT”, PATAGONIA PUBLISHING
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Adventurer and businessman, 81, USA. Keen climber Chouinard fashioned his first pitons in 1957, and founded outdoorclothing brand Patagonia 16 years later
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Yvon Chouinard
Mavi Phoenix
“There’s not really any difference between a pessimist who says, ‘It’s no use. There’s nothing we can do,’ and an optimist who says, ‘We don’t need to do anything. It will all come good by itself.’ In both instances, nothing ends up happening, whereas the best treatment for depression is activity” Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard as a young man at his Little Giant forge hammer in Yosemite, California. He would go on to sell the pitons he made here from the boot of his car
THE RED BULLETIN
Musician, 24, AUT. Having made his name as a female rapper, Phoenix has lived as a trans man since 2019
Living my truth
“I should have been a man. I’ve known that for a long time. But there was always this thought that I’m a woman and there’s nothing that could be done about it. I made the decision to start living as a man when I was recording my album. Everything was going haywire at the time, and I was being totally creative. No one around me had a clue what was going on. YouTube videos by trans men helped me. Just seeing them as normal, healthy, happy people took a lot of the fear away. I still need to have a good think about how to proceed. Hormone treatment would change my appearance and voice. That’s the real crunch. But I’m glad to have taken the first step.” Mavi Phoenix’s long-awaited debut album, Boys Toys, is out now on LLT Records; maviphoenix.com
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Ice-hockey player, 31, CAN. The defenceman – currently playing for the New Jersey Devils – won a gold medal for Team Canada at the 2014 Olympics
PK Subban
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Former ski racer, 35, USA. Possibly the greatest female alpine skier of all time, Vonn counts three Olympic medals among her accomplishments
Lindsey Vonn
“Keep the Olympic spirit alive”
lindsey vonn: The Olympic spirit is something that is really incredible and can have a major impact on the world. It will light us up again, just not this summer. I wish the athletes all the best, and for everyone to stay
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NORA O’DONNELL
healthy, so wash your hands and practise social distancing. We’re looking forward to cheering on the athletes next year. pk subban: It’s tough for those athletes who have trained over the years, preparing for [the Olympics]. It’s sucks, and it’s gonna happen, but obviously we’re thinking of bigger things. We’re thinking of all the families, the kids, the people out of work, and people who are sick.
COURTESY OF LINDSEY VONN
When the IOC announced that the Tokyo 2020 Games would be postponed until next year, retired alpine ski racer Lindsey Vonn and professional hockey player PK Subban, both former Olympians, delivered a message of encouragement. This is an excerpt from that conversation:
THE RED BULLETIN
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Indie-pop band, USA. The Aces‘ 2016 debut, When My Heart Felt Volcanic, was described by music mag NME as “nothing less than bloody brilliant”
The Aces
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Cristal Ramirez
Lead vocalist/guitarist, 24. Cristal started her first band with her sister Alisa when she was only eight years old
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Alisa Ramirez
Drummer, 22. Alisa directed their music video for Daydream, the first single from upcoming album Under My Influence
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Katie Henderson
Guitarist, 24. Katie was the last member to join The Aces, in 2008. She’s also the band’s tech and studio whizz
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“‘Let it happen’ is my mantra” When starting out in music, The Aces’ Cristal Ramirez found inspiration in a rock song. “I’ve always been a massive fan of [US band] Paramore and [vocalist] Hayley Williams,” she says, “and I listened to one of their songs, Last Hope, a lot when it came out in 2013. I was on the brink of graduation from high school, and I was determined to pursue a music career, but of course there were doubts: ‘Am I doing the right thing?’ It was Last Hope that inspired me to follow my dream. “I love the chorus: ‘Gotta let it happen, so let it happen’ – I find it really powerful. She’s admitting she isn’t in a great place, but
you’ve got to be calm and let things play out. It’s that idea of ‘focus on the things you can control and don’t waste your energy on the things you can’t’. It’s like a little mantra in that sense. “It has been a companion over the years whenever I need motivation in times of change. It helped me when we moved to LA and hadn’t yet signed our record deal. It comforts me, because it reminds me of joyful times – and times of self-discovery that were important for me.”
Paramore’s self-titled fourth album, which features Last Hope, was certified platinum
The Aces’ new album, Under My Influence, is out on June 12 on Red Bull Records; theacesofficial.com
McKenna Petty
RED BULL RECORDS
FLORIAN OBKIRCHER
Bassist, 24. Like the other members, McKenna grew up in Utah. Cristal calls her their “yoga/cooking/socialmedia guru”
The Aces: (from left) Cristal, Katie, Alisa and McKenna
THE RED BULLETIN
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Psychologist, 48, AUS-GBR. Yearsley co-developed the Red Bull Wingfinder test (wingfinder.com) to help you analyse your professional strengths
Adam Yearsley So you’re working from home...
MEANING “I’ll learn something from this”
Everyone reacts differently to change, but these phases occur time and again
MOOD
DENIAL “This won’t affect me that much”
SHOCK “I can’t believe this is happening”
FRUSTRATION “This is tougher than I thought”
RESISTANCE “I want this to be over”
EXPERIMENTATION “I want to try something new”
ACCEPTANCE “It is what it is”
the red bulletin: What’s the greatest challenge of working from home for weeks on end? adam yearsley: Interestingly enough, if we work from home for months at a time, we have to solve similar problems to astronauts on long space flights: how do we get our work done alone or with a few people in a confined space? How do we adapt to the change curve as we go on the journey? You’ve developed a 10-point plan for home working [see link] – what do you advise? There are many important points: having goals, focus, framing the experience. But a simple action can have a big impact. Create your own separate working area, even if it means partitioning a room. And dress for work in the morning. 40
Why is that important? Because we’re all creatures of habit. Behaviour triggers reactions in our brain. You think differently when you’re wearing your work clothes. Over time, you typically won’t achieve the same mindset if you work in your pyjamas.
Working from home has become increasingly important. Now we’ve all had plenty of practice, what can we take away from this experience? Best case: greater trust from management. Managers, in turn, should make sure their staff can always see the meaning of what they’re doing. And, just generally, that we listen to each other better. Do you mean in video chats? Or when colleagues see each other back at the office? Both. A good tip is to always put the other person first. Before discussing the topic at hand, take a minute to ask the colleague how they are. We all experience the change curve in different ways. For 10 strategies for working from home, go to: redbulletin.com
THE RED BULLETIN
ANDREAS ROTTENSCHLAGER
A psychologist explains what working from home has in common with going into space, and how the crisis will help us understand our colleagues better
SANDRA SCHARTEL/DIE-PHOTOGRAPHIE
Home improvement
So you’d advise dressing as you would for work, even when not going into the office? Exactly. Then change back into your civvies in the evening when you’re done. That way you’re sort of ‘mentally going home’.
FARGO CIRCLE STUDIO/TOBY LEIGH
TIME
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Dan Atherton
Downhill MTB rider, 38, GBR. The eldest sibling is a downhill racing pioneer who never tires of digging challenging new trails
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Gee Atherton
Downhill MTB rider, 35, GBR. The two-time World Champion and multiple World Cup winner has tried rally driving, too
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Rachel Atherton
Downhill MTB rider, 32, GBR. Winner of six World Cups and five World Championships, Rachel is a downhill racing legend
DAN WILTON
RUTH MORGAN
Stronger together It’s no coincidence that the sibling stars of downhill mountain-biking live close to one another in Wales, belong to the same racing team and have launched a bike company together. It’s knowing they’ve got each other, says Rachel Atherton, that has helped them reach new heights. “Growing up with siblings who do the same sport, I’ve never THE RED BULLETIN
Clockwise from front: Rachel, Dan and Gee Atherton
been alone in it,” she says. “There’s always been competitiveness, which has pushed us in the best way. When I was still a kid, Dan told me, ‘You could be the best in the world if you put in the time and effort.’ That’s given me my whole career, the faith that they have in me. Knowing that your family love you no matter what allows you
to really try. And then, if you fail, you’re not defined by it. In this age of social media, having that real connection with people means a lot, maybe more than ever before. Facebook and Instagram, that stuff’s not real. My family, my team, are the people who really see me. They’re there whether I win or lose.” 41
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Subsistence lifestyle advocate, 62, USA. Since 1987, Vail has been living off the land, on his own, in a rugged, frost-ridden corner of Alaska
Mark Vail
Solitude is old hat for Mark Vail. For 33 years, he has lived alone in a small cabin he built on 10 acres in the Alaskan bush, right on the edge of WrangellSt Elias National Park. Vail, who lives almost 500km from the closest big grocery store, has created a near-total subsistence lifestyle – in the past year, he has trekked to the city only twice, for staples such as coffee. During summer, when McCarthy – an old mining town turned tourist spot – swells from 33 residents to 150, Vail interacts with humans once a week. But come winter he’s happily solo. Here, he offers advice on living the good life alone.
Get closer to nature
“By being here alone, I get to experience incredible things. The other day, 40 redpolls [birds from the finch family] were chittering all around me. And every day for eight years I’ve been visited by the 42
Own your routine
“My schedule varies in different seasons, but it’s always decided by me. Right now, I get up with the sun, drink coffee, check the internet, then head outside to collect water and keep the woodshed full. Then I’ll exercise – I’ll ride my fat[-tyre] bike, ski or hike. Moving through nature is the best way to dissipate anxiety.”
Eating is empowering
“I eat food that I’ve grown, gathered and preserved myself. I eat salmon I caught in the Copper River, and when I put it in my mouth I become part of the place where I live. I feel successful testing myself against the economy.”
Stay (partially) connected
“I have the internet, and I hate it – it’s one of the worst things that ever happened to me. I spend way too much time on it, and that time is essentially wasted. But it has given me a bit of connectivity with people remotely. And now mail order has become super-easy.”
THE RED BULLETIN
TRACY ROSS
After decades living alone in the Alaskan wilderness, Vail has elevated social isolation into an art form
NATHANIEL WILDER
Free, solo
same woodpecker. I’ve also learnt that the best time to see wolves come off the mountain is when the frogs begin to croak in April.”
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Freeride snowboarder/wingsuiter, 39, SUI. Lausanne-born Fasnacht knows a thing or two about patience – she waited six years to achieve one dream
Géraldine Fasnacht
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Rapper, 26, GER. Music has always been a source of strength, even on Zuna’s hardest journey
Zuna
Waiting for Verbier
@DIESERBOBBY, UNIVERSAL MUSIC, SÉBASTIEN BARITUSSIO, GETTY PREMIUM WOLFGANG WIESER, DAVID MAYER, SIMON SCHREYER
No slope could ever be too steep for her, and it always had to be quick. In 1995, Fasnacht wanted to compete in the Xtreme Verbier, Switzerland’s wildest freeride event, but the organisers wouldn’t let her – at 15, she was too young and the competition too dangerous. She was bitterly disappointed, but remained resolute. “I trained hard, competed in a lot of events and won most of them,” she says. Six years later, in the autumn of 2001, her phone rang. It was Verbier calling. Fasnacht went on to win it. This was the start of her life as a professional snowboarder. Patience is a virtue.
50 Cent inspired Zuna to forge a career of his own
HOW RAP HELPED ME AS WE FLED Ghassan Ramlawi – better known now as Zuna, one of Germany’s most high-profile rappers – was 15 when his family fled Lebanon. They were turned back at borders many times. Their odyssey through Africa, France, Belgium, Switzerland and Germany finally ended in Dresden, where they were given leave to remain. What gave Ramlawi strength during this time? “I listened to 50 Cent on headphones whenever I could,” he says. “Knowing that someone had worked his way up from the very bottom to achieve
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success gave me hope. I couldn’t wait to take control of my life in the same way.” Soon after arriving in Dresden, he met Granit Musa and Ali Rihilati, and later Yassine Baybah. The four now make up one of Germany’s most successful rap crews, the KMN Gang. Three songs that kept Zuna going during his family’s flight: 21 Questions – 50 Cent (2003) Hate It or Love It – The Game feat. 50 Cent (2005) Changes – 2Pac (1998)
Extreme skier/ski mountaineer, 47, USA. Colorado native Nelson is now captain of the North Face Athlete Team. And, surprisingly, she’s scared of heights
Hilaree Nelson “Whenever I’m on a steep, exposed mountainside somewhere in the world and I’m at risk of suffering an attack of vertigo, I’ll deploy the following tactic: I just don’t look down. Visually speaking, I’ll focus fully on the relevant metre-and-a-half that is right in front of me. The effect is a bit like putting on invisible blinkers” She snowboards in the deep, too. Géraldine Fasnacht on the move in Verbier THE RED BULLETIN
In 2017, Nelson skied down the Peak of Evil in the Indian Himalayas. Then, in 2018, she descended the 8,516m Lhotse through its dreaded couloir (a steep mountainside gorge filled with snow or ice).
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Tennis player, 26, AUT. Thiem is currently third in the ATP world rankings, having lived the highs and lows of his sport since the age of six
Dominic Thiem
Master of the curve Tennis ace Dominic Thiem uses his 2020 Australian Open final against Novak Djokovic to explain how he deals with mental pressure
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Narrow loss: Thiem vs Djokovic
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5 First set
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“Losing the first set hurts. And it hurts even more against a great player like Djokovic. The break at the end of the set helps. I take a few deep breaths and analyse: It was close, and I’m still in this. I immediately feel momentum. I can’t change the conditions. But I can make the most of the slightest thing and latch onto it.”
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Second set
“Now I’ve got Djokovic where I want him. He’s berating himself, not playing well. This is when I have to stay calm, play with full concentration, and keep him in the same situation for as long as I can. I try to behave as calmly as possible when he makes errors, even more than when I do. I don’t want to get him riled up.”
Third set
Four th set
3 “I’ve been in the zone for the last set. No noticeable dips in level. All just tennis. I might play the odd bad game or make a mess of two or three points, but none of that bothers me. I know what my strengths are, and they’ve got me this far. You forget errors quickly. I’m just looking for my opportunity to win the next point.”
Fif th set
4 “I’ve been on court for more than three hours. It’s really lonely down here. Thankfully, I can always turn to my box. My coach and family are there. I see faces and people I trust, who have faith in me. Their energy gives me an enormous boost. The worse things are going, the more often I look up at them. Then everything’s better again.”
Af ter the match
5 “That’s it. I’ve lost. And now? There’s a feeling of total emptiness. The trophy presentation. Press conferences. Duties. None of it nice. I feel awful for five days. But then I can put it all into perspective: I played incredibly against the eight-time champion. And there will definitely be another opportunity...”
THE RED BULLETIN
PHILIPP PLATZER/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, GETTY IMAGES
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CHRISTIAN EBERLE-ABASOLO
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Canoeist, 25, AUT. While her Olympic debut is on hold, the 2018 European slalom canoeing champion has been taking some tips from her brother
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BASE jumper and freeskier, 44, NOR. The first woman to complete a ski BASE. In 2006, Hollekim suffered parachute failure at 100kph, fracturing her legs in 21 places
Karina Hollekim
Viktoria Wolffhardt
“As I fell towards the ground, my life didn’t flash before my eyes. I wasn’t afraid. My last thoughts before impact were, ‘Fix the problem!’ These seconds inside the downward spiral taught me the following for all these years of recovery: if I need to change anything in life, I need to change it right now. I’m the only one in charge of my decisions.” Doctors said Hollekim would never walk again. Twenty surgeries later, she was back skiing in 2007. Her biographical movie, 20 Seconds of Joy, won two awards at that year’s Banff Mountain Film Festival
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Épée fencer, 32, SUI. Heinzer has been in the top 10 of his sport since 2009. His Swiss team won gold at the World Fencing Championships in 2018
Max Heinzer
COURTESY OF VIKTORIA WOLFFHARDT, ALFREDO MARTINEZ/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, VALERIANO DI DOMENICO/ RED BULL CONTENT POOL, RDB/BLICKSPORT/BENJAMIN SOLAND WOLFGANG WIESER KARINA HOLLEKIM QUOTATION FROM HER TEDX TALK ‘LIFE BEYOND FEAR’, 2014
Sporting siblings: Viktoria and Maxi Wolffhardt do the Koala Challenge, a climbing and strength exercise
Team time
“Making my Olympic dream come true will have to wait. Right now I’m working out at home instead of doing my usual training. But it gives me time to prepare and try out new things, like training with my brother. Maxi is a handball player, so he trains differently: he does coordination exercises with a ball, stabilises his neck, works on strengthening his legs, and does long stretches. How is that beneficial to me? No idea! Only Tokyo will tell. But there’s no harm in trying something new.”
“My silent opponent” When Heinzer grabs his épée at his home in the Swiss village of Küssnacht, his sparring partner is always en garde. “It’s a chromium steel [arm] covered in foam and clingfilm, hanging from a height-adjustable shower rod,” he says. “I knocked it together after I got injured [in 2011], so I could train at home.” It’s especially useful in the current situation. “He’s my toughest opponent,” he adds.
Fine swordsmen: Max Heinzer training at home THE RED BULLETIN
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A habitable satellite in Low Earth orbit, the International Space Station always has three to six crew members on shifts usually lasting around six months
ISS Crew
-0:45
Close encounters of the fun kind As the world turned to video chat as one of the few ways to communicate, two people logged on for a conversation. Only one of them was on Earth Words TOM GUISE
A
s Jessica Meir prepared for her flight back to Earth from the International Space Station this April, she was set to return to a world much changed from the one she’d left on September 25, 2019, when her rocket had taken off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. But, as an astronaut, Meir has always viewed the world differently from most of us. There’s even a phrase for it: ‘the overview effect’. When you first lay eyes on Earth from space, there is a transformative moment as you see it for what it truly is: a tiny, fragile ball of life without national boundaries or human conflicts, hanging in the void, protected by the mere skin of an atmosphere.
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Within that atmosphere, on April 10, one of those lifeforms excitedly readied herself to talk to Meir. Tahira Mirza, a London-based photo editor for The Red Bulletin, has been a fan of space ever since she saw footage of the Moon landings as a child. Having organised a photoshoot with former NASA astronaut Mike Massimino a few years back, Mirza could be considered our resident astronaut correspondent, and now came another opportunity she wasn’t going to pass up. “Many people don’t get the chance to speak to astronauts, let alone when they’re aboard the ISS – I felt so privileged and humble,” she says of the invitation to speak to Meir during the crew’s final press conference before departing the space station. As the three astronauts – Meir, Morgan and Cassidy – huddled in front of the view screen onboard the ISS, 350km above the Earth, Mirza waited on the phone, watching the livestream from her home. “The ride was amazing,” said Cassidy, who had only arrived at the space station the day before. “No matter how many times you ride on a rocket to space, it never gets old. You strap in and the thing lifts off and you feel this immense power pushing you and pushing you.” “Living in isolation is something we’re very good at, and everyone on Earth is experiencing THE RED BULLETIN
NASA
Jessica Meir, flanked by Andrew Morgan (left) and Chris Cassidy, talks to Tahira Mirza from the ISS on April 10
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Andrew Morgan
Jessica Meir
Chris Cassidy
NASA flight engineer, 44, USA. The former physician in the US Army Parachute Team became an astronaut in 2013. His recent mission aboard the ISS lasted nine months
NASA flight engineer, 42, USA. On October 18, 2019, Meir performed the first all-female spacewalk with her American counterpart Christina Koch
NASA flight engineer, 50, USA. Formerly with the US Army and Navy SEALs, Cassidy joined astronaut training in 2004. Currently aboard the ISS for the second time
Meir (photographed by colleague Christina Koch) during a spacewalk to upgrade the power systems on the ISS during her recent expedition. Below her is the Pacific Ocean off the coast of New Zealand
“One practice that applies to the situation on Earth right now is thinking about how our actions affect others” Andrew Morgan Measuring 109m long and 73m wide, the ISS orbits Earth at an altitude of between 350-400km every 90 minutes, at a speed of more than 27,500kph. It experiences 16 sunrises and 16 sunsets every day THE RED BULLETIN
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Outer limits: (clockwise from top left) Cassidy looks out of the ISS’s Cupola (observatory module), Morgan jogs while attached to an external-resistance treadmill, Meir trims mustard leaves for space agriculture study
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t 15:27 UTC that day, Mirza’s opportunity finally arrived. “Tahira, it’s now your turn,” came the go-ahead from the Mission Control Centre in Houston, Texas. Mirza: “Hello. Thank you for taking my question. How can we [on Earth] learn in a positive way from the challenges we’ve been given at this current time?” Meir: “For us, adapting to change and unanticipated obstacles is a part of our everyday job. That’s one of the things we prepare astronauts for. There are many terrible sides to what’s happening now [on Earth], but I hope there are some positive outcomes to all of this. What we can do is try to find those silver linings – one is fostering connections with loved ones. People have been corresponding more than they were before this pandemic, reaching out to family members more regularly.
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“We can find a silver lining. One is fostering connections with loved ones” Jessica Meir
“Bringing out a little more of that innate human element, reminding people of what is truly important… hopefully we can cherish that, move forward and continue to treat each other a bit more humanely, even after we come out the other side.” And with that, the ISS continued on its trajectory. Mirza’s question had made it into space, and the message she got back was one of forging connections. While people were rediscovering their own social connections through their screens across the globe, two people – one orbiting the sun every 365 days, the other circling Earth every 90 minutes, both in isolation for different reasons – connected across the gulf of space. Watch the full space conference on the NASA Video YouTube channel; youtube.com THE RED BULLETIN
NASA
that in a new way now,” said Morgan, who was now into his ninth continuous month aboard the orbiting satellite. “One of the most important things is to live by routine. We have a schedule and we follow it to the T. Our exercise, personal hygiene, sleep – everything is scheduled. Another practice that applies very well to the situation on Earth right now is being a good crewmate, thinking about how your actions affect others. We’re constantly evaluating to make sure we’re respectful of each other.”
www.hotlines-uk.com
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Downhill MTB racer, 38, USA. The world champion and Olympic medallist is one of the globe’s most versatile mountain-bike riders
Jill Kintner
True colours 44
In addition to her talents on two wheels, Jill Kintner has a background as an illustrator. As people began self-isolating around the world, Kintner started sharing adult colouring posters to print and download at home. Relax and get creative with a colouring sample (see right) from her latest Red Bull project, Bandit Hill, a short film that combines her fanciful animated creatures with live action of Kintner racing through a crowded forest. jillkintner.com
Cross-country MTB racer, 24, USA. In just a few years of competing at an elite level, Courtney has already won national and world championships
Kate Courtney
“Wave at each other”
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NORA O’DONNELL
other as we passed by. We stood on opposite sides of the road and shared our fears, our struggles to stay motivated, and a desperate desire for riding to feel normal again. “I’ve found myself laughing uncontrollably at ‘dinner’ with my parents over FaceTime. I’ve traded workouts on social media and shared rides on virtual platforms. Everyone is reaching out generously with their gifts. Moments of grace like these remind me that we are all in this together. “The Olympics are a celebration of the human spirit. They are about striving in the face of uncertainty, about relentless competition and global unity. They are a test of resilience, an opportunity to grow and transform by doing hard things. This is a hard thing. “For now, my only solid plan is to look inward, keep my head down, and focus on taking the next right step. I have to keep believing that, on the other side, I will stand on that Olympic start line. Hope and heartbreak can live side-by-side.”
DARREN CARROLL/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, JESSE DEYOUNG/RED BULL CONTENT POOL
The following is an excerpt from that essay: “Some moments, I am overwhelmed by love and connection, grateful for the opportunity to create and learn in a world that has slowed to take a deep breath. Other times, I feel heartbroken and discouraged by a timeline that demands constant reworking and mounting fear over just about everything. “But as my mind rages against the possibilities, my heart whispers tiny messages of hope. All will be revealed. This too shall pass. While we wait patiently for the revealing and the passing, the best thing I think we can do is to be kind to each other – and gentle with ourselves. “There have been silver linings. Amid the social isolation, I have never felt more connected. I am in touch with people around the world coping with this crisis. The cycling community feels strong and united. Recently, I planned to ride in the opposite direction to a training partner and friend – just so we could wave at each
JILL KINTNER
In an essay for The Wall Street Journal, the rider shared her views on the Olympics postponement
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Adventurer and advocate, 41, USA. Bare co-founded the Great Outdoors Lab, which studies the biological and emotional impact of spending time in nature
Stacy Bare
The healing power of nature
A positive to come from this time spent inside is an increased appreciation of the great outdoors. And when we can safely get back out there, it might be exactly what we need. Just ask Army veteran Stacy Bare, who discovered that wilderness adventure could calm his PTSD  Words FLORENCE WILLIAMS 52  
THE RED BULLETIN
“Climbing saved my life – and skiing sustains it,” says Bare, a veteran who initiated research to measure the benefits of adventure therapy
KENNY CHURCH
W
hen Stacy Bare returned home after fighting in Baghdad, he wasn’t sure who he was any more. His girlfriend hadn’t waited for him, his hometown friends couldn’t relate to him, and he felt disillusioned with the US military he had once so admired. He’d experienced a mild traumatic brain injury when his Humvee was hit by a roadside bomb. Despite receiving a Bronze Star medal for service in Iraq, and then making it through graduate studies in urban planning, he was suffering from nightmares, survivor’s guilt and post-traumatic stress. “I lost close friends,” says Bare. “I saw Iraqi people maimed and killed by our own bullets, and for whatever reason there are certain people’s
THE RED BULLETIN
deaths who sit with me harder than others. It’s the memories of a little girl, or seeing a dog eating a dead body under a pile of trash.” To feel better, he drank heavily and used cocaine. “I was an asshole,” he says. By 2010, a few years after his tour, Bare just didn’t see the point in staying alive. That’s when an old Army friend invited him to climb in the mountains outside Boulder, Colorado. Then they went again. Slowly, something shifted for Bare. The vast Rocky Mountain landscape gave him perspective. The technical demands of climbing sharpened his focus. It was also easier, thought Bare, to get along with people when you’re sharing an experience outside. Soon he was skiing, rafting and camping all over the American West. “Climbing saved my life,” says Bare, now aged 41, “and skiing sustains it. When I found skiing, that level of freedom and joy for me surpasses even climbing.” Wanting to help other veterans experience the healing power of nature, Bare became the director of a programme to do just that within non-profit environmental organisation the Sierra Club. But, after six years there, Bare has come to appreciate just how common trauma is, whether it’s derived from dysfunctional relationships, violence or some other circumstance – say, a global health crisis – that makes us feel physically and psychologically vulnerable. These days, his message has more resonance than ever, with people all over the globe experiencing not just post-traumatic stress from a pandemic and cascading economic collapse, but a kind of pre-traumatic stress, too. People are experiencing new levels of dread, fear and anxiety. 53
The world as we knew it is different. When the ground shifts, says Bare, “You’re trying to figure out who you are. There’s a lot of pain.” We need tools of resilience, a way to calm our nerves, and strength from the metaphors of the natural world to help sustain us. What Bare understood early on, however, is that his ideas of finding comfort outside needed the weight of evidence. Frustrated that outdoor and adventure therapy weren’t taken seriously by doctors, psychologists and health insurance companies, in 2013 Bare helped the Sierra Club partner with the University of California, Berkeley, to form the Great Outdoor Lab. One of the first studies it published measured stress, mood and well-being in veterans and underprivileged young people before and after two-day whitewater rafting trips on California’s American River. The results showed an average 27 per cent decrease in PTSD symptoms after the trip.
As part of a recent event called Silk Road Freeride, Bare and two other guides led a ski and snowboard competition in Kyrgyzstan
On a trip organised by the Great Outdoors Lab, military veterans raft the south fork of the American River in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains
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I could see why when Bare invited me to join him on a rafting trip with veterans down Lodore Canyon on the Green River in north-west Colorado in 2017. That time, Bare teamed up with researchers from the University of Utah, who took measurements of participants’ brain waves over the course of the four-day trip. The scientists wanted to look specifically at theta waves in the midline prefrontal cortex, as well as alpha waves in the back of the brain. These, explained doctoral student Rachel Hopman, indicate how ‘present’ someone feels – versus feeling cognitively overwhelmed – during emotionally upsetting times. The data from the trip showed a gradual drop in theta and an increase in alpha. “People are being more mindful of their environment and aren’t ruminating on [for example] what they have to do the next day,” says Hopman, now a postdoctoral researcher at Northeastern University’s College of Science in Boston, Massachussetts. Indeed, she says, “Most people perceived they had less stress at the end of the trip.” As participant Aaron Wolf put it one night around the campfire, “I feel like I’m taken care of when I’m outside. It’s a reminder of where we come from as humans. I find that when I’m outside, my brain is firing on all cylinders. I feel fresh, smarter and more capable intellectually.” A former Marine corporal who struggled with panic attacks upon his return home, Wolf was so inspired by Bare and his own experiences that he started an adventure-guiding company in Asheville, North Carolina, working with adults and troubled kids. THE RED BULLETIN
KENNY CHURCH, COURTESY OF STACY BARE (2)
Bare, shown here with a group of climbers in Utah, is working to solidify scientific evidence on the therapeutic benefits of outdoor adventure. “I think most people have trauma,” he says
Perhaps this shouldn’t have been a surprise. For thousands of years, soldiers have been returning from the trials of war in need of a slow, natureladen transition back to life in their community. In the 1920s, British Army lieutenant George Mallory tried to walk off his psychic wounds on Mount Everest. Odysseus sailed around the Aegean (OK, he met with a few more trials there) for years. “Odysseus is trying to figure out who is he after all these battles,” says Bare. “At the end of the day, that’s the same framework for what we’re trying to do: to get yourself out of that situation, put yourself in a new one, and see who you are.” Today, when so many people are facing unprecedented levels of both collective and individual stress, it’s comforting to know that much of the new research focuses not on wilderness but on local, reachable nature. Largescale epidemiological studies from around the world indicate that people who live near or spend regular time in green space are mentally and physically healthier. One UK study of 40,000 people revealed lower mortality rates, and a Dutch study mapping 340,000 health records found a lower incidence of 15 diseases including heart attacks, strokes, anxiety, depression and certain cancers, all mediated by stress. The data suggests that when our nervous systems can get a break from stress, our health improves, and so do our immune systems. This is good news for those of us who live in cities – we now make up more than half the world’s population – and can’t get around as much as we’d like. But how much time outside do we need? Last summer, researchers from the University of Exeter Medical School looked at the habits and
Doctors around the world are taking note and prescribing time outside to their patients health of 19,000 people. They found that people who spent two hours a week in nature were 59 per cent more likely to report good health and high well-being, and that was after adjusting for age, income and occupation. Most of the people in the study found their fix of nature within just 3km of their home. With evidence mounting, doctors and psychologists around the world, from Nicaragua to New Zealand, are taking note and even prescribing time outside to their patients. “Being in nature is like a pop-off valve,” says David Sabgir, medical director for cardiac rehabilitation at Mount Carmel Health System in Columbus, Ohio, and the founder of the international Walk With a Doc programme. THE RED BULLETIN
Bare served in the US Army for six years, including a wartime deployment in Iraq during 2006-07, for which he earned a Bronze Star medal
“It lowers anxiety, adrenalin and blood pressure, and all that stuff has a direct effect on the heart.” It’s still a bit of a mystery why being outside makes us feel calmer and healthier. Bare and his lead research partner at UC Berkeley, psychologist Dacher Keltner, posit one of the main reasons is an opportunity to experience positive emotions like awe. Studies have found that awe makes us feel less lonely, more connected to the world around us, and more connected to each other. Nature, it appears, is not only good for civilisation, but our best capacity to act civilly depends on it. No longer only working with veterans, Bare is turning to filmmaking in an effort to spread his message wider to the parts of the world torn apart by war, strife and poverty. Understanding that exotic adventures may not be easy to access right now, he has also launched a new programme, Adventure United, that incorporates virtual campfires and exercises for finding awe and beauty in your local neighbourhood. “I think most people have trauma, and it sucks,” says Bare, “but getting outside is the only routine success that I know.”
Florence Williams is the author of The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative, as well as the audio book The 3-Day Effect, which dives more deeply into the Lodore Canyon river trip and other science, looking at the mental health benefits of being in wilderness
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Trials rider, 36, AUT. The multiple world champion has buckled many a bike with his riding style – but not for long
INNER TUBE
Tyre-changing spoons You have to remove that stubborn tyre to change the inner tube. This is the easy way to do it
Tom Öhler
1
Fixing your bike in the kitchen
Lay the bike on the floor and press down on the middle of the tyre. Place both spoon ends between rim and tyre, a hand’s width apart.
Is your chain rusty? Are your wheels wobbly and losing air? Here’s how to knock your bike back into shape using things you already have in the kitchen cupboard CHAIN
Anti-rust candles Paraffin prevents a squeaky chain and makes for smooth gear changes
2 Press down on both spoons at once. The tyre should pop off the rim. If this doesn’t happen, try again with the spoons a bit further apart.
3 Turn the bike upright, then press the tyre off all the way round. Now you can remove the faulty inner tube.
SPOKES
1 Scrub the chain with a cloth to get rid of any dirt and oil.
Anti-wobble butter knife Centring a bent wheel is less arduous than you might think
1 Remove the tyre and the rim tape beneath. (You can usually take off the tape with your bare hands.)
2 You have to remove the rear wheel. Turn the bike upside down and open the quick release lever.
4 Having reattached the rear wheel, be sure to wipe away any excess wax with a cloth. And you’re done!
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“WHEN PUSH COMES TO SHOVE, YOU’LL FIND EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO GET MOVING AGAIN IN THE KITCHEN“ THE RED BULLETIN
WERNER JESSNER
3 Candles contain paraffin, a component of many bike chain lubricants. As it hangs loose in the frame, pass the chain through a saucepan of pre-melted wax.
ARMIN WALCHER/RED BULL CONTENT POOL
3 Increase the spoke tension at unmarked spots, turning the screws with a butter knife.
SASCHA BIERL
2 Tape a pen to the frame so that it just touches the rim. Turn the wheel to see where the rim doesn’t get marked by the pen.
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Musician, 71, GBR. Eno is the man who launched Roxy Music, inspired David Bowie, reinvented Coldplay, and invented ambient music
Brian Eno
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Singer, 29, USA. The youngest solo American chart-topper at 13, JoJo fell out with her label and was barred from releasing music for 10 years
JoJo
“What I learnt from frogs”
“Life is a marathon”
In the late ’70s, David Bowie used Oblique Strategies to create his legendary ‘Berlin Trilogy’ of albums, including Heroes
“For 10 years, I didn’t own my own voice. It was horrible. How do you get through those times? There’s no easy way. You’ll have good and bad days, but it’s important to have a support system that will see you through it, even when you’re not seeing a next chapter. I would focus on what I could control, and take one step at a time, remembering life is a marathon. It’s like on the treadmill: you run your ass off for three minutes, slow down for the next two. In those two minutes, you recover and prepare yourself so you can face the next sprint fully charged.” JoJo’s new album, Good to Know, is out now on her own record label, Clover Music; iamjojoofficial.com
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FLORIAN OBKIRCHER
Joanna ‘JoJo’ Levesque’s 2004 debut, Leave (Get Out), topped the US Mainstream Top 40 chart and went top 10 across Europe
SHAMIL TANNA, SOME WONDERFUL OLD THINGS/ALAMY, WARNER MUSIC
In 1975, music visionary Brian Eno and artist Peter Schmidt published Oblique Strategies: a box of 113 cards that aim to help artists break creative block. The likes of David Bowie, REM and Coldplay have used Oblique Strategies to explore new avenues of creativity. One of the cards reads, ‘Repetition is a form of change,’ and explains how to find inspiration when life feels like a loop; how to focus when life seems stagnant. “Repetition allows your brain to become inventive. It allows you to become a composer,” Eno says. “There’s a 1959 essay by [cybernetician] Warren McCulloch titled What the Frog’s Eye Tells the Frog’s Brain. What was discovered is that the frog’s eye stays totally still. Stare at something and gradually what you’re looking at will disappear, because the rods and cones in your eye saturate and you no longer see the thing. That’s how a frog’s eye works. The frog sits there, saturates, and then, when a fly passes, that’s the only thing it sees. When you get absorbed in a loop, you focus on details you wouldn’t otherwise notice. So, if life feels like a loop, don’t despair. Repetition is a useful exercise. It is what people who do mantras discovered many thousands of years before I did!”
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Helicopter rescue team, SUI. Founded on April 1, 1968, Air Zermatt have carried out more than 50,000 rescues to date
Air Zermatt
“Give every idea a shot”
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Philipp Venetz
Michèle Imhasly
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Dominik Imhof
Stephan Dreesen
Doctor, 44, SUI. “The rescued girl bore almost no sign of injury,” says Venetz, the team’s medical director
Flight paramedic, 28, SUI. This was one mission Imhof will never forget: “It sent shivers down my spine”
Transport paramedic, 40, SUI. Imhasly runs the training centre and has documented this mission in detail
Pilot, 47, SUI. Dreesen’s team were there in no time: “We tried every idea to carry out the rescue”
A Swiss helicopter rescue team on an extraordinary mission. How a young girl’s life was saved after an intense 13-hour battle
TERO REPO, PASCAL GERTSCHEN, CHRISTIAN PFAMMATTER
WOLFGANG WIESER
The crevasse in the rock in the Swiss municipality of Riederalp was just 20cm wide. But on this day in October 2017 it had swallowed up a two-year-old girl who had tripped while playing. It took almost 13 hours to get her out, safe and sound. “An unforgettable experience for everyone who was there,” says Philipp Venetz, medical director of helicopter rescue team Air Zermatt. Over the course of those hours, they attempted everything to rescue her from 6-7m down in the crevasse. “We gave every idea a shot,” pilot Stephan Dreesen says. That included a suggestion from experienced paramedic Michèle Imhasly to have the two-year-old rescued by another secured child. But it turned out they couldn’t put that plan into effect – the gap in the rock was too narrow. In the end, the rescue workers dug an emergency exit with picks, shovels and a mechanical digger. Experts finally split the one last rock separating them from the child. At 2am, it was all over and the little girl was flown by helicopter to hospital in the Swiss capital of Bern.
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Air Zermatt on one of their spectacular missions against the backdrop of the Matterhorn
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Footballer, 28, BRA. The striker for French Ligue 1 club Paris SaintGermain and the Brazilian national team is seen as one of the best players in world football
Neymar Jr Inbox: THE POWER OF LIFE ISSUE Re Re
Thoughts in these times
To To
The Red Bulletin
From Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior <neymar@xxxxxxxxxx>
From a friend in Brazil As everyone across the world experiences a shared moment in time, a special email landed in our inbox...
Friday, 10 April, 2020 at 09:57
Olá Se eu pensar só em mim e na minha equipe, o PSG, pergunto a você: Tinha momento mais inadequado para os campeonatos pararem ?? Mas acho que agora é hora da gente cuidar do planeta, de salvar vidas. É hora dos especialistas e governantes tomarem as decisões mais corretas possíveis para salvar o maior número de vidas. Os dirigentes de clubes e federações terão as respostas adequadas para esta questão. Eu vou continuar treinando, todos os dias, esperando o retorno aos gramados porque eu sei que o esporte voltará. O esporte é muito importante na vida de cada ser humano e voltará ainda mais forte, tenho certeza. Eu passei um bom tempo em reclusão, isolamento em razão das lesões que sofri em 2018 e 2019. Foram momentos muito difíceis mas que me deram um aprendizado muito grande relacionado a manter foco, me recompor e recuperar a autoconfiança. Então este momento, individualmente, eu conheço bem e sei exatamente o que fazer para pra manter a cabeça boa. A grande diferença é que agora não e uma questão individual. Essa pandemia parou o mundo e não sabemos quando nem como as coisas ficarão depois que isso tudo passar. Não é só uma questão de “manter o foco”, mas de preocupação com as nossas famílias, com as pessoas que amamos e com o planeta. Vamos ficar em casa, cuidando uns dos outros e esperar esse momento passer São três cães, o Poker, o Flush e o Truco. São meus zagueiros neste período. Hahahahhaha Eles moram no Brasil e é muito bom passar esse período com eles, sempre gostei muito de cachorros. E não tem muita técnica pra treinar com eles não, é só jogar à bola e correr q eles vêm todos juntos pra me desarmar... E vou te falar, eles dão trabalho pra mim.... hahahahah Eu que tenho que melhorar pra enfrentá-los. Hahahahhahahahah Valeu, um abraço, Neymar Jr
TRANSLATION:
If I were thinking only of myself and my team, PSG, I’d ask you: has there ever been a more inappropriate time for the championships to stop? But I think that now is the time for us to take care of the planet, to save lives. It’s time for experts and government officials to make the most correct decisions possible to save as many lives as possible. Club and federation officers will have the appropriate answers to this question. I’ll continue training every day, waiting to go back to the pitch, because I know the sport will come back. Sports are very important in the life of every human being, and I’m sure that sports will come back even stronger. I was injured in 2018-19, so I spent a long time in seclusion, isolation. It was a difficult time for me, but I was able to learn a lot about staying focused, healing, and regaining selfconfidence. So, personally speaking, I know what’s happening now very well, and I know exactly what to do to keep my head on straight. The big difference is that it’s not an individual issue now. This pandemic has stopped the world and we don’t know how things will be after all this is over. We don’t even know when it will be over. It’s not just a matter of “staying focused”, but of concern for our families, the people we love, and the planet. Let’s all stay at home, taking care of each other and waiting for this moment to pass. I have three dogs, Poker, Flush and Truco. They’re my opponents these days. Hahahahhaha! They live in Brazil, and it’s so great to spend this time with them. I’ve always loved dogs. There’s not much to do with technique when I train with them. I just play ball and run around and they all come together to steal the ball... And I’m telling you, they make me work... hahahahah!
Neymar Jr with his current ‘practice squad’ at his home near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
I’ll have to improve to face them! Hahahahhahahahah! Cheers, take care, Neymar Jr 60
THE RED BULLETIN
HADRIEN PICARD/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, COURTESY OF NEYMAR JR.
TOM GUISE
Hello,
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Long jumper and musician, 30, USA. After winning three Olympic medals – two for triple jump, one for long jump – Claye began a new career in music
Will Claye
“Dreams don’t die”
The Olympian pens a song dedicated to athletes around the world who qualified to compete in the postponed summer Games It’s like a million scenarios in my cranium 20/20 vision, all I see is packing the stadium Pride in my chest, steam in soul, medal round my neck They gon’ see around the globe Four years straight my eyes been on the prize Medal on my neck, see tears in my momma’s eyes It’s a lesson when dealing with Father Time I know it’s coming, the dream is never denied
NORA O’DONNELL LEO ROSAS/RED BULL CONTENT POOL
Tap in with the squad ‘n’ tell ’em don’t get complacent Get it how you get it, we trappin’ up out the basement Mamba mentality fuelling the separation The grind beats talent, when talent don’t hit the day shift Tryna build a spaceship, Elon Musk Diamonds grow under pressure, we don’t bust When they hit my line, I’ll be taking it to the sky Ain’t nothing on site that we gon’ leave untouched
C IA L O FFE PE
R
S
Dreams don’t die, they multiply over time As long as you keep in mind to never settle your grind Some see a six, I flip and see a nine, That’s three more shots in my chamber I get to fire
1 YEAR
getredbulletin.com
£10
Dreams don’t die, they just multiply I’m built tough, I can’t stop my grind
To watch Claye’s music video, scan this QR code
BEYOND THE ORDINARY Read more at theredbulletin.com RICARDO NASCIMENTO / RED BULL CONTENT POOL
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Music promoter, 45, USA. Since founding events company Insomniac in 1993, Rotella has been responsible for some of America’s biggest EDM gatherings
Pasquale Rotella
Can’t stop the party A world in lockdown, a rave guru with a plan, and the story of how a moment of global self-isolation became the catalyst for a planetsized dance party without borders Words LOU BOYD Photos WOLFGANG ZAC
Two weeks after Beyond Wonderland, Wolfgang Zac captured these shots from Insomniac’s HARD Summer Staycation Virtual-A-Thon, directing the subjects through his computer screen. “Disinfecto [bottom right] was super-busy,” says Zac. “He came up to clean the phone’s screen and that was the shot for me”
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Zac: “It’s weird to jump through the internet into the universe of someone else – like knocking on their door. I can’t recall who [the woman pictured] is, but she has 50,000 Instagram followers. I called her on FaceTime and was immediately in her room. She wasn’t that easy to shoot, because she knows exactly how to pose. I asked if she had something to drink, and she picked up this big glass of white wine. That was my shot”
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F
riday, March 20, 2020, was set to be the start of the hugely anticipated Beyond Wonderland festival in Southern California. But as a global emergency conspired to shut down summer in the Northern Hemisphere, EDM fans became anxious. On March 19, California enforced a statewide lockdown: the festival was surely over. But, the next day, 3.5 million partygoers came together for what may be the largest music gathering in history – except none of them was there in the physical sense. Beyond Wonderland’s founder, Pasquale Rotella, saw the chance to do something special, transforming the weekend into the world’s first virtual rave. The party lasted for two days. As CEO of music promoters Insomniac, Rotella hosts many events, including the largest EDM festival in North America, Electric Daisy Carnival. This was a different challenge. “It’s not a big or crazy idea, but we were the first to set it up on the level that we’ve done,” he says from his LA home. “It was very natural: ‘OK, we’re going to have to postpone and do a virtual rave-a-thon.’ I don’t know why the word ‘rave-a-thon’ came off my tongue, but the team didn’t hesitate. They were like, ‘Of course, we’re going to do a virtual rave.’” The Beyond Wonderland Virtual Rave-A-Thon streamed live on Twitch and YouTube, with the
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“Casey [top left] is the girlfriend of Brian [in the heart-shaped glasses on page 67],” recalls Zac. “He was dancing around his flat and she popped up.” Ducky (bottom) poses after her set at HARD Summer’s Virtual Rave-A-Thon
artists originally booked for the festival playing their sets in a remote rave space. As attendees posted photos and live videos of themselves ‘at the party’, the hashtag #virtualbeyond began trending and the traffic spiked. Electric Daisy Carnival has been known to host 400,000 attendees; the RaveA-Thon drew nearly nine times that. If it had been a physical event, the crowd would have filled Wembley Stadium 40 times over. “I didn’t know it was going to be that big,” says Rotella. “It was about satisfying our community who’d bought tickets, but it reached far beyond. We’ve always been a very California-based event, so to have people joining from China, Korea, Australia, everywhere around the globe was special.” Through the screen, familiar festival sights could be spotted. “People were busting out glowsticks, dressing up in outfits, dancing with totems – it was mad,” laughs Rotella. Partygoers spun LED hula hoops and got on their friends’ shoulders, arms in the air. What was unfamiliar was how the lasers were lighting up living-room walls, toddlers were staring up at raving parents in wonder, and sleeping dogs could be seen on sofas behind three-person mosh pits – festival freedom captured in millions of separate homes. A message ran across the bottom of the screen: “Stay home. Stay safe. Stay positive.” THE RED BULLETIN
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Photographer, 52, AUT. LA-based Zac dubs himself a “creator of snapshots. I use little equipment: no lights or reflectors, just a strobe on my camera”
Wolfgang Zac
“I liked Devault [DJ, left] very much,” says Zac. “His music style is underground, dark, different from the others. I wanted to see his music in my shot. I was walking him around the Insomniac office. The lighting was by accident – greenish on his forehead from an exit sign. For me, it describes his music”
Through the looking glass How our snapper broke the fourth wall and gatecrashed the rave Unable to return to LA from Berlin during the lockdown, Wolfgang’s Zac’s wife and creative partner Claudia devised the ‘screen shoot’ used to capture the party as it happened (shown below). “We were thinking, ‘How can we beat the isolation and stay creative?’” he says. “I got motion sick looking through my camera into someone else’s phone lens through my computer screen. I’m fascinated at how intimate these pictures are, even from screen to screen.”
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“Gerhard and Uschi are Austrians living in London,” recalls Zac. “I shot this on their terrace. “I was surprised at their outfits because it was already morning and cold in their time zone. They’re hardcore ravers”
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Zac: “The image of @_sriacha [below] is one of my favourites. She was with her dog, surrounded by beer cans – like a star child drinking beer. I shot Pasquale Rotella [far left] right at the end. He was looking for the afterparty”
For Rotella’s team, the experience was equally as unique. “At first, we’d scheduled it at one of our venues, but then we thought, ‘People see those as places where they gather, so we can’t do it there. We’re doing social distancing – everyone is going to wear masks and gloves.’ So we did it in our office.” A crew of seven people transformed the reception into a world-class DJ stage with lasers, animations and digital effects. “We had a corporate-looking lobby – rave flyers on a table, a TV playing our videos, a nice mural on the wall – but it wasn’t the fantasy world we’ve turned it into. We can never go back to our normal lobby ever again.” Rotella sat in a throne-like chair 2m to the side of the decks for safety, looking like a mad king enjoying his own private show. “We were hyper-focused on doing this without sending the wrong message; yes to entertain, but also to encourage our audience. I felt a lot of them weren’t taking the situation seriously – maybe because of the age demographic; like, ‘I’m not going to be affected by this’ – when everyone is affected and we want you to stay home.” Every person on the set had to be at least 2m apart, face masks were worn by DJs, and, between sets, a mysterious figure in a full hazmat suit sanitised the decks. “He’s not just any guy – he’s Disinfecto,” says Rotella. “People have been buzzing THE RED BULLETIN
about him. We don’t allow the artists to get on the decks without him cleaning everything off.” Signs told ravers to “Put your sanitised hands up”, and headliner Kill the Noise’s samples shouted, “Stay inside your fucking house.” Rotella explains, “The last thing we wanted is people thinking we’re throwing a party because we’re not taking this seriously. The dance community we’ve built is about being your best self and doing the right thing. There are enough negative distractions out there; we push for positivity.” Following the success of the first Virtual Rave-AThon, Rotella has kept the online party going every week: “We’re setting up different genre events so everyone can choose what they want to attend.” It’s the oldest story in the book – that in the face of adversity, people innovate, create and adapt – but it took a moment when everyone was told to stay apart to bring millions of people together to party without borders. “It’s been unbelievable,” adds Rotella. “People within our community are more connected now than they were prior to this, and that’s beautiful. I’ve been getting a huge response asking for us to continue doing it. One. Hundred. Per cent. We’re definitely going to keep it going.” socal.beyondwonderland.com/livestream 67
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Skydiving team, AUT/GER. The four members are united by a love of freedom, liberty and having the wind in their hair. Inactivity isn’t second nature for them
57 Marco Waltenspiel
Red Bull Skydive Team
35, AUT
59
How to make time fly For a couple of minutes
For several hours
For days on end
“I clean the kitchen, then clean it again after my latest cooking experiment”
“I give my equipment a complete once-over, go hiking locally and seek out new BASE-jump locations”
“I’ve been testing out my PlayStation’s shelf life”
Felix Seifert
Max Manow
“I watch the bees, then notice what an abject state the plants are in and repot them”
“I try to come up with and work on new coaching strategies to help train young skydivers”
Marco Fürst
Marco Fürst
“I’ve found myself watching the washing machine just to make sure it’s plumbed in correctly”
“Meditation”
29, AUT
Felix Seifert 27, AUT
60 Max Manow 31, GER
Felix Seifert
“I’ve considered shaving my head and watching the hair grow back” Marco Waltenspiel
“Put together new project ideas and choreography” The whole team
redbullskydiveteam.com The team do a different kind of hanging around
WOLFGANG LIENBACHER, MICHAEL GROESSINGER/RED BULL CONTENT POOL
WERNER JESSNER
Marco Waltenspiel
Max Manow
Marco Fürst
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THE RED BULLETIN
Lights Featured: Toro Mk11 ¡ Race Mk14
#ownthenight
Image Credit: Javi Echevaria
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Rapper and songwriter, 27, USA. New Jersey’s Brittany Dickinson is known for her edgy flow and positive message
pineappleCITI
Triumph in tragedy [R&B singer] Kelly Rowland. I was more into rap, but I took it on as a challenge. I remember writing this song for her and singing it in the studio as she walked in. She was like, ‘This sounds great. You should sing more.’ Her saying that changed my perspective. I started working on my singing. On my new single, Recognize, you can hear the confidence that Kelly gave me. There’s always triumph through tragedy. What seemed like a temporary fix helped me with my own career.”
redbullrecords.com
THOMAS FALCONE/RED BULL RECORDS
FLORIAN OBKIRCHER
“In 2016, I gave up my teaching job to pursue music full-time. I released my first album, my single went viral, everything was going crazy. Then my car crashed into a tree. When I woke up in hospital, I knew instantly that my life was changed: I wasn’t able to walk [for two years], which meant I couldn’t perform my music. I was devastated. When my label suggested I wrote songs for other artists, I thought of it as a step down. But I realised that it was an opportunity to channel my talent during a time when my career was on hold. One of my first songwriting jobs was for
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Rally raid biker, 33, AUT. The 2018 Dakar Rally winner has a motto: “Don’t play the hero. Try to be one.” For him, planning and attention to detail are key
Matthias Walkner
The Zen of small things “Hurtling over dunes at full speed may look dangerous, but we train for it. What’s far deadlier is sloppy thinking, like not following the roadbook instructions, or getting lost, or failing to wash your hands, or showering in the bivouac with your mouth open (and swallowing contaminated water). That will throw you and your body off-course. It’s the small, unremarkable things that can either screw the whole thing up or help you succeed.”
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Climber, 34, AUT. A successful competitive climber before her retirement in 2013, Eiter was the first woman to conquer a 9b route (in 2017)
PHILIPP CARL RIEDL/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, KFOTO-KOCO MONCADA/KTM, BERNHARD HÖRTNAGL/ASP/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, LUKA FONDA/RED BULL CONTENT POOL WERNER JESSNER, SIMON SCHREYER
Angy Eiter
When your body sends you signals... “Food science wasn’t really part of my training at the start of my career. The wisdom at that time was: the lighter you are, the better you’ll climb. I wanted success, so I kept eating less and less. I halved my intake, and it got to the stage where I was hardly eating at all. I had slipped into anorexia. “When my trainer realised what was going on, he snapped and forbade me from any more climbing until I was eating normally again. I couldn’t understand his reaction – I had always had these skinny models paraded
Angy Eiter in Kiparissi, Greece, in 2015. The climber christened this route ‘Gloom of Triumph’ THE RED BULLETIN
in front of me, and now I had to feed myself up. “I unravelled that knot when I realised that starving myself hadn’t made me a better climber. I was failing to build up the muscle mass that was required to perform complex climbing moves; I was no longer mentally resilient and couldn’t concentrate that well. “When I put a bit of weight back on and noticed I’d got stronger, my sense of selfworth improved, too. I was lucky my entourage reacted so early to my losing weight. “My message is: pay attention. Listen to the signals your body is sending – it’s trying to get through to you. If it rings, pick up.” 71
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Beekeeper and inventor, 40, AUS. Anderson lives near Byron Bay in New South Wales, where he still makes prototypes in his garden
Cedar Anderson
Plan bee
FLOW
RACHAEL SIGEE
How one Australian inventor’s backyard creation has revolutionised modern apiculture
“One of the most dangerous things to our world is believing that somebody else is going to fix it,” says Cedar Anderson. The Australian has been fixing his own problems since, aged eight, he built a go-kart to drive to school. Today, he drives a car he adapted to run on used vegetable oil, or he flies to work using a self-built electric paramotor. But, most notably, this belief is what led him to invent a revolutionary beehive. “As a kid, I didn’t have TV, so we’d go into the workshop and make stuff,” says Anderson, who was raised in a New South Wales community built around nature and sustainability. “We were pretty poor, so we had to be inventive. We were encouraged to just have a go. So when I found harvesting honey was an incredible amount of hot, heavy, messy work, and that you can’t help but squash a bunch of bees in the process, I thought there had to be a better way.” After 10 years of working on the problem with his beekeeper father Stuart, he found a solution: the Flow Hive. The honeycomb cells in each frame split vertically instead of horizontally, so honey can be extracted by turning a tap, causing the bees zero stress. “It was wild,” says Anderson. “One day we’re inventing and living in a shed; the next, we’ve launched a crowdfunder that hit $1million-worth of orders in two hours!” Today, there are more than 75,000 Flow Hives being used in 130 countries, and the invention has attracted tens of thousands of new beekeepers to the trade. “Agriculture and honeybees go hand in hand,” says Anderson. “A single hive can pollinate 50 million flowers a day. No other species can achieve that. For us, it’s this sense of being able to have a positive impact on the world.” Despite his success, Anderson remains a true backyard inventor. “I think many of us have great ideas,” he says, “but only a few of us really act on them. One essential trait is stubborn persistence, and that’s something I carry. I don’t give up easily.”
Above: the Flow Hive is laser-cut from sustainable woods including western red cedar and araucaria (bees not included). Right: honey man Cedar Anderson
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Sailing crew, AUT/AUS/SWE. This team of multiple Olympic medallists and European and world champions sail an ultraquick foil catamaran in the GC32 Racing Tour
Red Bull Sailing Team
65 Roman Hagara
Skipper, 54, AUT
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Five ports in a storm when the chips are down. Of course there needs to be a team leader – the port in a storm – but if it weren’t for the crew, he’d be fighting a losing battle. Especially when, like us, you’re sailing through the ocean at 75kph with no brakes.” redbullextremesailing.com
Trimmer, 29, AUS
Hans-Peter Steinacher
Tactician, 51, AUT
68 Mark Spaermann
Trimmer, 25, AUS
69 Julius Hallström
Bowman, 23, SWE
SAMO VIDIC/RED BULL CONTENT POOL
ALEXANDER MACHECK
“Together we stand!” skipper Roman Hagara says. “My whole career has been success as part of a team. True solidarity is what counts in good times and bad. I’ve learnt the most from setbacks and races I’ve lost. That’s the only reason we’ve ever ended up winning. My motto is: never give up – and don’t be there for each other only when things are going well. People need to be able to rely on each other, especially
Rhys Mara
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The Red Bull Sailing Team: (from left) Mark Spaermann, Roman Hagara, Rhys Mara, Hans-Peter Steinacher and Julius Hallström
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Skateboarder, 31, GER. Scholz is famous for his amazing videos. But before he could show the world his talents, he had to deal with the fallout of a misdiagnosis
Flying high: street skater Vladik Scholz has made a name for himself with his elegant style
“I decided to see the positive in small things. And everything suddenly got going again” When living on the breadline and not off kickflips, Scholz’s biggest trick was learning to think differently 74
“I tore a ligament in my left foot when I was 23. Normally that takes a couple of months to heal, but the doctor missed some cartilage damage, the joint became inflamed, and I was out injured for who knew how long. My then sponsor backed out and I was living off €300 a month. But I found your body’s driving force kicks in most when you’re at rock bottom. Within a few weeks, something was stirring inside me against all the frustration, and I decided to see the positive in small things. Going up and down stairs on crutches? A good workout. I enrolled at university. I read books. One year and three operations later, I started afresh. The last video material I had helped me secure new sponsors, and all of a sudden I was back on the road, shooting videos. Everything got going again.” THE RED BULLETIN
LORENZ HOLDER/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, JONATHAN MEHRING/RED BULL CONTENT POOL
MARC DECKERT
Vladik Scholz
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Footballer, 21, GBR. The Liverpool and England ace is considered to be one of the best right-backs in the world
Trent Alexander-Arnold
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Ryan Pessoa
V
Match commentary TOM GUISE
With the Premier League temporarily frozen and the FIFA Esports season cancelled, two stars of the respective footballing worlds logged on for a game of Friday night FIFA
GREG COLEMAN/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, MARK ROE/RED BULL CONTENT POOL
We mere mortals may not be able to jog out onto the hallowed turf at Anfield, but we can all play as Liverpool’s number 66 – Trent Alexander-Arnold – in FIFA, a video game that meticulously maps the skills of real-life football stars. But does Trent think the game does him justice? Ryan Pessoa found out as he interrogated the Champions League-winning right-back during their live match-up on Twitch. The final tally? Two wins to Pessoa, and a draw. But how did Trent score on answers? ryan pessoa: Who is faster in real life – you or [Liverpool midfielder] Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain? trent alexander-arnold: I am. He got the injury that took a bit off his pace. Did FIFA do you dirty with your pace? Yeah, massively. That’s the one attribute [player stat that influences performance] I was gutted about. Maybe passing, too… THE RED BULLETIN
Esports athlete, 22, GBR. The 2018 FIFA world number one on Xbox is signed to Manchester City’s esports team
Who are you isolating with? It’s just me and my mum. I have two dogs and they’re keeping us sane. Same with me. It must be different for you, because you’re used to being out training and playing most days, but it’s my job to just sit here and play games… My life hasn’t changed too much, either. I’m always just chilling at home or trying to recover from games. Would you say that you’re good at playing FIFA? I spend a lot of my time in hotels – two or three nights per week – and play FIFA maybe five or six hours a week. I’m decent for an amateur. I’m quite good at defending, quite patient. You see, your skills do transfer from real life to the game… We had a FIFA tournament a few years ago at England, and [Eric] Dier won that one. He’s decent. What was going through your head when you took that quick corner (which led to the winning goal against Barcelona in the Champions League)? Er, take the corner quickly? Ha! No, I just spotted an opportunity. I saw they weren’t switched on. It was just in the moment – seeing an opportunity and taking it. twitch.tv/ryanpessoa_ 75
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Formula 1 driver, 22, NED. The Aston Martin Red Bull Racing driver is also an avid fan of sim racing and esports competitions
Max Verstappen 13:00 UTC, Friday, March 13
The race is announced
Going off grid
How Max Verstappen turned the cancelled Australian GP into the most watched live esports race in history
Words TOM GUISE
Verstappen started the year intent on racing, but when the first Grand Prix of the 2020 F1 season – due to take place in Melbourne – was cancelled a day before qualifying, the odds looked slim. On the other side of the planet, in an office near Silverstone, Darren Cox weighed up those odds. An esports race organiser, he relished a challenge, having previously turned ordinary gamers into real-world race drivers with PlayStation’s GT Academy. His plan? To create a high-profile esports race within a three-day window. And there are few profiles higher than Verstappen’s. “I’ve always had a simulator at home, but when I got into F1 I didn’t do any,” says the Aston Martin Red Bull Racing driver. “But a year ago I started up again.” This was the race he was looking for. Here’s how those 72 hours unfolded…
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dc: We needed at least 10 drivers. We already had António Félix da Costa, who’s leading the Formula E championship, and Rudy van Buren [winner of World’s Fastest Gamer in 2017]. He committed early and asked, “Have we got space for Max?” mv: A friend asked me if I could do that race. It was all last-minute. dc: There wasn’t a tense negotiation with his management. He offered himself up. It was all about whether he could get home from Australia in time. mv: I had to get a flight back home to Monaco. I didn’t know if I’d make it.
14:50 UTC, Saturday, March 14
Verstappen is confirmed 11:30 UTC, Thursday, March 12
The idea darren cox: I woke up, read the news and thought, “We’re not having a race on Sunday.” max verstappen: McLaren had pulled out – not a good sign of continuing the weekend. In the afternoon, all the teams made their decision to not race. dc: I got on a call with my team and formulated a plan. We didn’t have any commentators, studio or drivers signed up. We didn’t know what cars or tracks to use, but in 72 hours we intended to go live. mv: I started planning my free time. Between [the dates on] my F1 calendar, I have simulator duties at Red Bull, but back home I drive my own simulator. It’s not as advanced as Red Bull’s, but it’s good enough for racing games. I use a custom F1-style Playseat, adjusted for less flex in the frame; a Bodnar SimSteering motor; a Precision Sim Engineering wheel; Heusinkveld and Simtech pedals; and four monitors – three for driving, one for fuel calculations and team comms.
dc: There are debates about which is the best sim-racing software: iRacing or rFactor. We chose rFactor. Five years ago, F1 teams used a version as their factory sim tool. It’s a very advanced model that can be adapted as if it’s the real world. mv: I do more iRacing, and switching is not ideal if you want to be competitive. It takes time to adjust. I’d have liked more prep. dc: We looked at what people like to watch and went for 15-minute heats [the rallycross approach – if one is boring, go watch another] with a 20-minute final. mv: They wanted more realworld drivers than sim drivers to draw the viewers. I’d raced some of them back in F3, go-karting or F1 – quite a few big names. dc: We had drivers in the UK, Europe, America, and some had never used rFactor. You don’t just plug it in and go; seven guys ran a help desk to show them how to use it. One did 48 hours straight. mv: The top eight [from each of the three heats] got into the final. The sim-driver field was tough, so they were put in their own heats. dc: We knew if we put the sim and physical racers in the same heats, the physical guys wouldn’t qualify. THE RED BULLETIN
dc: The collision damage was dialled down to 50 per cent. We didn’t want everyone coming into the pits after one lap, but we also didn’t want everyone trying to bash into each other at the first corner.
13:03 UTC, Sunday, March 15
The race begins dc: About 72 hours after we hatched the plan, the lights went green. mv: I won my heat, mainly against other real-world drivers. But the real competition was in another group. [Verstappen started the final in 9th place, out of 24.] dc: Ten minutes in, we had 52,000 viewers – the most watched stream on any platform at that time. One headline said more people watched our show than actual F1 races on Sky Sports. Overall, more than 500,000 people watched the event.
14:47 UTC, Sunday, March 15
The final
Verstappen in his home sim rig. “It’s definitely a good time for gaming. People are watching”
VERSTAPPEN.NL, RED BULL RACING/GETTY IMAGES
11:00 UTC, Sunday, March 15
Max gets home two hours before the race begins dc: The track was the Nurburgring. The car was based on a 2012 F1 model – some of the physical drivers found it difficult, because it was edgy. mv: It’s the first time I drove it. Even if you’re good in real life, you don’t just jump in the simulator and be automatically quick. The sim guys had more knowledge of how to drive it. THE RED BULLETIN
“I won my heat, but competition in the sim-driver field was tougher” Max Verstappen
mv: I got taken out at turn one, putting me last. My race was basically over, but I didn’t quit. I just tried to overtake as many people as I could. [He ended in 11th; Van Buren was third.] dc: Against other physical drivers, in a simulator or a game, Max is probably the best. But he’s not on the sim 12 hours a day. All Rudy does is go fast on rFactor. If Max put his mind to it, within a couple of weeks he’d be up the front. mv: I like sim racing, but I love real racing more. Maybe at one point I’ll combine them in my schedule, but I’ll never swap it. dc: In just 72 hours, we had guys in Holland running the game, in London running the broadcast, off laptops and servers in people’s spare bedrooms, and 46 drivers around the world trying to log on. If you’d told me three days earlier that a racing game would be in the top 20 most viewed on YouTube or Twitch at any one moment, I’d have told you to go shut the front door. 77
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Skateboarder, 30, USA. The X Games winner started a foundation to help children and injured athletes
The skateboarder has adapted to self-isolation with home workouts and by skating on his furniture – including his coffee table
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“My training programme has changed weekly, as the [authorities’] recommendations have. First, I was in the gym, training by myself and wiping down all the equipment. Then I moved to more training at my house or at the skatepark, and surfing. Now, they’re putting up chain-linked fences to block all access to the beaches, so it looks like I’ll be focusing the majority of my time at home. “When this all started, I definitely hit up a lot of the local spots we were barred from skating normally. I hit a few of the places on my bucket list, for sure. You can’t blame me, really – the parking lots and buildings were empty. Now I’m lying low and social distancing. I have a lot of respect for the people who are out there on the front line, battling this virus.
“It’s been a lot of fun creating skate spots at my house with my furniture. I skated on my coffee table recently. There was a push-up challenge and a kickflip challenge going on Instagram, so I just upped the fun by skating on the furniture in my house. Totally spontaneous, for sure. The coffee table actually looks great, all things considered. I see a lot more of that in future. “After last year’s 10th Anniversary Skate for a Cause tour [a special nationwide version of the annual charity event hosted by the Sheckler Foundation and featuring a host of skate pros] I was looking forward to expanding our reach. I have a lot of ideas, and now, with this pandemic, there will be so many more areas where we can help.” THE RED BULLETIN
SABAS ROMERO/RED BULL CONTENT POOL(2), COURTESY OF RYAN SHECKLER
Coffee break
JEN SEE
Ryan Sheckler
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Singer, 27, GBR. Discovered after posting songs to MySpace in 2008, the Cambridge-born star has written, sung and produced worldwide hits
Charli XCX
“I’M MAKING IT USING ONLY THE TOOLS I HAVE AT MY FINGERTIPS, INDICATIVE OF THE TIMES WE’RE IN. WE CAN MAKE A SICK ALBUM” Charli XCX announces to 1,000 fans – via Zoom on April 6 – that she has postponed her album to create a new one “from scratch, [using] things in my house, people I can reach online”, with fan input on everything from lyrics and beats to album art. “I want to open the entire process to all of you.” How I’m Feeling Now debuts on May 15; twitter.com/charli_xcx
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Snowboarder, 22, GBR. In 2018, Ormerod broke her right heel bone in two during training. After 18 months of tough recovery, she’s back winning medals
Katie Ormerod
In March this year, Ormerod was crowned World Cup slopestyle champion – the first British snowboarder to win the title
“The dark times made me a better athlete”
MARCUS COOPER/WARNER MUSIC, SYO VAN VLIET
TOM GUISE, RUTH MORGAN
“Recovering from that injury was the toughest time I’ve ever faced. [Ormerod was injured when she came off a rail too early, just three days before she was due to compete in the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang.] I remember it like it was yesterday. I couldn’t move from my sofa for three months. I wasn’t sure I’d ever snowboard again. I couldn’t walk, I was in constant pain, and I needed seven operations. “There were such dark days. I just kept reminding myself that it’s OK to feel down sometimes, that I’m human, and that I was going through something I’d never faced before. Even when it all felt impossible, I had to tell THE RED BULLETIN
myself that I would get back on my snowboard. I wouldn’t have believed it back then, but going through that dark time has made me a better athlete today. “My whole mindset changed. Before my injury, I was very resultsfocused; now I just feel thankful to be able to get on a board, to be up in the mountains. Now I know that if I do the best run I can, the results will come. “That mindset is what helped me win the overall World Cup title this year, which was just the best feeling ever. This was by far the best season of my whole career. Knowing what I went through to get here makes it even more special.” 79
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Yachtsman, 40, AUS. Spithill dreamt of an America’s Cup win from the age of four. Aged 30, he became the youngest skipper to take the trophy
Jimmy Spithill
Victory is everything to the two-time America’s Cup winner. But to get there he’s learnt how to embrace failure, too
“Sport is rewarding and fulfilling in so many ways,” says yachtsman Jimmy Spithill. “One of the best things it can teach you is to get back up again after a tough set-back. The America’s Cup has been the most brutal yet honest platform for me. There’s no second place – the podium isn’t celebrated. Anything short of victory is failure. “That pressure pushes engineering, design and construction to the limit, to breaking point. The fact is, if you don’t have a few set-backs along the way it’s likely you’re not pushing the envelope. 80
THE RED BULLETIN
BRETT HEMMINGS/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, LUNA ROSSA/CARLO BORLENGHI
“Champion teams are able to respond to tough times”
“In this intense environment, you don’t get to really know someone when you’re winning; you learn what they’re made of in tough times. You see who’s able to be honest and learn from it and, more importantly, to grow stronger. That’s where leaders are made: they use it as an education and an opportunity to make themselves better people and teammates. “I’ve seen it in every campaign I’ve done, most famously during the San Francisco round of the America’s Cup [in 2013, when Spithill’s Oracle Team USA staged an incredible comeback, winning eight consecutive races to go from 8-1 down to a 9-8 series win]. I’ve seen it during this current America’s Cup campaign, when structural failures meant [his new team] Luna Rossa dropping the mast and ripping the front of the boat off. In both cases, our mistakes didn’t make us weaker or cost us the trophy; it brought us together, forced us to learn. It made us stronger as a team. Champions and champion teams are able to respond to tough times. “Right now, the entire planet has a real fight on its hands. If we look at lessons learnt from sport, we can use this as an opportunity to be candid, honest, and come back stronger and smarter for the future.” lunarossachallenge.com
RUTH MORGAN
Spithill’s Luna Rossa team loses the mast of its AC75 foiling monohull in choppy waters during America’s Cup training off the coast of Marina di Capitana, Sardinia. Thankfully, there was no major damage to the mast and no injury to the crew
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Kayaker, 24, GER. The Heidelberg native is used to taming wild waters. But the toughest test he’s ever faced was being robbed in 2018
Adrian Mattern
PANTHERMEDIA, DANE JACKSON/REDBULL US ATHLETE , ENNO KAPITZA, GETTY IMAGES (2) MARC BAUMANN, NICLAS SEYDACK
When I lost all my kit except this cable… “I was in Chile on a kayaking adventure when thieves cleaned out my car: cameras, laptop, phone... everything was gone except for my charging cable. As a professional sportsman, I live off my videos. But without any of my equipment, I couldn’t produce any. It was a disaster. But then I said to myself, ‘Look what you’ve already achieved – you’ve made it out of Heidelberg and become a professional kayaker.’ This positive look back gave me courage. I’d worked on building sites and as a bouncer before, so I did that again until I could afford new stuff. Within a few months, I was back out on the water.”
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Skier, 26, GER. After his amazing 2018 World Cup win at the Hahnenkamm Downhill, Dreßen suffered a bad fall. Help came from unexpected allies
Thomas Dreßen
“MY RIVALS’ WORDS GAVE ME THE STRENGTH I NEEDED FOR MY COMEBACK”
Dreßen had to miss a season after crashing out at Beaver Creek in the US. “Lots of my rivals wrote to me while I was still in hospital,” he says. “Reading about how they had dealt with similar situations gave me strength.” The following season, he finished second in downhill at the World Cup
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Singer, 41, SUI. The soul man, aka Jan Dettwyler, won the Artist Award at the 2017 Swiss Music Awards. His latest album is titled Brandneu
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Drummer, 36, SUI. Born in Egnach, Switzerland, Buonanno began playing drums at 13. He studied in LA and now performs all over the world
Seven
Massimo Buonanno
Guitarist, 44, SUI. Jakob also performs with fellow Swiss artists Müslüm and Tequila Boys, and has his own band 2FORSOUL
Singer and keyboard player, 51, USA. The Californian (stage name: Rad) toured the world with Prince in 2003-4 as part of his band New Power Generation
Raphael Jakob
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Rose Ann Dimalanta
The Swiss R&B singer uses his big soul voice to spread feel-good vibes at a time of great need When Seven sings his composition Immer Noch (English translation: Still), he may have his beloved in mind, but the song – sparingly orchestrated, yet heavy in atmosphere – spreads a fine, feel-good vibe; something much-needed in these strange times. There’s not much the Swiss star needs for his quarantine sessions, just his great soul voice and three solid companions: Raphael Jakob (guitar), Massimo Buonanno (minimal percussion) and Rose Ann Dimalanta (keyboards). So, how did they come up with the idea of sessions you can follow on Facebook? “The world has been turned on its head,” Seven says. “Everyone has got problems to deal with and needs to cope with the situation. At times like 82
these, it’s not just about helping oneself, but about taking a look around you to see who needs urgent support. That’s why, as an artist who can’t perform concerts at the moment, I don’t want to provide any space to negativity. I just want to think of my job in a different way; as [19th-century German] composer Robert Schumann put it, ‘To send light into the darkness of men’s hearts – such is the duty of the artist.’” Or, to be even more specific: “I make music at home and try to send out positive thoughts and vibes.” Anyone looking for an extra helping of that would be well advised to listen to Seven’s version of the Bob Marley classic Three Little Birds. He sings it with such optimism that it’s hard to keep your feet still. As the song says, “Don’t worry about a thing, ’cause every little thing gonna be all right.” sevenmusic.ch Facebook: @sevensoul
THE RED BULLETIN
DIETRICH KAPULY
Soulful healing
WOLFGANG WIESER
Scenes from a home session with Seven (top left) and his band
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Mountaineer and filmmaker, 46, USA. The co-director of the Oscarwinning documentary Free Solo has climbed (and skied) Everest
Jimmy Chin
Peak isolation
Pro climber and adventure documentary maker Chin knows plenty about riding out a storm
“There’s so much trust required on high-stakes mountaineering expeditions, so choosing the right people is critical. Generally, I choose people who can not only stay calm in tough situations but step up and thrive in them.”
Pass the time together
“What better time than when you are locked down to play cards, tell jokes and have deep discussions? We’ll talk about books we’re reading [recent favourites: Jon Krakauer’s Missoula and Sebastian Junger’s Tribe], personal dreams and day-to-day logistics. If there’s nothing to talk about, you just stop talking. You get over that quickly.”
Move when you’re stuck
“When you’re confined for a long time, you have to move your body, otherwise you’ll stiffen up. There are many exercises you can do in a tent. I do push-ups, sit-ups, planks, Supermans, and lots of stretches.”
Keep calm and carry some snow
“Staying positive in a situation you can’t control is a mental game: you don’t want to let fear or anxiety take over, so you have to assess your situation, think about potential outcomes, game these out and remain productive. Proactively taking care of others is also strangely calming. No one wants to go out and get the snow to melt for water. But if you get up, put on all your shit, go out into the storm, then come back and make everyone hot drinks, you wind up feeling useful and good.”
Remember the long game
“Something we talk about is how storms pass. It’s how you weather them that counts. I’ve been travelling pretty much non-stop for the past few years. So having this moment to slow down, spend time with my family, and get outside in a place I love… I’m grateful.”
CHRIS FIGENSHAU, MIKEY SHAEFER
TRACY ROSS
In his capacity as a North Face athlete, a film director and a photographer, Jimmy Chin has helped lead teams to big things. But he’s also accustomed to isolation. After all, the route up 8,000m peaks often involves days on end with a few people in the confines of a tent. When The Red Bulletin spoke to Chin in April, he was holed up with his film partner and wife Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and their two kids at their home in Wyoming. Here, in his own words, Chin shares his thoughts on social distancing in small spaces…
Surround yourself with good people
Chin has organised and led mountaineering and climbing expeditions in China, Nepal, Argentina, Greenland, Pakistan, Borneo and Tanzania, among other countries of the world THE RED BULLETIN
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Hang-gliding athlete, 48, GER. The five-time hang-gliding world champion says that a bird’s-eye view helps her in a ground-level crisis
Corinna Schwiegershausen
A different point of view
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SAMO VIDIC/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, GETTY IMAGES
MARC BAUMANN
“If I get into danger while hanggliding, I keep emotion out of the picture as much as possible. What helps me is processing the facts, making a plan and putting it into effect. I’ve come through a lot of crises. I got thrown by a camel in Jordan and broke a hip. Getting injured in the desert teaches you how to ask for help – first from a female tourist who happened to be a medic, and later from my team doctors. I have flying to thank for the most beautiful moments in my life, but also the worst. My fiancé crashed and died shortly before I planned to move to Australia to live with him. I learnt that life has a plan B for you, and you can be happy with that. I feel like a little fly when I’m high up in the sky. The quiet in the air, just living in the here and now... many people have forgotten how to do that.”
THE RED BULLETIN
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Ski cross athlete, 27, SUI. What does the professional freeskier do when forced to take time off at home? She preps skis for her friends, of course
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Fanny Smith
Climber, 34, USA. In 2017, Honnold became the first human to climb El Capitan – a 914m-high granite wall in Yosemite National Park – without a rope
Alex Honnold
“THE CRUCIAL QUESTION IS NOT HOW TO CLIMB WITHOUT FEAR, BUT HOW TO DEAL WITH IT WHEN IT CREEPS INTO YOUR NERVE ENDINGS” Honnold’s strategy to overcome fear consists of methodically breaking down a problem into fractions, then working on each part diligently until he feels safe
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Danitsa
RAINER HOSCH, STELLA KNUCHEL QUOTATION FROM THE MOVIE FREE SOLO
WOLFGANG WIESER, SIMON SCHREYER
Fanny Smith enjoys working on skis, sharpening the edges and waxing the running surfaces
Premium service Fanny Smith is in her garage, and she’s in a good mood. She’s prepping skis, one pair after another. First she does her family’s skis, then those of her friends. She’s already done more than 20 pairs. If the weather is good, Smith works outdoors. If it’s bad, she does it in the garage. Once she’s done, she puts the skis outside the door to be collected. The freestyle skier, who won overall gold at last year’s World Cup and silver this year, is using the break to keep her hand in as much as possible (and her champion-level service is free, of course). There’s an added glimmer of hope – the wax Smith uses to protect skis during the off-season can be stripped off whole, to get skiers on the slopes quickly when the next season begins. “It’s a sign I’m betting on everything being totally back to normal by then.” fanny-smith.com
THE RED BULLETIN
Singer, 25, FRA. The soul star is spreading positive vibes by releasing a new song and iPhone video every Friday on Instagram: @danitsa_m
W E E K LY P L A N N E R Saturday
Song selection Sunday
Working with a producer on the Remix or original composition
Monday
Rehear sal + moodboar d for the music video with my art director s
Tuesday
Recor ding in my brother’s home studio + mixing
Wednesday
Shooting the mini music video on the Iphone with my sister
Thursday
Editing Friday
Release of the mini music video 85
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Singer, 26, ESP. Rosalía’s mix of flamenco and urban sounds has won widespread acclaim, and her willpower has inspired her many fans
Rosalía
Instagram: @rosalia.vt
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THE RED BULLETIN
SONY, ROGER KISBY/REDUX/LAIF
The Red Bulletin editor Marco Payan remembers his interview with the then up-and-coming singer in early 2019: “By the time I left, I was changed. Her answers had a more significant impact on me than her six Grammys. She’s stuck to her rules all along: hard work, intuition, vision. She had such clarity on what she wanted to achieve. Rosalía backed up what she told me with her determination and actions, even after she became internationally famous. ‘There’s no plan B,’ she told me. ‘I gave my life to music. I’m not playing around – I’ve been serious since the beginning.’” Weeks later, she was on her way to becoming a star.
MARCO PAYAN
Meeting a future star
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Former professional rugby player, 31, GBR. Paralysed from the neck down by a diving accident in 2017, Jackson amazed doctors as he battled to regain significant mobility
Ed Jackson
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Resilience trainer, 47, GER. Wallert was kidnapped by terrorists while on a diving holiday in Malaysia in 2000. He now uses the experience in his work
Marc Wallert
The power of positivity Since becoming quadriplegic in 2017, Jackson has kept a daily diary chronicling the highs and the lows of his incredible journey. From a starting point of almost total paralysis, intense focus and tireless work has meant he’s now not only able to walk, he has climbed mountains including Snowdon and Mera Peak in aid of his charity, M2M. This is from day 289 of his diary…
MATT KELLY, STEPHANIE WOLFF, PRIVATARCHIV MARC WALLERT
RUTH MORGAN, PETER PRASCHL
“It didn’t take me long to realise humour is a great way to lighten even the darkest times. It’s hard to explain, but most rugby players will understand when I say that there’s something incredibly comforting about getting abused by your mates. It’s one of those strange things that you get so
accustomed to, you actually miss it when it’s gone. “It didn’t take long for the piss-taking to start. The first present I was brought in hospital by one of my mates – who knew full well I couldn’t move from the neck down – was some juggling balls. He dropped them on my chest and said, ‘Here you go, pal. I thought seeing as you’re gonna be in here a while, you might as well learn a new skill.’ Some may call that insensitive; I thought it was hilarious. In fact, it was the best I’d felt since the accident. It was a bit of normality. “From that day, I realised the importance of being able to laugh through all the crap – a skill I carry forward to this day. And I’ve still got the juggling balls: they helped improve my grip strength, so I had the last laugh.”
Jungle camp: Wallert was kidnapped 20 years ago
“How I survived 140 days in captivity” Marc Wallert lived through more than four months of being held captive by terrorists alongside his parents and other tourists. Here, he explains how he coped with such an extreme situation…
I did stuff
I embraced the challenge
I helped others
“My first thought after we were kidnapped was that we’d still be free if we hadn’t decided not to go on the night dive. It was a human but pointless way of thinking. You can’t turn back time, but you can make the most of a situation. You need energy for that and shouldn’t waste it.”
I kept a happy ending in my mind
September 2018: Jackson climbs Mont Buet, near the French/Swiss border, to raise money for Restart Rugby, a charity for injured players THE RED BULLETIN
“When times were hard, I imagined a positive outcome and thought of myself sitting in a café back home, drinking a cappuccino. That gave me emotional strength.”
“Where you’re forced to sit around waiting, there’s nothing more useful than doing stuff. We built rain shelters in the jungle or wrote down what was happening to us.”
“Swapping ideas, consoling others or just having fun will make any situation more bearable. I looked after my mother, who was sick. That gave me the motivation to carry on. People needed me, after all.”
I saw opportunities “Every crisis also gives you the opportunity to recalibrate your life. I asked myself, ‘Who am I? What do I still want to do with my life? What can I do without?’ It taught me to value my life more.” Marc Wallert’s book, Stark durch Krisen [Tough in a Crisis], is out now
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Breakdancer, 39, FRA. Junior Bosila Banya could barely run as a child. Today, the French-Congolese is one of the world’s best breakdancers
The breakdancer didn’t have it easy in his youth. But his philosophy helped him turn his disability into a superpower “I contracted polio when I was three years old. The difference between me and the other kids became evident when I realised that I couldn’t run as fast as them. But I’ve never given in. I focused on sports like table tennis and boxing, and when I played football I was the goalkeeper. Whenever people would make me feel I couldn’t do something, I worked extra hard to prove them wrong. I have always tried to turn my disability into an advantage. 88
“The best example is dancing. When I was little, I would dance along to Michael Jackson videos. To compensate for moves I couldn’t do, I came up with my own mix of gymnastics and martial arts – moves I could do on my hands. When I was 12, I saw some street dancers on TV, and, to my surprise, their moves were quite similar to mine. I realised that I’d been breakdancing before I even knew what it was. From then on, I trained really hard. I had found my thing. Soon, kids stopped seeing me as the little guy who was disabled – I became the guy with the crazy moves. Sure enough, two breakdance teachers discovered my talent and took me under their wings. “What has always helped me through difficult times is my way of thinking. I try to think about what I have and what I want, instead of what I don’t have and what I miss.”
Instagram: @bboyjuniorofficiel
THE RED BULLETIN
TYRONE BRADLEY/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, LITTLE SHAO/RED BULL CONTENT POOL
“I learnt how to play to my strengths”
FLORIAN OBKIRCHER
B-Boy Junior
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Climber, 27, USA. DiGiulian is a world and three-time national rock-climbing champion. Fun fact: the first climber emoji was based on her likeness
CARLO CRUZ/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, ALEX GRYMANIS/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, GETTY IMAGES (3), RYAN TAYLOR/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, NETFLIX NORA O’DONNELL
Sasha DiGiulian
“I WANT TO REMIND YOU ALL THAT MOTHER NATURE IS BEAUTIFUL. WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER. [NOW] IS A GOOD TIME FOR ALL OF US TO REFLECT ON HOW WE CAN MOVE FORWARD AS A SOCIETY AND BE MORE RESPONSIBLE TOWARDS OUR ENVIRONMENT. NOTHING IS A GIVEN, AND THAT IS CERTAINLY CLEAR NOW MORE THAN EVER”
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Ice-hockey player, 30, USA. Knight is a three-time Olympic medal-winner (silver in 2010 and 2014, gold in 2018) and eight-time world champion with Team USA
Hilary Knight
Power house How Olympic ice-hockey players used their binge-watching of Netflix’s Love is Blind to create a workout game Since its premiere earlier this year, the Netflix reality series Love is Blind has become an addictive guilty pleasure to binge-watch while the world is on hold. But, for Team USA ice-hockey players Hilary Knight and Hannah Brandt, it was an opportunity to create an at-home workout challenge while wearing their Myzone fitness trackers. Here’s their creative way to get off the sofa:
1. Choose an episode of Love is Blind
2. Body work: Whenever a cast member says, “I love you,” do 10 push-ups, sit-ups or V-ups
3. Cardio: For the rest of the show, jump on the spot, use a pretend skipping rope, or do air squats
THE RED BULLETIN
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Strongman, 32, USA. McCastle holds the world record for the number of chin-ups done in one day: 5,804. And he was wearing a 15kg rucksack at the time
Mike McCastle
My living-room workout
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Suitcase hammer curls
Back extension
What you need: Bedsheet, door frame How you do it: Tie a knot in the end of the sheet and wedge it in the door. Grip the sheet and hold it above your head. Stand on tiptoe with your heels against the door panel. Now bend both arms, bring them behind your head and then stretch them out again. Remember to keep your back straight. What it does: Works triceps, shoulder girdle and body tension Reps: Fifteen to 20, perform multiple sets
What you need: Towel, heavy suitcase (about 15-25kg) How you do it: Thread the towel through the suitcase handle, then grip the ends from below. Keeping a straight back, raise both arms to chest height, then let them drop all the way down. What it does: Strengthens shoulder girdle and arms, and shapes biceps Reps: Fifteen to 20, perform multiple sets. If you like, increase the weight between sets
What you need: Chair, cushion How you do it: Put the cushion on the backrest of the chair. Lean on the chair with your hips and put your feet against a wall. Fold your arms in front of your chest. Slowly bend forward until your upper body is at a 45° angle, then straighten again, tensing your buttocks. Don’t forget to keep breathing calmly. What it does: Strengthens lower back Reps: At least 15, perform two to three sets THE RED BULLETIN
CAMERON BAIRD, GETTY PREMIUM
“WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH, I THINK OF MYSELF TAKING ON SOMEONE ELSE’S HARDSHIP”
Triceps extension
WERNER JESSNER
Strongman Mike McCastle is working out at home now, too. With a few simple tricks, he has turned his lounge into a gym. One clever motivational trick: do each exercise for a specific person
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Games developer, 55, JPN. For Nintendo, Eguchi worked on Super Mario World, Star Fox and Wii Sports, but his most famous game is Animal Crossing
Katsuya Eguchi
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Diver and conservationist, 22, PYF. The French Polynesian founded Coral Gardeners – a project to restore and conserve coral reefs – four years ago
Titouan Bernicot
Company man almost 500km to work at Nintendo’s Kyoto office as a 21-year-old: “I’d left my family and friends behind. Being able to talk and play with them was important.” He devised gameplay that later, when he was a father, let his children know he’d visited while they slept: “The kids could play it after school, and I could play when I got home at night; be a part of what they were doing while I wasn’t around.” The game has struck a chord with celebrities, and the likes of Chrissy Teigen and Brie Larson have posted their Animal Crossing musings on social media. As British comedian Stephen Fry reflects, “Is it a metaphor for life itself? I hope not, for I may have pitched my tent ill-advisedly.”
animal-crossing.com
NINTENDO, BEN ONO
TOM GUISE, PATRICIA OUDIT
On March 27, panic shook the world: the Nintendo Switch was sold out. A week earlier, new Switch game Animal Crossing: New Horizons had been launched alongside a limited edition of the console featuring images of its characters. Now, you could only buy one on eBay, at twice its retail price. The game’s popularity, prompted by people seeking distraction while stuck at home, also connected on a deeper level. Your character lives on an island where they can pick fruit, fish, decorate their house, and – most vitally – go to other players’ islands, with time zones and seasons matching their location. It’s a tonic for those missing the company of friends and family they can no longer visit. Released in 2001, Eguchi’s original game was inspired by his experiences of moving
Animal Crossing: New Horizons on Nintendo Switch. It’s all about “family, friendship and community”, says Eguchi THE RED BULLETIN
Reef relief: Titouan Bernicot is saving the underwater world
The coral campaigner Today, 40 per cent of coral reefs are gone. But Titouan Bernicot fights on to regenerate and save the remaining 60 per cent. It’s essential. “Half of the earth’s oxygen comes from the oceans, and the coral reefs are the lungs,” he says. “We must protect the reefs if we want to continue breathing. The chief aim of my Coral Gardeners project is to educate the public about the importance of the coral reefs by spreading the word in schools and online campaigns. Our program is original: we’re asking people around the world to adopt a reef. I planted my first coral when I was 16 and saw it triple in volume and swarm with crabs – all in the space of just a few months! “If we do this at scale, our lagoons will be reborn. Bringing the coral reefs back to their former splendour might seem utopian – some think the reefs are finished – but I want to dream up ways of saving them. Some corals are incredibly tough and resilient – like the Red Sea reefs, which are highly resistant to extreme heat. “Deep-sea corals are another cause for optimism as scientists examine how they reproduce and produce larvae to reseed the shallow-water reefs that are more vulnerable to the effects of global warming. If we drastically reduce our carbon footprint in the future, there’s still hope.” coralgardeners.org 91
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Biohacker, 46, GER. Breitfeld knows how to hack your body to improve your health, fitness and performance
Andreas Breitfeld
Write a diary in the evening
“A crazily powerful tool. A way to get a head start digesting the experiences and emotions of the day. It helps your brain take better advantage of your deep sleep and REM phases for recovery.”
Turn off your Wi-Fi at night
“Sleep strengthens our immune system, makes us more resistant to stress, repairs cells, heals wounds, and transforms what we’ve learnt over the course of the day into knowledge. My sleep is sacred. The basics when it comes to improving your sleep are: a cool and pitch-black bedroom, and turning off the bloody Wi-Fi at night! Electric smog is a real stressor.”
No phone first thing in the morning
“The first half-hour of the day is analogue: no mobile phone, no computer, no news, just light, air and the cool of morning. I have a large glass of filtered water, look up at the sky and feel the elements. Give the crocodile in your head a lie-in and it’ll be more chilled the whole day.”
Cuddle
Difficult situations can take our brains back 500 million years, according to Germany’s top biohacker. But these simple everyday hacks keep him present “Stress triggers danger warnings in the oldest part – from an evolutionary point of view – of our brain: our 500-million-year-old reptilian brain. And it’s not called that for nothing: we’re neither smart nor creative in our reptilian brains. Up there, it’s all about bare survival: breathing, heartbeat, digestion, hunger, reproduction... and fear. “The reptilian brain isn’t all that smart, but in exceptional situations it becomes the boss. There’s nothing wrong with that in principle, but it’s important that we can also effectively immobilise the little crocodile in our head. That way we’ll think better, sleep more deeply, recover more quickly, and get to grips more easily with pathogens of whatever sort. Adopt a few hacks. It’s not rocket science.”
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Meditation and infrared light
“Nothing brings greater structure to my thoughts than daily meditation. I also take advantage of the time I’m meditating to shine infrared light on myself. I use professional devices – currently, I’m using devices available from theflexbeam.com – but even a simple infrared lamp will activate your cells and boost your energy levels.”
Water: filtered and enriched
“Drinking water – filtered, of course – is a must. You need 0.3 litres per 10kg of bodyweight. In the late morning, I also drink water enriched with molecular hydrogen – it helps the body to keep inflammatory processes in check. Aquacentrum of Munich is a reliable producer.”
Go outside
“Fresh air is always better than recycled air, and natural light is always better than the artificial version.”
Breathe through your nose
“Your mouth is there for talking, eating and kissing. But for breathing you have your nose. Breathing through your nose will change your life for the better.” breitfeld-biohacking.com THE RED BULLETIN
STEFAN WAGNER
How to outsmart stress
ANDREAS BREITFELD
Seeing red: Breitfeld irradiated with infrared light
“Another way to relieve stress in the mornings is to bathe in oxytocin. Oxytocin is the so-called ‘cuddle hormone’ and works as an antagonist to stress hormones. If you live with your family, start the day with some TLC. (It’ll work with a cat, too.) But if you don’t have family or a pet to hand, get an echobell [a handset that emits sounds and vibrations]. Those things work.”
HANS DAMPF EXPLORING NEW GROUNDS. Hans Dampf has everything to increase the fun when Enduro riding. Various widths, SuperGravity carcass, Apex versions and of course Addix compounds. For a great riding sensation with maximum puncture protection. schwalbe.com SPEEDGRIP
SOFT
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Guitarist, 52, GBR. With Radiohead, O’Brien has played in stadiums worldwide. But his place of inspiration is far from the crowds
Ed O’Brien
“Birds are like naturalborn opera singers”
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MARCEL ANDERS
“In 1998, I wasn’t happy with the way things were going with the band. We were touring [multi-platinum-selling third album] OK Computer and it was simply too much. I was exhausted, depressed, and I drank too much. I couldn’t cope with the sudden success and all the media exposure. “When I returned home, I found solitude in long walks in nature. It was the best way to get my head clear and to overcome that darkness. And listening to birds and watching them was part of it. My grandad loved bird-watching. One of my earliest memories is being on holiday in Cornwall and him having his binoculars and showing us birds. He marvelled in them. I didn’t really appreciate it that much when I was younger, but the older I get, the more I marvel in them, too. One of the things I love most is being amid nature, among the trees, with all the bird life. “It’s fantastic, the sounds they’re able to make, considering the size of their bodies. The vocal
range some of them have – they’re like naturalborn opera singers. And to hear them perform in that blue hour of the early morning when they’re competing with each other to find a mating partner… that’s really beautiful. It’s got such a happy, vital, uplifting vibe. It’s life-assuring to us as humans; it’s good for our psyche. It makes us realise that we’re alive and that there’s all that beauty right on our doorstep. They represent freedom and independence, big time. “Wales [where O’Brien wrote the music for his debut solo album, Earth, out now] is bird heaven. The bird population there is so varied it’s unbelievable. There are chaffinches, yellowhammers, goldcrests, kingfishers, swallows, and species you wouldn’t find anywhere else in the world. I particularly love the aquatic warblers. They’re extremely rare, but they’re wonderful creatures, and their singing is phenomenal. It’s a real thrill to watch them do their thing.” Listen to Birdsong Radio at rspb.org.uk
UNIVERSAL MUSIC, NATURE PHOTOGRAPHERS LTD/ALAMY
Whenever he’s feeling empty and exhausted, the Radiohead guitarist finds happiness in birdsong
THE RED BULLETIN
Right now we are all in need of some light relief. Endura’s latest mock-u-mercial mini-film celebrates the noble Baggy Short featuring a rack of recognizable faces in alter ego. The Scottish company honours the riding baggy and acknowledges its place as an essential stalwart of the rider’s wardrobe with this wacky crowd-pleaser. Endura was an original pioneer of baggy shorts in 90’s MTB and earned a reputation forged on no-nonsense durable kit for committed riders and pro’s alike. From the early collaboration with the hardcore bike courier scene in the 90’s that spawned the iconic Hummvee, the baggy short has been adopted by all tribes of riders from downhill to gravel, commute to adventure. A work horse piece of kit that can be loaded with cargo and relied on to protect and serve you in and out the saddle, Endura’s baggies have led a look for generations of off-roadies. Endura – The last word in riding baggy shorts.
#BuiltOnBaggies #RidingItOut #LightRelief
endurasport.com
Imprint
GLOBAL TEAM
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The Red Bulletin is published in six countries. This is the cover of our June/July US issue, featuring a specially commissioned illustration by Quebec-based artist Sébastien Thibault (see also page 98 of this issue) For more stories beyond the ordinary, go to: redbulletin.com
The Red Bulletin UK. ABC certified distribution 153,505 (Jan-Dec 2019)
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Illustrator, 39, CAN. The Quebec resident’s powerful work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic and Le Monde, and accompanies Bill McKibben’s article on page 32
Sébastien Thibault
CARMEN TREMBLAY
SÉBASTIEN THIBAULT
“Danger and disaster can bring out the best in us,” says artist Thibault. “There is the expression: when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. So, when a huge wave comes threatening us, make a superhero cape with it.” The next issue of THE RED BULLETIN is out on July 14
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