The Red Bulletin UK 06/21

UK EDITION JUNE 2021, £3.50

BEYOND THE ORDINARY

Rising star

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How high jumper MORGAN LAKE turned her toughest year into a personal best

THE FAST AND THE FILTHIEST INSIDE FLAT TRACK RACING’S HOOLIGAN CLASS GOLD RUSH TRACKING TWO OF THE QUICKEST SPRINTERS TO TOKYO

Pictured: B-Boy Sunni is putting the UK scene back on the map

Editor’s letter

In our interview with Falana (page 42), the Nigerian-Canadian musician imparts a piece of hard-earned wisdom: things never go the way you plan. It’s something she’s learned from a life that’s led her from Toronto to Lagos via Havana, but especially from this most recent difficult year. Crucially, however, she doesn’t say it negatively.

This issue is filled with tales of meticulous plans lain waste by an unpredictable 14 months. Our cover star, high jumper Morgan Lake (page 32), was expecting 2020 to be the year she made her greatest leaps. Turned out to be true, but not how she’d anticipated. Fledgling British motorcycle team Stockwell Racing were ready to enter the roughneck scene of Hooligan-class flat-track competition (page 48). What they actually needed was a year to meditate, modify their rides, and mend some bones.

And then there are US sprinters Cameron Burrell and Elijah Hall (page 60). The former, the son of two-time 100m worldrecord-setter Leroy Burrell, found himself courted by top universities; the latter had to take time out at junior college to improve his grades.

For many, that might have dulled their edge, but for Hall it was a vital moment to re-evaluate and return sharper than ever. So, plans don’t always work out. And maybe that’s no bad thing.

Enjoy the issue.

CONTRIBUTORS THIS ISSUE

NATTY KASAMBALA

The London-based music, arts and culture writer, and co-host of the Growing Up with Gal-dem podcast, talked to singer Falana this issue.

“I’m interested in championing underrepresented voices, as well as those within the Black diaspora, which made Falana a dream commission,” Kasambala says. “She didn‘t disappoint.” Page 42

MAURICE BOBB

“It just began as a filler for basketball,” says the Houston-based sports writer of the reason he took up running at school. But Bobb – who has written for Rolling Stone, Slam and Bleacher Report – was soon drawn to the drama of sprinting, so it’s fitting that he got to profile Cameron Burrell and Elijah Hall for The Red Bulletin ahead of this summer of sport. Page 60

RICK GUEST (COVER)

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK

Shutter speed: Pasadena-based photographer Brian Lowe shoots US sprint star Elijah Hall for our feature Page 60

04

THE RED BULLETIN

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CONTENTS June 2021

8 Gallery: highline heroics

above Yosemite Valley; MTB mischief in LA; paragliding prep in the Dubai desert; and a river of runners in Chamonix

15 Emo rapper 4kGoldn has just

the playlist to help you beat those first-date nerves

16 Synlimb: the prosthetic arm

that lets its DJ creator truly immerse himself in his music

19 Aptera EV: dodge the petrol

station with this streamlined, solar-charged beast

20 Color The Water: the Cali

collective promoting racial diversity on the surf scene 22 Fairphone: how a man who had

never owned a phone gave the world its first ethical alternative

24 A shnikko

The US trap-pop sensation talks semantics, sexual positivity and the power of self-love

26 E inar Selvik

There’s life in the Old Norse yet, says the folk musician and star of historical drama Vikings

2 8 Jack Downer

The 23-year-old who rebooted his sporting career with fancy footwork and a pinch of nutmeg

32 M organ Lake

How the high-jumping Brit used the disruption of 2020 to rethink her goals and find her focus

42 Falana

The Nigerian-Canadian musician on why learning to live one day at a time is the key to success

DAVID GOLDMAN

48 Flat track

‘Hooligan’ bike racing is raw and unforgiving – here’s how two rank outsiders made the grade

60 C ameron Burrell and Elijah Hall

The US sprint stars who hope to test their friendship in Tokyo

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71 Riding high in the mountains of

Lesotho with enduro ace Alfie Cox

76 A bike helmet for every head 78 Play games, save the world 79 Drone racing on a budget 80 Give your skipping a jumpstart

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Hooligan element: the stripped-down, bigengined road bikes of flat-track racing are no easy ride

81 100 triathlons, 100 days: meet

‘Iron Cowboy’ James Lawrence 82 The magician who conquered

lockdown with a sleight of hand 84 What to pack for your next

close-to-home adventure 94 Essential dates for your calendar 98 Sky-jinks: human vs raceplane 07

YOSEMITE VALLEY, USA

Balance of power

“Travel with no expectations and your camera by your side,” adventure sports photographer Tyler Roemer told the BBC in 2012. “You never know what you’re going to see.” It’s an ethos shared by Brian Mosbaugh, an athlete and stuntman from Utah whose nomadic lifestyle allows him to indulge his passions for BASEjumping, slacklining and climbing worldwide.

For this shoot in Yosemite Valley – the spiritual home of highlining – Mosbaugh had two feet on a line more than 600m above the ground; Roemer had one finger on the button. tylerroemer.com; Instagram: moabmonkey

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TYLER ROEMER

DAVYDD CHONG

LOS ANGELES, USA

Ramping it up What goes up must come down. But, in the meantime, let’s just admire the artistry of Russian MTB freerider Pavel Alekhin as he hangs, mid-stunt, above muddy LA terrain, as captured by photographer and countryman Denis Klero. Now for that landing… klero.ru; Instagram: vishneviy

DAVYDD CHONG DENIS KLERO/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, NAIM CHIDIAC/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

DUBAI, UAE

Doing a dry run For their project The Breaking Pointe in March this year, Spaniard Horatio Llorens and Brazilian Rafael Goberna paraglided between the jets of the Palm Fountain on Palm Jumeriah, Dubai. Of course, you don’t undertake a stunt involving the world’s largest fountain without doing your prep.

So, here we see the two pros – shot by Lebanese photographer Naim Chidiac – taking their special paramotors for a spin in the desert. That’s an area with no water.

To practice for a flight through a fountain.

Yeah, we don’t know either… redbull.com

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CHAMONIX, FRANCE

DAVYDD CHONG

Going with the flow

UTMB/CHRISTOPHE PALLOT

There are two possible explanations for this arresting image, shot by photographer Christophe Pallot in Chamonix during the 2019 Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc. The first is that the Frenchman opted for a slow shutter speed in order to transform the runners into this long, flowing, multicoloured river.

The second – less feasible, but much more exciting – is that Pallot somehow captured on camera the collective spirit of all those taking part in the epic 170km ultramarathon. Cosmic, man.

Instagram: @christophepallot

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24KGOLDN

My lyrical romance The rapper who hit big with his song Mood shares four tracks that get him in the right frame of mind on a first date Emo rap – a downbeat fusion of hip-hop beats, indie-rock melodies and emotional lyrics – has soared in popularity over the last decade, with proponents such as Lil Uzi Vert and the late XXXTentacion topping the US album charts. Its new MVP is 20-year-old Golden Landis Von Jones, aka 24kGoldn.

The Californian rapper, singer, songwriter and former child actor broke through in 2019 with the platinum-selling Valentino. But it was his 2020 track Mood that really put him on the map, peaking at number one in 17 territories.

Being about a toxic relationship, the song is probably not one to play on a first date, but here he offers four tracks that might help break the ice. 24kGoldn’s debut album El Dorado is out now on Columbia Records; 24kgoldn.com

Cam’ron featuring Juelz Santana

JORDAN WHITE/JAY

WILL LAVIN

Hey Ma (2002)

“Even though this song came out in the early 2000s, it’s still just as relevant and relatable now. It literally says everything you want to on a first date: ‘Hey ma, what up? Let’s slide.’

It essentially does the talking for you. I could just imagine me and a girl riding in the car to this, with the windows down, just bopping on the way to wherever we’re going on a first date.”

THE RED BULLETIN

MIA Paper Planes (2007)

“First dates should always be about enjoying a vibe. You don’t want to be listening to anything that’s going to kill that. Paper Planes is one of those songs that has a nice little bop to it that perfectly soundtracks riding to the beach together.

I first heard it in the film Slumdog Millionaire. It’s in this crazy train scene where they’re hitchhiking from one place in India to another.

Such an impactful moment.”

50 Cent featuring Nate Dogg 21 Questions (2003)

“Would you love me if I was down and out? Would you love me on a bus? Would you love me if I flipped burgers? These questions [all raised in the lyrics] are the type you should probably ask on a first date. It’s the ultimate test of love. I think nostalgia is one of the most powerful forces in the world, too.

If we can’t listen to throwback jams together, it’s not going to work out – the date is over.”

A$AP Rocky featuring Drake, 2 Chainz & Kendrick Lamar Fuckin’ Problems (2012)

“Sometimes you’ve just got to lay it all out there and share your truth on a first date. You’ve got to be brutally honest. It makes things easier in the end. So, like the lyrics say, ‘I love bad bitches, that’s my fuckin’ problem,’ but maybe we can solve it together.

The bars Kendrick drops on this are just crazy. I think this might be the most slept-on all-star-cast song there is.”

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After years of difficulty DJing with a prosthetic arm, this academic solved the problem – not by thinking outside the box, but inside it Bertolt Meyer is a professor in psychology at the Chemnitz University of Technology in Germany, He’s also a techno DJ – something he’s tinkered with for around 15 years, he says – and has played at a few festivals with his band, Polytron.

None of this has been easy as he’d like, however, as Meyer was born without his lower left arm. The 44-year-old wears a prosthesis called an i-LIMB, controlled by electric signals from his upper-arm muscles.

He can rotate the hand a full 360° and grab things, but it’s particularly tricky to operate the controls on his synthesiser.

“You need to tweak tiny knobs fast and with precision – 16

difficult with a prosthesis like this,” Meyer says. Then, one day, an idea formed in his head “to send the muscle signals I use to control my prosthesis directly to the synth”. So, over the past year, he has created

THE RED BULLETIN

LOU BOYD

Music of the mind

DANIEL THEILER

SYNLIMB

a new device named the SynLimb, which allows him to play music with his mind.

Meyer realised that every knob on a modular synth has a jack that can accept a voltage.

However, the signal from his prosthesis was too weak and, not being an electronic engineer, he didn’t know how to amplify it. That was when he discovered he had a piece of kit that could do exactly that.

The Field Kit, made by Berlin-based music electronics company KOMA Electronik, is a portable tool that can take electrical impulses from anything – lights, movement etc – and convert them into a signal a synth can understand.

KOMA agreed to build Meyer a custom version of the Field Kit’s circuit board, and his husband Daniel Theiler, an artist and architect, 3D-printed an adaptor to fit his artificial hand. Now, by plugging cables from the SynLimb directly into a synth, Meyer can play music as easily as moving a finger.

“Depending on where I plug in the jack, I can alter the pitch of a melody or the frequency of a filter just by thinking it,” he says. “I think the same thought as I would when using my hand.

It’s automatic and unconscious, making me faster than my poor able-bodied friends who have to turn a button.”

More than just removing an obstacle, the SynLimb has enabled quicker and more interesting artistic choices for Meyer when playing live, and it has allowed him to create his first EP using this process – The SynLimb Sessions – to be released later this year.

“Able-bodied DJs can do one hand on one button, one hand on the other, and I couldn’t do that,” he says. “Now, not only is that constraint gone but I can go deeper in terms of my creativity. Because of my handicap, I actually have an upside in this little cosmos of music making.”

Instagram: @bertolt01

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Energetic by nature. Your Energy Bikes. fazua.com

LOU BOYD APTERA MOTORS

“When you put gasoline in a vehicle, you only get 25 per cent of the energy out of it – the rest goes up in smoke,” says Chris Anthony, CEO of San Diego company Aptera Motors.

“Then you use 60 per cent of that pushing air out of the way at highway speeds.” These fuel consumption stats inspired Anthony and co-founder Steve Fambro to make a vehicle that’s as strong as an F1 racer, quieter than your usual car, more efficient than a bike, and which never has to stop for petrol.

The Aptera EV’s surface is covered in solar cells, but there’s more to creating a car that can go pretty much anywhere on sunlight alone. Aptera is Greek for ‘wingless’ – an apt name for a car that more resembles a flightless plane, its design born from a new approach to automobile efficiency. “We were like, ‘What if we made the drag go to zero or close enough?’” says Fambro. “Your range would go way up. That’s how we discovered this shape.”

Perhaps the biggest drag they experienced came from the automotive industry. At the 2007 TED conference in California, Fambro unveiled, to great fanfare, a diesel-electric hybrid prototype that could do 320km to the gallon at a constant 88kph – the world’s most efficient car. What came next was a protracted exercise in funding, company buyouts, and even the ousting of the two founders from their own firm.

When the car failed the Automotive X Prize challenge in 2010, overheating after 30 laps, the dream looked dead.

But then, last year, the pair announced they had reformed the company with a new ‘Never Charge’ solar-electric model.

In eight days, they received deposits for 3,000 vehicles, valued at more than $100 million (£73m). Seven weeks later, orders had doubled.

Boasting a drag coefficient of 0.13, the car expends 160 watt-hours of energy per THE RED BULLETIN

Hush hour: thanks to the car’s drag-free aerodynamics, there’s no wind-buffeting noise at high speeds

kilometre. With its 100kWh battery fully charged, that’s 1,600km of range. Not that you can cover the distance each day – with the maximum array of solar panels, it achieves 103km in 24 hours. “It’s the equivalent of having it magically fill up with two gallons of gas overnight,” says Fambro. “You can park it and have more energy when you return.” And it plugs into any regular charging port. With a monocoque chassis inspired

by F1 cars, the EV is also very

APTERA EV

Solar opposite To build a vehicle entirely powered by sunlight, two automobile designers had to reinvent the car safe in an impact, and the all-wheel-drive model clocks 0-100kph in 3.5 seconds.

Fambro and Anthony realise pushback from the car industry is still possible, but they’re confident times are changing. “We hope more vehicles will start to look like the Aptera and less like SUVs,” says Anthony. “We’re an outlier now,” adds Fambro, “but we’re going to show the world a solar-electric vehicle that will one day be the mainstream.”

In fact, they’re taking on another established ecovehicle, too. “You’re far less efficient on a bicycle,” says Anthony. “So, next time you think of cycling down to the grocery store, you might as well hop into the Aptera.” aptera.us 19

How Black Lives Matter inspired a surf collective to reclaim the ocean for people of colour Like so many, David Malana was moved by the death of George Floyd, the Minnesota man killed at the hands of white police officers in May last year. Malana is no stranger to social struggle himself – the 39-year-old Filipino-American spent eight years serving in the Peace Corps in Kyrgyzstan, and he teaches photography to at-risk youths around the globe. He’s also a lifelong surfer. As Black Lives Matter demonstrations began springing up worldwide that May, the Los Angeles resident 20

THE RED BULLETIN

LOU BOYD

Ending the whitewash

attended a peaceful ‘paddleout’ protest at Santa Monica Pier. It was there that he noticed how overwhelmingly white the other surfers were.

“I realised that the ocean – one of my most prized sanctuaries – is almost entirely a white space,” says Malana.

“I also saw a discrepancy in surf skill, ocean knowledge and comfort between the Black and brown people and the locals who were there.”

On his return from the protest, Malana hatched an idea: he’d use his skills as a surfer and a teacher to create a space where BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People Of Colour) surfers could perfect their craft and take their rightful place on the waves.

Despite its global reach – more than 50 nations were represented at the last World Surfing Games, staged in 2019 – surfing has a genuine

RAHZIZI ISHAKARAH

COLOR THE WATER

diversity problem. Only as recently as 2018 did South African Mikey February become the first Black surfer ever to compete on the Championship Tour. It’s this predominantly white narrative in the sport that Malana is keen to tackle.

“We want an inclusive community that rides waves differently, that goes about this stuff in a way that’s more celebratory, like it was in the beginning,” says Malana [pictured left, third from right].

“When it was an ancient Polynesian, Melanesian practice, it was communal, spiritual, a celebration. It was irreverent. We want to hark back to that – a surf culture we identify with more.”

Color The Water is primarily a surf club and, alongside his partner Lizelle Jackson, Malana has already signed up more than 400 people in California for free lessons and meet-ups.

The community is about more than surfing, however – it’s a response to a moment, to the events of 2020, as well as centuries of systemic racism.

It’s defiant, joyful anti-racism through surfing. “‘Institutionalised antiracism’ is a phrase I get really excited about,” says Malana.

“I remember studying social justice in college: all these examples of institutionalised racism and how it’s impossible to separate from systems. To now have an opportunity to create a legitimate institution that’s the antithesis of that thinking means a lot to me.”

Before the pandemic put everything on hold, Color The Water had given more than $60,000 (£43,500) worth of free lessons, and it’s working to build an infrastructure offering much more. “I’ve put my life savings and I don’t know how many hours a week into this, but it doesn’t feel like work,” says Malana. “I have this chance to be the person I wish [had been there] for me.”

Instagram: @color_the_water

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What would you do if you knew your phone helped finance war? This innovator’s answer was to produce an ethical alternative “If we produce phones, we destroy stuff,” says Bas van Abel, founder of Fairphone.

This may seem an odd remark from a smartphone company owner, but there is much that’s unconventional about Van Abel’s attitude towards modern life’s most indispensable personal possession – not least that the Dutchman had never owned a mobile phone before starting his company, and he refused to use one for two years after that. But then, his intention was never simply to produce another smartphone, rather to make one that would benefit the world.

Consider this: there are more mobile devices than humans on Earth, each with an average 22

Smart thinker: Bas van Abel, founder of Fairphone

THE RED BULLETIN

JESS HOLLAND

Call to action

lifespan of two to three years.

Inside a smartphone are hundreds of components made from minerals often sourced from conflict zones where profits are used to finance violent militias; these materials are also sometimes mined in unsafe working conditions, using methods that pollute the environment. The components are often assembled in factories where workers are paid below a living wage. To make the device thinner, methods such as gluing the battery to the case – which renders the phone useless at the end of its battery life – are employed.

Van Abel has a thing for making stuff last. He grew up in Nijmegen – the oldest city in the Netherlands – born to parents who have been together since they were teenagers; 43-year-old Van Abel met his partner when he was just 15.

After studying interaction design at university, in 2003 he joined the Waag Society, a non-profit that seeks to further sociocultural betterment

FAIRPHONE

FAIRPHONE

through technology. During his 10 years there, he learned about the use of conflict materials in tech goods, becoming aware of the collateral damage from their manufacture. He chose to highlight this with a mobile phone. In 2013, he launched a crowdfunder for ‘the world’s first ethical smartphone’, which attracted 25,000 pre-orders.

“The phone didn’t exist yet and still people paid more than €300 [£260] for something they might never get,” he says.

“And everybody [in the industry] had told us, ‘Nobody cares.’”

Since then, the company has produced three more phones, most recently the Fairphone 3+ last September. Each comes with a screwdriver and is easily repairable; also, as the phone is modular, owners of the previous model can upgrade by swapping in the latest components, such as a new 40MP rear camera.

The plastic used is 40-per-cent recycled, and the minerals are ethically sourced, though still from conflict zones.

“We don’t go to Australia and say it’s conflict-free; we go to the Congo and set up programmes to improve working conditions and the tracing of minerals,” says Van Abel, who created the Fair Cobalt Alliance to ensure ethical practices, from mines to manufacturing, meaning others using the same supply chain also ‘do the right thing’.

“I’m pretty sure there are iPhones containing Fairtrade gold without Apple knowing.”

More than 200,000 Fairphones were sold by the end of 2020 – a drop in the ocean next to the 2.2 billion iPhones produced since 2007, but a demonstration of what’s possible. “The solution lies with us, the people who buy stuff,” says Van Abel. “Buying new things starts with someone with a spade in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Once you realise that, you’ll see how special it is that we can turn a bunch of rocks into a phone.” fairphone.com

Ashnikko

The 25-year-old pop futurist on how writing love letters to herself boosted her confidence, and why we should all use the c-word more Words FLORIAN OBKIRCHER

Ashnikko loves a grand entrance.

At last year’s BRIT Awards, held at London’s O2 Arena in February, the singer/rapper sashayed up the red carpet wearing platform boots, with two muscular, masked men carrying her huge blue ponytails. Her message: “Down with the patriarchy.”

Flamboyance and liberal ideals didn’t feature in Ashton Nicole Casey’s upbringing in smalltown North Carolina. But it was during her teens, after relocating to Estonia and then Latvia with her family, that she discovered feminism on Tumblr and began to teach herself about gender and sexuality. At 18, Casey moved to London with a music career in her sights. She condensed all her ideas into Ashnikko, a largerthan-life character who takes visual cues from cybergoth and manga culture, and whose music merges trap beats and catchy melodies with empowering and explicit lyrics that would make a sex-ed teacher blush.

Ashnikko’s breakthrough came in 2019 when her single Stupid, with US rapper Yung Baby Tate, went viral on TikTok; the track has gained gold certification in the US, and, to date, its video has more than 53 million YouTube views. She began this year with the release of her debut mixtape, Demidevil, which features fellow pop futurist Grimes. Here, Ashnikko, 25, talks about toxic relationships, the key to self-love, and VR sex toys… the red bulletin: More than two million young women, including Miley Cyrus, have created TikTok videos based on your lyric “Stupid

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boys think that I need them.” How did you come up with that line? ashnikko: I had been talking to my ex on the day of the recording.

His whole attitude was very smug, like he gifted me our relationship and I couldn’t survive without him, which I found hilarious. I’m an extremely independent and selfsufficient person. So, yeah, that’s a mentality I would love to break.

Many of your songs started out as love letters to yourself after a difficult separation, didn’t they?

That’s true: all my songs are basically love letters to myself. And this is my biggest advice on confidence: when you’re feeling really low, you might have these negative dialogues going on in your head. It’s difficult to get rid of them, so it’s important to replace them with more positive beliefs about yourself. That’s what I did with the love letters. I still do, to be fair. There are lows in life that are unavoidable, but I try to keep the balance and write myself positive pep talks, love letters, because I do love myself.

How do you write a good love letter to yourself?

Well, firstly, I don’t write them on a scroll of paper, although you can do that – it’s definitely a method.

The key to a successful love letter to yourself is consistency; you need to do it regularly, or, if you can’t manage a whole letter, just write words of affirmation to yourself and read them every day.

Why is it that self-love seems to be such a difficult thing to achieve?

We don’t really live in a system that’s built for our happiness. Like, the

Sexual positivity is another big theme in your music. In Clitoris!

The Musical, the final track on Demidevil, you sing: “Why is my orgasm censored on the TV, while cis boys get to ejaculate freely”…

I’ve always thought it’s hilarious that in romcoms the dudes get to be like, ‘Oh yeah!’, like coming everywhere, while women have to wear a bra in bed during sex.

I mean, who wears a bra during sex? The scene lasts five seconds, then he comes and it’s all over.

That’s very stupid to me. Vaginaowning people deserve pleasure.

They should not be censored.

Is that why you describe your songs as ‘cuntry music’ and advocate the normalisation of that word?

The word ‘cunt’ is considered offensive and hateful, but it has feminist origins. The actual etymology of the word is ‘mother’ and ‘body of her’. But it has been vilified over the years, just like the word ‘witch’ – we can look back in history and see that women who veered off the normal path were very much deemed to be witches.

Similarly, ‘cunt’ derives from power.

We should say it more. I mean, look, it’s in the word ‘country’, which means motherland.

What’s next for you?

I really want to design a sex toy. For women, I think it’s very important to prioritise your pleasure and to learn about it from a young age – not in a creepy way, but sex ed should be a little bit more comprehensive.

What will your sex toy look like?

I don’t know yet. Something VR, for sure. I’ll talk to some VR specialists and get back to you.

Ashnikko’s mixtape Demidevil is out now; ashnikko.com

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WARNER MUSIC

Pleasure seeker

actual algorithms in your phone are designed to keep you obsessed with comparing yourself to other people and buying things to improve your life. And obsessive habits are not conducive to confidence and feeling contentment in your life.

“All my songs are basically love letters to myself”

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Einar Selvik

Teaching the Norse code Some people sing in the shower; this follower of ancient Nordic culture sings standing in a river.

Why? Because the runes told him to Words TOM WARD Photography ARNE BECK

Einar Selvik stands on a jetty in the Norwegian village of Kattegat and begins to sing in his native tongue, slowly beating a deerskin drum. On the cliffs, women and children gather solemnly as longboats set sail for distant lands. A close approximation of this event – as related in the Icelandic sagas of Ragnar Lothbrok – may have taken place, but this isn’t the ninth century, it’s 2015, and this is a film set in County Wicklow, Ireland.

The scene may only be staged – for the filming of the TV drama series Vikings – but Selvik’s words carry true meaning. Under the stage name Kvitrafn (‘White Raven’), he’s the frontman of Norwegian folk band Wardruna and, like the ancient Vikings, the 41-year-old musician is an adherent of animism, the belief that all objects possess a spiritual essence. As well as appearing in the show (credited as a ‘shaman’), Selvik has contributed to its soundtrack and that of the 2020 video game Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. In February, he headlined That Jorvik Viking Thing – a ‘gathering of all things Viking’ – in York. In short, Selvik is about as Viking as it gets.

Wardruna’s fifth album, Kvitrafn, released in January this year, went top five on iTunes in Europe, Canada and Australia, and when we speak to Selvik from his home in Norway he’s planning a series of virtual shows.

The musician is a strong believer in self-determination: “It’s one thing I like about several religions, including Old Norse. The responsibility is always with you. The gods help the ones who help themselves.”

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Selvik, who was born on Osterøy, a small inland island on the west coast of Norway, became obsessed with pre-Christian Norse culture after discovering an old book on Nordic runes in his early teens. During the early 2000s, he was playing drums for Norwegian black metal pioneers Gorgoroth when the runes called to him. In 2003, Selvik – along with singer Lindy-Fay Hella and Gorgoroth frontman Gaahl – formed Wardruna, a project dedicated to musical interpretations of the Elder Futhark, the oldest of the runic alphabets.

The song Laukr, from Wardruna’s debut album, is named after the rune for water. To channel this, Selvik recorded his vocals standing in a river. He also employs ancient Norse instruments including the goat horn, Kravik lyre and tagelharpa (tail-hair harp), which archaeologists taught him to make. Finding solutions is the Old Norse way. the red bulletin: How does one embrace traditional Nordic values? einar selvik: History isn’t escapism; I’m not cultivating the idea that everything was better in the past.

But I do believe there are many things from old animistic cultures worth remembering. It’s not a spiritual or religious thing, it’s an attitude – the idea that nature is sacred and we’re a part of it, rather than its rulers.

I try to apply that to how I live. The most dangerous idea is that we’re all too small to make a difference.

flowers so bees can thrive, to supporting local farmers so food doesn’t have to travel so far. Nothing drastic. Remember, anything of true value has a cost – you have to give up certain things.

What drew you to Vikings and Assassin’s Creed?

Any modern take on a historical period will be a mixture of fact and fiction, but Vikings was a step in the right direction, nuancing the time period and moving past certain stereotypes. More so with Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. They wanted to include as much historical detail as possible. My role was to give voice to the skalds, the poets. Oral tradition was at the heart of Old Norse society. It was important to me that they dealt with that.

In the modern world, phones have replaced oral tradition. Would we benefit from talking more?

Not only talking but singing; it’s meditative. We all sing too little, both on our own and with other people. It’s a way of bonding that we lack in modern society. It taps into something very old and universal.

It’s impossible for us to imagine the impact of singing and the oral tradition [nowadays], because we’re so bombarded with entertainment, but people respond very strongly to performance in that format.

Do you feel a kinship with the Vikings before you go on stage?

It’s about becoming one with the words you’re singing. Festivals like Jorvik can be interesting as they allow me to try out performing in time-right conditions. It’s a place where you can learn about yourself and your history. You can compare it to going into battle, but also to any act where you need to be really present and focused. The premise of performing is timeless, whether it’s on the battlefield or as an athlete or a musician.

Wardruna’s latest album Kvitravn is out now; wardruna.com

How do you apply that to your life?

You need to reflect and grow as a human in all of the ways you can.

By doing so, you create good ripples.

It can be anything from planting THE RED BULLETIN

“Nature is sacred and we’re a part of it, not its rulers”

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Jack Downer

Whole different ball game After an injury halted the 23-year-old’s dreams of a pro football career, his fancy footwork made him a world champion in a game he never knew existed Words JESSICA HOLLAND Photography MARK ROBINSON

Injury ruined Jack Downer’s dreams of becoming a pro footballer in the traditional sense when he was just 14. But fast-forward nine years and he’s found another way to make a living from kicking a ball, one that offers more creativity and autonomy.

It has seen him play a rooftop match alongside David Beckham, receive coaching from Frank Lampard, and gain YouTube fame via the Adidas docuseries Tango Squad FC. He also has more than a million TikTok followers who obsessively watch videos of him playing or training.

The Kent-born athlete is a star of panna, an intense one-on-one football match in which you win by kicking the ball between your opponent’s legs, executing a nutmeg or ‘panna’.

The tricky footwork involved makes the sport a perfect fit for short videos – whether viral social-media posts or ad campaigns – and Downer’s YouTube films alone earn him enough to pay his London rent.

In 2020, he cemented his status as a panna superstar by winning the Super Ball World Championship in Prague, and this year he’ll be part of the biggest global five-a-side tournament, Red Bull Neymar Jr’s Five. Having won a place in Jr’s Global Five in 2020 as part of the Red Bull Neymar Jr’s Five online competition, Downer will be one of seven players taking on a team that includes the eponymous Brazilian footballing legend. Still only 23, Downer has proved he’s a disciplined athlete with big ambitions, from helping his sport blow up to nutmegging Neymar Jr himself.

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the red bulletin: When did you start playing panna? jack downer: At 14, I was captain of a local football team and getting interest from scouts at Tottenham, West Ham, Charlton… Then, during a kids vs adults game, someone just stamped on my foot. My toenail was splintered and had to be removed, and I had ligament damage. I was walking with a limp, then the knee on my other leg went. I was out for eight months, by which time all the interest [from the scouts] was gone.

That must have been tough…

I never played 11-a-side again – I decided I had to take a different route. My mum tricked me into going to a local panna club, which was three kids playing in a town hall. A younger kid nutmegged me twice.

That week, I watched [panna videos on] YouTube and I played for three hours every night. When I went back to the club, I beat that kid. I’ve trained like that ever since, for eight years.

How did the sport originate?

The word is from Suriname [in South America], but the sport is from Holland. Street football is huge in Holland, and panna [also borrows from] one-vs-one basketball. It’s now massive in Denmark, Germany, Japan and Russia, too. In London, it’s tough – people still think it’s a party trick. But it’s growing.

When did you realise you were good at it?

I started an Instagram account, @streetpanna, to watch videos and share my progression. Within a week, I had 4,000 followers. Pretty quickly I’d reached a high level of

intricacy. But I wanted to compete.

In 2014, after playing for a year, me and my dad drove to a tournament in Brussels in this tiny car. I only just got out of the group stage. Six months later, I was at my first world championship in Rotterdam.

What did your mates think?

No one understood. I’d been studying [the sport] after school, at school.

I wasn’t going to parties, I was training in the rain on my own. I had one pair of leather shoes, but when I wore holes in them I had to put Tesco bags on my feet just so I could train. I’d find multistorey car parks an hour away and walk there to train on the fifth floor. But by the end of my time at school I’d created a panna club and everyone came.

Can you see panna becoming more mainstream in the UK? It could be the next skateboarding.

It’s one-vs-one, it’s in a cage, it’s football but it’s like MMA. And it’s international. I went to Bali with my girlfriend on holiday and ended up running soccer camps because somehow the kids knew who I was.

Are you excited about the Red Bull Neymar Jr’s Five tournament?

I’m super excited to be on the team facing Neymar Jr. He’s one of the only players nowadays who’s applying the skills in-game. I’m dreaming about facing him. I’ll have to try to nutmeg him, but really I just want to be on that pitch and learn.

If I gain his respect, I’ll be proud.

Do you now look back differently on your injury as it forced you to take this more innovative path?

I’m not grateful for it, but I’m proud of how I dealt with it. The career path I’ve taken wasn’t something that existed when I started. I was just following a passion.

Head to redbull.com/int-en/eventseries/neymar-jrs-five/ for all the latest UK information on how to get your chance to face Neymar Jr

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“I had to put Tesco bags on my feet just so I could train” THE RED BULLETIN

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Mind games With the brutal impact of the pandemic, the cancellation of sporting events, a halt in training, and racism put in the spotlight, 2020 was a year that tested high-jump champion MORGAN LAKE in ways she couldn’t have imagined. But, by retraining her focus, the British athlete has emerged mentally and physically stronger than ever, ready for a summer of medal-winning glory Words RACHAEL SIGEE Photography RICK GUEST

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THE RED BULLETIN

Power nap: Lake takes a moment to contemplate her dissertation about the sleeping habits of elite athletes

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Morgan Lake

A

few days before her interview with The Red Bulletin, Morgan Lake looked at her Instagram and saw a video she’d posted from her last training session at the track in March 2020. “I remember posting it and my friends on the Italian team messaging me to say they were literally just locked in their houses,” says the British high jumper. “At the time, I thought, ‘Oh my God, imagine if that happened to us.’ I was just training as normal and felt so thankful. But, the next day, the track closed and we had to train outside – everyone flocked to the Astroturf and it was packed.

Then the whole country got shut down.”

It’s almost exactly a year since that bizarre first week of lockdown, and yet Lake is once again stuck inside, at her student house in Loughborough, Leicestershire. She’s folded up her 1.8m frame to crouch on the floor as she gamely tries to fix what has become a common issue for us all: a dodgy Wi-Fi connection that’s making the Zoom chat freeze.

At the start of March, Lake travelled to Torun, Poland, to compete for Great Britain in the European Indoor Championships, but, after a teammate tested positive for COVID-19 upon their return, she has been self-isolating. On top of the interruption to Lake’s training, the first draft of her university dissertation – about sleep and napping tendencies in elite athletes – is due next week: “It’s not been the greatest couple of weeks,” she concedes.

Luckily, after getting through 2020, the 23-yearold is more than equipped to handle setbacks – something she would have struggled to believe last March. Last year was supposed to be Lake’s year.

The Milton Keynes-born athlete was heading to the Olympics in Tokyo four years after making the high-

jump final in Rio. At that point, she’d won gold at the British Athletics Championships four years in a row, and taken silver at the 2018 Commonwealth Games.

Expectations were high as Lake was named one of the rising stars of the British team. She was laser-focused.

And then the pandemic hit. Suddenly, Lake’s daily routine was worryingly devoid of purpose. “It was really hard having to train in our back gardens – without any equipment or coaches or a track – for a competition that would have been the biggest thing in most people’s careers. Once things were postponed, there was relief initially. It was, ‘Thank God, we’ve still got that goal; it hasn’t been cancelled.’ But then it was like, ‘OK, well, what am I doing now?’”

Not only had Lake’s high-jump season vanished but, since she had chosen to split the final year of her psychology degree at Loughborough in order to concentrate on her sport, she didn’t even have university work to distract herself with. “Everything was geared towards that summer, and for that to be taken away... It was really hard to carry on training, not knowing if I was going to have a season.”

What should have been a year that tested Lake’s physical ability quickly became one that instead challenged her mental strength. She had been working with a mindset coach since just after the World Athletics Championships in Doha in 2019, and it was this resource that became crucial to Lake finding a way to navigate her drastically altered world. Her three conversations with the coach each week proved invaluable during lockdown. Under normal circumstances, these sessions would have covered preparation for the pressure of competition

Front runner: Lake began breaking athletics records way back in 2008, when she was aged just 12

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“It’s dehumanising when people say sportspeople shouldn’t talk about things other than sport”

Morgan Lake

“Taking part in the 5K Challenge was fun. It was something I’d never normally get to do”

Finding a voice: prompted by Black Lives Matter, Lake has discussed her own experiences of racism THE RED BULLETIN

and dealing with nerves, but now they became about strategies for staying motivated without a competition on the immediate horizon. “Although it might have seemed pointless because I wasn’t competing, I was still training,” she says. “And that’s one of the reasons why I kept so focused.”

Instead of languishing, Lake seized on her coach’s mantra: “Control the controllables.” She brought forward one of her university modules to manage the pressure, and set about training as best she could with her housemate, a heptathlete. “We didn’t have a high-jump bed or a track to run on, but we do have a rugby field opposite our house, so we did a lot of work there, like runs and plyometrics [jump training]. My housemate was doing shot put, so I joined in with some of that, too. We marked out a little high-jump runway for taking off.”

Also, forced to relax her rigid mindset around training, Lake found herself doing things she usually wouldn’t. She was nominated over and over again for the 5K Challenge – run 5K, donate £5 to the NHS, nominate five people – and finally gave in, surprising herself with how much she enjoyed it: “That was fun, and it was something I’d never normally get to do.”

Taking advantage of the freedom from her usual strict training programme, Lake turned her attention to working on her weaknesses and learned to take more control of her progress, both physical and mental. With no access to physio, she was forced to address that she was “so bad at stretching and all the little bits around training”. She began doing more yoga and Pilates, enjoying the opportunity to take charge of her training time and embrace new challenges, and it’s paid off. “The biggest difference is that this winter I haven’t really been injured. I’ve had small niggles, but nothing where I’ve had to take weeks out of training. Before, if anything was hurting I’d just go straight to the physio, whereas now I’m like, ‘OK, maybe I’ll do a hip-opening yoga flow,’ and I’ll make sure I’m doing my best to keep my body in check. That was a big win from lockdown.”

If this is Lake at a low ebb, she must be bouncing off the walls come competition time. Although pragmatic when reflecting on having to isolate after the European Indoor Championships, she’s animated on the topic of actually jumping, clearly itching for the opportunity to prove herself again.

However, there are other challenges Lake has been forced to face over the past year, from beyond her world of training and competition. The Black Lives Matter movement prompted her to look more closely at her own experience as a young mixed-race Black woman and identify “so many things that I hadn’t

thought of as a problem because it hadn’t been direct racism, a lot of little things I hadn’t really noticed.

Hearing other people speak about it was really big.

It was a tough time, but also enlightening”.

As a result, Lake felt confident enough to speak out on social media and in interviews about racism and injustice. She’s unimpressed by the argument that athletes should stay out of politics: “It’s really dehumanising when people say that sportspeople shouldn’t talk about things other than sport. It’s like, ‘Right, you’re not a person, you’re just entertainment.

We only want to watch you for entertainment purposes and that’s it.’ But you’re a human first, then an athlete. Obviously we have other interests – we’re not just thinking about track and field all day and then we sleep. It’s such a weird and outdated opinion that athletes can’t also have opinions outside sport. This past year has shown we can, and we’ll carry on talking if we have the platform.”

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ith this newfound focus, Lake has also used her platform to promote a healthier body image for women, appearing on the cover of Cosmopolitan’s February 2021 issue celebrating different body types. “That was really cool,” she says. “For me growing up, it was like, ‘Be as skinny as you can,’ and that was what I saw as the best body type. So being an athlete was quite hard, because I have muscles and I need them to compete and train well. It’s nice that there’s been some change so you don’t have to look just like one person.” Lake cites her own role models as tennis superstar Serena Williams and gold-medal-winning heptathlete Denise Lewis, and she breaks into a broad grin when she recalls how last year her friend, the record-breaking sprinter Dina Asher-Smith, was made into a Barbie doll: “It was so cool, because it showed you can be a strong athlete and still be a Barbie. I know little things like that will mean so much to younger athletes now – it would have meant so much to me growing up.”

Lake and Asher-Smith became close, along with British long jumper Jazmin Sawyers, during the 2016 athletics season, when all three had their first experiences competing on the world’s biggest stages.

It’s a connection that’s incredibly important to Lake: “It’s so nice to have such huge life-changing events with your friends; having friends to push you so you can all achieve together.” This has been Lake’s support system, alongside her family – most notably her dad Eldon, a former triple jumper who was her coach until she went to university. “We’re still so close now and always talk about athletics,” she says.

“It’s really nice to have someone who I’m so close to, so that we can share my journey in the sport.”

Where that journey is heading has been the subject of some contention. Although Lake has soared (literally) in the high jump, there has long been the suggestion she might return to heptathlon, in which she was the 2014 World Junior Champion. However, it seems that lockdown may have given her a new 37

Morgan Lake

Leap year: Lake jumped the Olympic qualifying height of 1.96m unexpectedly at the Serbian Open this February

“This year, I just wanted to train really hard and give myself the best opportunity to jump high”

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High bar: Lake has been British highjump champion five years running; (opposite) a gauge showing her PB from January 2019

Morgan Lake

“Having the time to step away from competition and re-evaluate my goals has been a huge thing for me” perspective on that, too – at least for now. “In the past, I’ve always just thought about what I’ll be doing next – going to heptathlon and going to this or that,” says Lake. “I’ve not really been in the moment, in the now. This year, I just wanted to train really hard and give myself the best opportunity to jump high. So I’m going to take away the distractions of what I’ll be doing in the future and think about what I’m going to do to make this year the best it can be.”

This has meant making peace with 2020 for the havoc wreaked on her normally fastidious elitetraining programme; with no clear roadmap of competition, it was near impossible to plan when her form should peak. “Usually you have everything so planned out. It’s almost easy in a sense, because everything is so meticulous: your coach gives you a programme, you know what you’re doing, and you do the work. Obviously the work is hard, but the motivation and the stuff around it is the easy part.” Instead, with that framework removed, it was her pure love of the sport that kept her going.

“It was like, ‘This thing can either make or break me.’ I just love athletics, and for me it was like, ‘Right, let’s make the most of it. We’re stuck in this situation. We can either sit there and be sad, or just do what we love.’ That was the main thing for me: regaining the love of the sport.”

L

ake’s passion for high jump being brought into such sharp focus has proven more than beneficial to her jumping. Last September, she took gold at the British Athletics Championships for a fifth consecutive year. Then she had to tackle Olympic qualification. Lake had last jumped the qualifying height of 1.96m in January 2019 – setting a personal best of 1.97m in Hustopeče, Czech Republic – and with the Games postponed she needed to requalify. A further blow came when the winter season she had been gearing up for began to falter, with various competitions cancelled at the last minute. This was exactly what her mindset coach had specifically prepared her for: processing a change in plans without falling apart, and being able to find a positive way to move obstacles.

“I needed to think, ‘Don’t just get angry and sad about it, because you’ve done all this work and there will be an opportunity to showcase it,’” she says. In the end, she nailed the height in unexpected circumstances. “I jumped it at some random competition – the Serbian Open [this February].

It was the first competition I’d ever done without my coach being there. I just wanted to try to win the competition, enjoy it and have fun. There was

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no way I thought it would be the competition where I jumped the qualifying height.”

Perhaps even more important than the jump itself was the revelation that accompanied it; that trying to force matters just doesn’t work for Lake.

“I think last year it was such an aim to jump 1.96m indoors that I wasn’t enjoying competitions; it was so stressful. Whereas this season it was in the back of my mind but never a target. It was an amazing moment and it showed me that when I relax and enjoy myself, my best performances come.”

The unpredictable nature of 2020 could have been devastating for Morgan Lake. Looking ahead to a seemingly infinite, empty stretch of time is a daunting prospect for an elite athlete used to painstaking planning, and initially it did stump her.

But it was learning to cope in this new world that turned out to be the key to Lake’s most significant steps forward, both inside and outside sport.

“Having the time to step away and re-evaluate my goals and my thoughts on the sport has been a huge thing for me,” she says with a characteristic smile.

These experiences could not have happened in the 2020 that Lake had originally anticipated.

But, based on her start to 2021, and with Tokyo once again on the horizon, she might now be better prepared than ever for success. morgan-lake.com 41

Nigerian-Canadian musician FALANA wrote her latest single, Joy, two weeks before lockdown. Waiting a year for its release could have been crushing, but one thing she’s learned from a life lived around the world is that things don’t always go to plan, and sometimes that’s OK Words NATTY KASAMBALA 42

SAVANNAH BAKER

Place in the sun

Hold your horses: Falana is ready to make up for lost time with the long-overdue release of Joy

Falana

atience, they say, is a virtue.

For Falana, it’s also a gift, giving her the time to travel, experiment, and live life in technicolour. The 29-year-old NigerianCanadian artist isn’t a new player in the music industry. Her debut came in 2014 with the EP Things Fall Together, and with each new release her mission has been to become more focused, to present something fresh but familiar, that nods to those who have inspired her while transforming it entirely. It has brought her accolades from magazines such as Wonderland and Complex, and in 2017 Vogue hailed her as “Nigeria’s coolest front-row star”. But while Falana’s star is rising, she’s not in a rush.

“It’s always positive vibes when you put music out and people are discovering it,” she says on a Zoom call with The Red Bulletin. Adorned with her signature pom-pom braids, she’s friendly, chatty and visibly laidback as she reclines in a pristine hotel room in Lagos, Nigeria.

It’s 5pm West Africa Time and, although Falana lives in Lagos, for the last few days she’s locked herself in this room for some uninterrupted writing time, penning a song for a film by a Belgian-Congolese director. It’s a project that marks a new era for Falana, alongside the release of her latest single, Joy, a self-fulfilling meditation on appreciating the blessings in your life, aptly timed for a year when giving small gratitudes is not only a desirable philosophy but a necessary one.

The song itself is a literal manifestation of that mindset. Written with fellow singer-songwriter Omolara Ayodele and producer KINGBNJMN at the legendary Geejam Studios in Port Antonio, Jamaica, a couple of weeks before lockdown, its upbeat lyrics – “Look up, look up, oh I count my blessings, one day at a time, live my life” – resonate even more strongly now. But then, Falana’s whole life fits this ethos.

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Born and raised in the suburban city of Brampton in Toronto, Canada, Victoria Falana grew up listening to the traditional music of her Nigerian parents, alongside pop, hip hop and R&B, which she’d compile as mixtapes. She played in a bucket-drumming band at school before teaching herself guitar chords via YouTube. Soon she was winning singing competitions alongside studying kinesiology at university. But it was Falana’s adventures abroad that truly fed into her creativity. A six-month exchange in Denmark was followed by a trip to Cuba that produced a performance at the Canadian Embassy. Falana quickly realised she could gain more musical experience and money in Havana than she ever could back home, so she relocated there, learning Spanish and immersing herself in the salsa hip-hop fusion scene. That first EP was born from a meeting with Waldo Lavanut Nazario, a producer friend of her piano teacher’s flatmate. It was recorded in Nazario’s front room with a band of local musicians. But it was during a trip to her parent’s hometown of Lagos five years ago that she truly found her groove.

“Everything started to make sense in my songwriting,” Falana recalls. “Even down to how I express myself with my style and hair.” She has lived there ever since, but that hasn’t suppressed her passion for travel; in 2019 she toured Africa to support her Chapter One EP, and she has recorded music in Ghana, Jamaica, Canada, Portugal, the US and

UK. The past two years have seen her come into her own as an artist; the selfproduced Chapter One features dramatic and textured Afro-infused pop, while Teletele – released last December in response to the End SARS movement against police brutality in Nigeria, as well as the Black Lives Matter protests – is a raw and sombre plea for peace and empathy. And, following Joy, she has a stack of new songs ready to take her into the next phase of her career.

A precise alchemy of all her influences, Falana’s universal sound offers something for everyone: from Afrobeat-like rhythms to her rich, silken soul vocals and lyrical musings on life and love. Her visual identity is just as internationally innovative, with videos shot in Jamaica, laced with infectiously African choreography, and a striking pop presence to rival the likes of Janelle Monáe. Even her lollipop braids are a modernist take on the traditional protective hairstyle.

With the shape-shifting experience of her nomadic years, it’s only a matter of time before the world gets acquainted THE RED BULLETIN

SAVANNAH BAKER

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“If you realise you’re a human being, you can write better music about things people can relate to”

Smart money’s on red: with her fresh mix of Afro-infused pop, soul and R&B, Falana is set for success

with Falana. “I really just can’t wait to release the rest of my music,” she says, showing that perhaps her patience isn’t eternal. the red bulletin: What did the young Falana listen to while growing up? falana: A lot of the time, especially as immigrant children, you have the music and culture of your parents. Especially in Canada, where everyone asks where you’re from and you don’t say, “Oh, I’m Canadian.” I’d still say, “I’m Nigerian.”

The first albums that made me cry were Lauryn Hill’s MTV Unplugged No. 2.0 and The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. I wanted my music to transcend genres, like [The Miseducation…] did at the time. It wasn’t fully hip hop or fully R&B; it dominated the pop charts. Those are the kinds of things I connected with, and which inspired the artist I subconsciously wanted to be.

So you’d say you’re part of the 1.5 generation? Somewhere between first and second-generation immigrants?

I’m like a 1.6793, because I’ve travelled all over the place. I have all these random sprinkles of cultural influences and inspirations. My parents were very new in Canada, so the food we were eating, the music we were listening to, was from home. My mum would play Yoruba praise-and-worship music and King Sunny Adé videos, and my dad went to the University of Ibadan [the oldest in Nigeria], so he was one of those people who fought in unions for students. Fela Kuti was what they were jamming to.

Add that to whatever was on the radio and what I could discover on my own.

And then you went travelling…

It was about searching. I always feel like I’m a part of things but also on the periphery. It’s a blessing, but sometimes 46

you feel disconnected. In Toronto I was trying to make a record, and I’d taught myself guitar, but I just thought, “I need to get better at this instrument.” I’d dabbled with keys, but not enough. I was getting into the studio with people and it just didn’t connect well because their reference points were totally different from mine. My solution, because I’m crazy, was to move to Havana! The level of musicianship out there is amazing.

I met a professor who told me about the music culture. Sometimes you don’t really know what you’re looking for in life, you’re just roaming. But something inside of me was like, “Maybe this is the direction you need to go in,” [even though] it might not have made sense at the time.

When I left Havana, I’d recorded a whole record, and a part of Cuba was in my spirit. I made music, made amazing friends and picked up a new language, just by exploring and learning.

Did your eventual move to Lagos feel like a homecoming?

It just felt like what I needed to do. I’ve been before – I have family here – so it wasn’t as foreign or traumatising as moving to Havana. It’s helped to solidify my sound and my identity. I just feel like I know who I am now. I’m not suffering from the anxiety of the 1.5 any more.

Creative industries in Lagos have gained global recognition in recent years.

What’s it like being immersed in that?

Beautiful, because my creative expression has blossomed even outside of music, like in fashion and photography. It has rekindled relationships and sparked collaborations. The funny thing is, it was all here before the recognition came.

Nigeria has been here holding it down; we’ve been having our own industry.

So, to be a part of it when it’s getting international recognition is great, but it’s well-deserved. And I also think it’s gingering [a Nigerian term meaning empowering] everybody to up their level.

When it came to honing your sound, was that a challenge?

It was a process trying to find something that represents everything that I am, that’s contemporary and fresh but also nostalgic facing forwards. I never felt fully like an R&B or soul singer. I want

people to hear the familiarity of all those influences in my music, but also freshness, something different.

Have there been tough moments on that journey?

All the time. There was a period when I didn’t doubt myself, I just went for it.

Then what happens is you’re in the hustle and you realise things are not playing out the way you want them to, whether that’s chasing numbers or whatever.

You start to doubt yourself and your talent. [At times like that] I remember artists like Sia, who’s been making music, not just pop records, for a long time.

I think about how much she had to push through. I’m lucky to have people who believe in me, who pull me when I don’t believe in myself.

That support system is so necessary…

We just released this documentary and there’s this quote that people keep reaching out about: “Being an artist is living on the edge.” You’re constantly on the edge of failure or financial ruin or complete success, and it can be stressful.

Was taking that first leap to pursue a music career daunting?

I remember the decision, because it was like something literally burning inside that I couldn’t deny. I told myself I’d rather try and fail than regret not trying. Have you read Outliers [The Story of Success, the 2008 pop-psychology book by Malcolm Gladwell]? That book has made me realise I can do it. Don’t overthink, just commit those 10,000 hours. Worst-case scenario: I fail. Then I could just delete my Instagram and change my hair. But, luckily for me, that’s not what’s happening. It’s blooming and I’m excited about what I’m doing.

How do you overcome that stress?

I’m passionate about my music, but I also want to be a complete human being, and that takes the pressure off. Finding things I like to do, sports I enjoy playing – [I do] whatever [I have to] to keep myself grounded. Because even when you get to that level you aspire to, if you don’t have that foundation you’re going to be screwed. You’ll either be trying to chase the next big record, the next number one, or you’ll be overwhelmed.

THE RED BULLETIN

SAVANNAH BAKER

“Joy for me is those little things that bring you peace”

Falana

before you can write another album. I’m still an artist, I live and breathe this shit, but it’s just about remembering life.

What are the things that bring you joy on a daily basis?

Sunlight. There’s something about the sun that reminds me of possibility and starting afresh every day. To quote scripture: “This is the day that the Lord has made, we should rejoice and be glad in it.” If it’s a new day, there are new possibilities to meet someone, to do something different, to be a different person; you could learn something new.

I can choose to be excited about those things. I started playing tennis – I even got myself a visor! Someone wrote: “Falana is always happy.” But that’s not true. Shit happens and life is hard. I’m not perfect – I have good days and bad days – but I don’t want to be the kind of person who constantly wears their pain on their chest. I want to draw joy out of people with my energy. Joy for me is not about happiness, it’s that level below, those little things that bring you peace. Today is today and tomorrow is tomorrow.

Learning how to live one day at a time is part of the foundation you need to be a successful, thriving artist, because it’s madness in this industry sometimes.

That’s a refreshing perspective: not tying your self-worth to things outside your control…

Exactly. And it makes for better music.

If you realise you’re a human being, you can write better music about things people can relate to, and your mental health is protected. They say an artist’s first record is their most prolific because it’s the accumulation of their entire life.

Then you have to live the next 15 years THE RED BULLETIN

“Learning how to live one day at a time is something you need to be a successful, thriving artist”

Has that mindset come in handy this past year, especially as a keen traveller?

Everything comes in waves. In terms of creativity, I don’t really ascribe to writer’s block; I just think, “OK, I need a new environment.” To use a tennis analogy: some days your forehand sucks. We just keep moving. The theme of the year was definitely resilience and innovation, doing what we can with what we have: virtual writing sessions, connecting in different ways, working on my patience.

I made a joke to my manager about leaking my album early. He was like, “What?” I told him I was just kidding.

And Joy was meant to be released more than a year ago…

That was my plan. But, not to be clichéd, my plan is not better than God’s plan. In the end, Joy came out at the perfect time.

You want things to happen a certain way, but they never go how you plan. Even if they do, sometimes they still don’t lead where you want to go. So, like in the song, I’m just trying to live one day at a time.

Falana’s single Joy is out now on Red Bull Records, redbullrecords.com; Instagram: @falanamusic 47

In the niche world of flat-track racing, the Hooligan class is filthy, fast and ferocious, open only to those willing to wrestle a roaring 180kg motorcycle built for road racing around dirt-track corners at high speeds. And – despite no experience, funds or backing – two rank outsiders have made it their mission to win the championship Words TONY THOMAS Photography DAVID GOLDMAN

Going hard: there’s no front brake in Hooligan; riders rely on their left leg and a boot clad in a steel shoe for protection

The misfits 49

Rebel racer: Charlie Stockwell, owner of Stockwell Racing.

Opposite: (left) a retro fuel tank; (right) ‘Leftie’, one of Stockwell’s racing friends, in action

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Flat track

The norms of the Hooligan clan dictate that performance is prized over presentation

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n the dirt oval of the Adrian Flux Arena in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, a motorcycle rider dressed in the pristine kit of Stockwell Racing, standing astride a custom HarleyDavidson that’s been crafted with his own hands and ingenuity, is about to find out if he and his machine have what it takes. All around him, thudding V-twin motors of 750cc or more are cracked open to bellow their approval of the race ahead.

Reverberations echo deep and low, in the gut. The rider glances down at the fuel tank below his chest and along his bike’s forks to register unconsciously that this is a machine with no front brake to help contain the power he commands at his right hand.

He’s onstage in a scene typical of any motorsport theatre: it’s raw, it’s loud, and the tang of danger sours the throat. But the air carries a particular scent: the earthy notes of flat-track motorcycle racing.

Charlie Stockwell, who by day plies his trade as one

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of the world’s most acclaimed customisers of HarleyDavidson bikes, is about to start his first race in flat track’s ‘Hooligan’ class, on a machine he finished building only the night before. A dirt track in King’s Lynn suddenly seems a long way from his gleaming showroom on London’s King’s Road. Clad in shiny lid and leathers, on a bike more artfully conceived than anything his rivals can offer, Stockwell has gatecrashed a savage outpost of the already down ’n’ dirty flat-track world. Now he must deliver, or fail very publicly, for the norms of the Hooligan clan dictate that performance is prized over presentation; grit over glam. A slick newcomer wanting to do things their own way is to be regarded with suspicion.

“When Charlie turned up,” says Ross Sharp, flattrack racer and former editor of The Bike Shed, “I thought, ‘There’s Charlie from Warr’s,’ and that it was a Harley-backed factory effort, with his custom Alpinestars leathers and his fancy bike. Then we realised it was just a 20-year-old Sportster he’d put a lot of effort into. That appealed to my take on the 51

Flat track

Doing the honours: Italian riders Sami Panseri and Nico Sorbo wait for their podium places at the end of the day

Roaring ahead: Sami Panseri competes in the Thunderbike category

“The corners come so quickly, it’s terrifying and energy-sapping at the same time” Dust devils: a Thunderbike heat involving Mitch van der Stelt (133) Sami Panseri (85) and Michelle Kroneisl (88)

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Hooligan racing ethos; he brought a ‘garagista’ spirit to an increasingly professional grid.” But as Stockwell is about to find out, Hooligan racing is ferocious.

In a race of under five minutes, he’s almost lapped.

“I was rubbish,” Stockwell confesses. “I jumped in at the deep end – and what a nightmare! After five laps I had severe arm pump, I could hardly breathe, and I was totally worn out. The corners come so bloody quickly it’s terrifying and energy-sapping at the same time. It’s basically horrible.”

B

orn on the dirt ovals of the USA in the 1920s, flat track remains true to its roots as one of the most raw, stark and urgent branches of motorsport on the planet. No million-dollar motorhomes and thousand-army race teams; this is man-and-van territory, where shelter is taken under E-Z UP awnings and catering is straight off the barbie.

Anything fancier would sit ill in a branch of bike racing that glories in its stripped-back authenticity.

While flat track remains apple-pie American and a major draw to spectators across the land, a growing European scene offers ambitious bike racers the chance to enjoy its hardcore thrills without massive cost. Nowhere is this truer than in the Hooligan class, conceived to allow stripped-down, big-engined road bikes to race, with minimal essential modification.

Riding high: three-time European champion Gary Birtwistle is a big name on the Hooligan scene

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“It started in the States when a few guys had some beers and decided to take their standard Harley Softail street bikes onto the track between races to entertain the crowds,” says Sharp. “Despite the mudguards and saddle bags, they were having more fun doing that than normal flat-track racing. The idea was that you could basically pull an old bike out of your shed and race it without any major modifications, so it’s founded on a very amateur spirit. Over the past few years, it has really taken off.”

This is no arena for the anorexic Speedway rockets that have skittered sideways around European ovals for a century. The regulations of the DTRA – Dirt Track Riders Association – demand: “Heavy, bigcapacity road-bike bruisers on tight dirt tracks. The rules are minimal and allow racers to create goodlooking and purposeful customs that are more suitable for racing.” Key provisions are that the bikes are post-1980 models, have engines of at least 750cc, and are modified from a single production machine.

As a consequence, Hooligan racing demands rare physicality, as riders must wrestle with a bike that can weigh more than 180kg and rarely travels in a straight line, while being powered round corners in an extended slide. From start to finish of each brutally intense race, bike and rider skirt disaster, with only a left leg and a boot clad in a steel shoe acting as props against oblivion. “They’re awful things to battle around the track,” says Stockwell. “And if you fall off and get run over by one, they’re heavy bikes to get run over by. They shouldn’t be out there – they’re built for roads, then we take off the front brake and smash them around a track with no grip. It’s everything you shouldn’t do. But that’s where the entertainment is. That’s what creates the buzz. That’s why they call us hooligans. And it’s probably why there are only 10 of us on the grid. But I love it.”

Those who master Hooligan racing are strong and extremely skilled – riders such as 31-year-old Gary Birtwistle, a three-time European champion who has dominated the DTRA series since 2018.

A longtime fan of flat track, and from a family of bike racers, Birtwistle is the recognised master of “treading the fine line between order and chaos” that characterises the series. “I think that’s what I enjoy about it,” he says. “It’s loose beneath you, and you’re making the bike do things it doesn’t want to. You’re pushing it just enough until it bites back, and you’re doing that all the time. You know that you’re making the bike do things it’s not happy about, and eventually it will catch you out, but you try to anticipate it.” The keys to speed are balance and throttle control – familiar tropes in motorsport, but accentuated in Hooligan racing, given the bikes’ unwieldy nature.

As Stockwell came to realise during his first racing exploits, its unique riding demands would force him to relinquish the hot seat to a keener talent – someone capable of making the most of the machine he knew he could build.

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Flat track

Young gun: Stockwell Racing’s 28-year-old star Jake Young gets prepped to ride

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hough he couldn’t have realised it at the time, Stockwell’s Harley odyssey began during boyhood while regularly passing the landmark Warr’s Harley-Davidson dealership on King’s Road. En route to watch Chelsea FC with his dad, or on shopping trips to Oxford Street, he’d gaze through the shopfront at the otherworldly-looking bikes beyond the glass, not imagining that one day this store and its machines would dominate his life.

Come his late teens, he landed a Saturday job at the showroom, via a brother-in-law who worked there, and his role evolved into a full apprenticeship after he quit art school. “I was there cleaning the bikes, sweeping floors and making coffees, and I got hooked,” says Stockwell, now 41. “I fell in love with

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bikes. So I asked them to employ me full-time, and I learned my trade.”

Transferring his artistic skills to the metal beasts that surrounded him, Stockwell rapidly matured into a Harley customiser of world renown; at 19, he convinced his manager that he should be allowed to work on a bike to fulfil a client’s commission.

Having satisfied one customer, “it went from there.

One customer grew to two the next year and it snowballed. Five years in, I started to get an order book up, and it’s been my full-time role ever since”.

Over the past two decades, Stockwell’s reputation has led to commissions from royalty – both the Hollywood kind (Orlando Bloom) and real monarchs (the King of Jordan). But while his artistic bent is 55

Up to speed: riders go full throttle in the Hooligan race

Kicking back: racers and spectators relax with beers as they wait for the podium results

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Flat track

Flat track remains true to its roots as one of the most raw, urgent branches of motorsport on the planet Good to go: Germany’s Heiko Parschick does his last-minute checks before the race

richly satisfied by his custom works, Stockwell’s creative passion lives alongside another: his need for speed, which has found an outlet through numerous strains of bike racing over two decades.

“I needed the adrenalin rush on both sides,” he admits. “The creative and the riding.”

Those twin impulses were destined to fuse once Stockwell discovered Harley-Davidson’s deep involvement in US flat-track racing. It wouldn’t be long before he was lured by the sport’s gritty charms into forming his own race team, running his own handcrafted bikes. Driven partly by his brand fixation, but also by a deep-seated desire to take on the establishment in a niche racing scene, Stockwell hit upon the idea of converting his very own 1999 Harley Sportster into a Hooligan front-runner.

Ill-starred though Stockwell’s quest seemed, he found it easy to rationalise: “I build bikes for people that predominantly have to look amazing, so in a way it was more exciting for me to build something that had to be technically good, not just look good.

And also something that shouldn’t really compete.

I knew I could build a faster bike than these modern ones. So there was a little bit of my cockiness and love of a challenge involved in that.”

Every aspect of the Sportster’s engine and chassis was scrutinised in preparation for its debut: cylinder heads and pistons stripped and refreshed; gear ratios perfected; sprocket sizes calculated; exhausts custom-welded; suspension geometry tweaked…

All this in pursuit of a fast bike with great traction, a fat torque curve and an ability to turn left four times a lap, while nudging 160kph on the short straights with only the single permitted brake, at

“Stockwell Racing has come from nowhere to being the team to watch” 58

the rear, to slow it down. A handful, in other words.

“Throttle control is massive,” confirms Birtwistle, “especially in that moment when you’ve chopped off the throttle and you’re throwing the bike in and it’s pitched sideways and it’s coming in, in, in [to the corner]… and you’re trying to get it stopped by sort of digging the tyres in and turning the front wheel.

A snapshot looks like an accident. I think I like that.”

Not for nothing do elite MotoGP riders such as Valentino Rossi and Marc Márquez use flat track to stay sharp. “The skill set sits between motocross and road-bike racing,” Birtwistle adds. “That’s why the top guys enjoy it. It benefits their racing.”

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or a rider of Stockwell’s road-racing and custom-building background, the challenge of getting up to full Hooligan speed was considerable. Turning up to be almost lapped had never been part of the plan. But on a bright, dry October day in Parchim, northern Germany, Stockwell is armed with his trusty machine once again, and a new plan. He’s joined by flat-track riders from Italy, Holland, Sweden and beyond, who have made their way to the town’s oval track for a day of racing. And with him is his good friend Jake Young.

In his pursuit of success, to prove the Stockwell brand has ‘go’ to match the ‘show’, he’s phoned the emerging enduro star, whose fast-and-loose riding skills marked him out as a name to watch on the UK off-road racing scene. Sharp endorses Young as being “so natural and quick on the bike”. Stockwell and Young had become acquainted through bike racing in 2018 and truly bonded during a 2019 spell together in Australia, where Young, 28, was working as a model and Stockwell with custom-bike clients.

Over “too many beers” at a friend’s house in Sydney, the idea of Young becoming lead rider for what would become Stockwell Racing took hold, with Stockwell stepping out of the saddle to become bike creator, engineer, chief mechanic and mentor.

Young, who’d been racing trials bikes since the age of eight, describes the chance of racing flat track with someone who’d rapidly developed into a “best bud” as “the best ticket I could possibly have had”.

“I’d wanted to race flat track for years, because I loved going sideways on bikes and riding with a big motor,” he says. “It’s what makes flat track such a gnarly sport. But I hadn’t ever worked out how to do it. I’m no bike builder, and flat-track bikes aren’t something you can just buy. And now here’s my mate working out a plan for us to do it together.”

Their madcap, next-to-zero budget scheme gathered pace, and by early May 2019 Young was in Stockwell Racing attire for his first test on a bike newly hand-built by Stockwell, right after returning from Australia. Then, on May 5, just one day after that test ride, Young suffered an accident that shattered his left shin and forced him to temporarily quit racing. The damage was severe: eight ‘zigzag’ fractures requiring 25 screws and extended R&R. THE RED BULLETIN

Flat track

Dog tired: flat-track racers and partners Steph Bolam and Gary Birtwistle take a break with a furry friend between races

As he recovered, Team Stockwell were forced to put the year’s plans on hold and look instead to a 2020 programme of British and European racing. “Then COVID struck,” Young laments – though, as both and he and Stockwell recount, the enforced break from racing bought them time: for Young to heal, for Stockwell to plan further bike modifications, and for both to gel as a professional partnership.

“I didn’t think I’d be able to win a race,” says Stockwell. “But I was sure that, as Jake is such a wild rider, I could train him from what I’d learnt. I thought that with my belief and J’s raw talent we could win the championship. I realised this would be a steep learning curve, but that encouraged me to learn everything about how to do it, how to build the bike, how to make it better, then how to communicate with Jake so when he got off the bike he could tell me how it felt and I could correct it technically. I had to [instil] faith that I do know what I’m talking about, even though I couldn’t show him on track. We probably spent more time talking then we did on the bike.”

After managing just one UK race in 2020, this competition in Parchim is a rare chance in a sea of event cancellations for Stockwell Racing to show what they’re made of. Predictably, given the againstall-odds nature of Stockwell Racing’s escapades to date, the run-up to the German trip hasn’t gone to plan. Money is so tight that Stockwell has deemed “fresh tyres more important than food,” while the plane tickets have been bought by his girlfriend.

On race-day morning, Stockwell and Young are readying the bikes at their spot among packed vans, tents, tarps and fold-out chairs. Alongside them are familiar faces from the UK, including Birtwistle and his partner Stephanie Bolam – who he met through riding, and who races flat track on a vintage Bultaco THE RED BULLETIN

– all preparing for the day’s action. But Young’s mojo has vanished after being unable to find his groove during warm-ups on a track longer – and therefore faster – than anything he’s used to. He’s slow.

Stockwell applies some none-too-subtle psychology to switch Young back on: “[Jake] was awful,” he says, “so I just stood around watching his technique, took him to the side and explained to him, ‘Look, you’re too timid going into the corners. You’ve got to go harder, faster, get the bike sideways and you’ll get around that corner with a lot more speed.’ To tell someone on the border of crashing they’ve got to go into corners harder, faster and more aggressive… he looked at me like, ‘Are you taking the piss?’ But he gave it a go.” Young has his own take: “Charlie told me to settle for fourth, when all we’d discussed beforehand was how we were going for the win. And I was so pissed off with him for even considering it!”

The tactic works: following a dust-inducing performance, Young comes in second. Only Hooligan supremo Birtwistle finishes ahead of this most unlikely racing duo – by just 0.3 seconds – a result that has Stockwell shedding tears of joy and relief as Young crosses the line. “To go from last to knocking on the door of first place was pretty special,” says Young. “It shows the level of trust we’ve been able to build up in each other’s very different talents.”

The result also confirmed the credibility of Stockwell Racing to a sceptical fraternity not given to welcoming outsiders. And once you’re in, the flattrack community is tight-knit. Says Bolam of her own experience, “When I started, nobody was like, ‘Oh my God, you’re a girl. I think it was initially quite a humiliating experience for Charlie when he started racing, but when you look at his competition… those boys are rapid! It’s such a great sport to get involved in. The whole scene is really like a family.”

While the bold entry of Stockwell Racing onto the scene caused a few heads to turn back in 2018, Young and Stockwell are now firmly ensconced, having carved their own distinct niche. “There’s no doubt we are the misfits. We’re still learning flat track,” says Stockwell on the shift in attitude since he started racing Hooligans. “But we’ve come from nowhere to being the team to watch. There was a bit of piss-taking. And then it was, ‘Actually, these guys are pretty serious.’ But we try to be a bit more of the rebellious side of the paddock: go in, race hard, do well, and have fun at the same time.”

Pandemic permitting, that podium finish will serve as the platform to launch Stockwell Racing on to greater things during 2021, with a mix of British and European racing planned through to October. Unsurprisingly, Stockwell’s ‘garagista’ spirit is stronger than ever: “The goal is to rock up with 20-year-old bikes that we’ve built ourselves and crush the opposition,” he laughs. “We don’t really know what we’re doing; we’ve never done it before. But we’re going to win.”

Instagram: @StockwellRacing; @gary_birtwistle; @rosscosharp; @stephbolam 59

Built for speed: Elijah Hall (left) and Cameron Burrell, photographed in Houston, Texas, in March this year

Double quick

Sprinters ELIJAH HALL and CAMERON BURRELL are fierce competitors. They’re also old school friends and lifelong training partners.

Now they’re working together to get to Japan Words MAURICE BOBB Photography BRIAN LOWE

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Sprinting

Consider sporting history’s more prophetic moments.

Baseball legend Babe Ruth’s famous ‘called shot’ during the New York Yankees’ 1932 World Series game against the Chicago Cubs, when he gestured to the bleachers before belting a home run beyond them and into the street.

Anthony Joshua’s “victory is written all over me” guarantee ahead of beating Wladimir Klitschko to unify the WBA and IBF boxing heavyweight titles in 2017.

Jose Mourinho’s proclamation in 2004 that in the field of football management he was “a special one”, before leading Chelsea FC to their first major domestic trophy in 50 years. The outrageous gold running spikes Michael Johnson wore for his unprecedented triumph in both the 200m and 400m at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

It wasn’t just that they’d stepped up to win their respective championships, it

was how they added to their mythology by backing up their bold predictions.

Elijah Hall, a 26-year old US professional sprinter still racing towards his own legend, remembers his own prophetic moment like it was yesterday.

It was during his senior year at the University of Houston (UH). The men’s track team was at their hotel in Eugene, Oregon, eating breakfast before the 2018 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Championships, and Hall had the idea that he and his relay teammates would do the impossible that day: break the collegiate record in the 4x100m.

Unlike the Sultan of Swat, AJ, the Special One or The Man With the Golden Shoes, there was no hubris in Hall’s bold prediction. He was simply filled with the confidence of preparation, which prompted him to write down the time ‘38.19 seconds’ on a napkin. “This is the time we’re going to run today,” he said, matter-of-factly.

His teammate and longtime friend Cameron Burrell understood the audacity of Hall’s statement – the Texas Christian University men’s team had held the collegiate record since 1989 with a time of 38.23s. “That’s fast, but...

OK,” Burrell said.

The weather that day was not optimal. It was a chilly 15°C and there were dark grey clouds hovering over the historic Hayward Field circuit.

Then it began to rain. It wasn’t quite

a downpour, but enough to make things very uncomfortable. “It wasn’t recordbreaking weather,” recalls Burrell, also 26. “But that morning we knew we had something special, we had momentum, and we believed.”

They also had new uniforms and new shoes. But, most crucially, they’d just had a fresh pep talk from a former fastest man in the world, Carl Lewis. The ninetime Olympic gold-medal winner and twice record holder in the 100m was Burrell’s godfather. He was also in his seventh season as Houston’s full-time assistant coach, under Leroy Burrell – another two-time world-record setter in the 100m, and the father of Cameron.

As the anchor leg [the final runner in a relay team], the younger Burrell was able to watch the race unfold before his eyes. He couldn’t believe what he saw. There was an electric performance by all the runners.

“John Lewis [no relation to Carl] ran the race of his life,” Burrell remembers.

“Eli gets the baton, adjusting it while running, but at the same time he’s blowing people out and I’m like, ‘You gotta be kidding me.’ He made a clean exchange to [teammate] Mario Burke and at that point I got into my threepoint stance and just ran with the spirit.

When I crossed the finish line and looked at the clock, it said 38.17s.”

“That was one of the proudest moments of my life,” Hall adds. “To run

Opposite: the son of Olympic champions, Burrell was destined for sprint greatness.

Left: hampered by poor grades, Hall’s route to success was more circuitous

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“Eli and I have a relationship built on sheer competitiveness”

Sprinting

on the same team with Cam and break a record that had stood for 29 years.

We really did that, on the biggest stage in college.”

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othing creates a bond between athletes quite like winning together. Burrell and Hall began their friendship as children, running together for the Carl Lewis Athletics Stars Track Club in Houston.

“At the time, Cam and I weren’t the fastest kids,” Hall says. “But once we got to eighth grade we started to make that pop. Everyone was like, ‘These guys are really fast.’ When we got to high school we were pretty much winning everything in summer track.

Either I was anchor leg or he was, but we were always on the same relay team, and that’s how Cam and I formed a bond growing up.”

Burrell and Hall’s alliance spilled over into high school, even though they both went to different schools.

“Eli and I have won at every stage of our careers,” Burrell says. “We won the Junior Olympics when we were kids, and in high school we were both Texas state champions. I was the 4A state champion because I went to a smaller school [4A is a classification of school size] and he was the 5A state champion.

Over the years, we’ve built a bond that instils a camaraderie that can’t be broken, and we’ve continuously built off each other.”

After high school, though, both sprinters charted very different paths.

Burrell was intensely recruited, in large part because his parents were trackand-field royalty – his mother, Michelle Finn-Burrell, and father both have gold medals from the 1992 Olympics for their wins with the women’s and men’s 4x100m relay teams. “I got phone calls from rival schools – they even came to my house,” he says, revealing he ultimately decided to run for his father at the University of Houston. “I knew the best thing that was going to happen for me was staying here. Not necessarily because I’d be comfortable, but because I know that at the end of the day they have my best interests at heart.”

Most track-and-field fans would feel that running for Houston was Burrell’s birthright, especially considering his father and godfather ran the programme, but it was about more than that. “It was ultimately 64

“I’m not going to let the next man beat me. If he wants to, he’ll have to break a record on me” In Hall’s mind, the race doesn’t begin until he’s 50m in – that’s when he zeroes in on what it will take to win

Sprinting

a business decision,” Burrell says. “There are a lot of bad coaches out there whose minds are only on the NCAAs, and if that’s what they want out of these athletes, it’s bad. A lot of athletes sign with these big schools without realising that these coaches, in the grand scheme of things, are employees trying to keep a job. I knew at Houston it could be better for me.”

Hall was also highly sought after by the nation’s best colleges, but unlike Burrell his grades weren’t up to par, so he had to take a detour. “Out of high school, the talent was there,” says Hall.

“I ran the nation’s number one time in the 200m [20.60s in 2018], but because I had three kids [Alaiya, Taliya and Elijah Jr] by the time I finished high school, the focus in class wasn’t there. It was hard trying to overcome growing up as a teenager with kids, and it was a struggle to make the grades I needed.”

As a consequence, Hall had to attend junior college – two years of post-highschool education – to work his way to uni.

Butler Community College in Kansas was a long way from his home in Katy, Texas, and even farther from where Hall wanted to be. It was the ‘do I really want this?’ moment he desperately needed.

“Junior college humbled me, because I was a young kid who wanted to be older and it made me take a step back and settle down,” he says. “I had to focus in class and get my grades right so I could get into UH.” Still, Hall says, he wouldn’t change a thing. “That journey made me who I am today, because being in junior college is another level. I salute everyone who goes into ‘juco’ and makes it out, because I know the struggle – it’s hard.”

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hey say that those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach. But what about those who win at the highest level and then choose to pass on that experiential knowledge to the next generation? Coaches Leroy Burrell and Carl Lewis are a repudiation of such tired sports adages.

These are no ordinary talents. Burrell has one Olympic gold medal, three medals at the World Championships (two gold, one silver) and broke the 100m world record in 1991 (9.90s) and 1994 (9.85s). Lewis has 10 Olympic medals (nine gold, one silver) and 10 medals at the World Championships (eight gold, one silver, one bronze), and he set individual 100m world 66

records in 1988 (9.93s) and 1991 (9.86s). These guys can and did, and now they want to make sure the student athletes under their tutelage at the University of Houston do it, too.

No wonder Hall worked so hard to get back to Houston – he wanted to learn everything he could from two of the best.

“I’ve always been fast, but coach Burrell and coach Lewis taught me the mechanics of running,” Hall says. “How to stay front side, to get my arms back, my arms up. The thing I learned from coach Burrell is to respect the body. If you don’t, the only person you’re going to hurt is you. Coach Lewis instilled in me the right way to run. Once you learn

that, training can be easier, track meets will be easier, everything is easier.”

Learning those fundamentals paid off big-time for Hall. By the time he’d graduated from Houston after just two years, he’d made an indelible mark with a lot of hardware in the school’s trophy case, been named the American Athletic Conference’s Most Outstanding Track Athlete (in 2017), and he remains the school record holder for the indoor 200m and 4x400m relay. He also won the AAC Outdoor Championship in the 100m, 200m, 4x100m relay and the 4x400m relay. “Coach Burrell and coach Lewis helped me grow into the man I am today; they were like father figures,” he says.

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“Carl Lewis’ brain is a superpower.

We would always find a way to win” competitiveness from Carl. Carl taught me how to be a genuine life competitor and be better than the next man.”

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Top-level talent: track-and-field royalty Carl Lewis (far left) and Leroy Burrell (far right) are coaches on the University of Houston programme, known as SpeedCity

“They taught me to be more responsible about my life on and off the track.”

Meanwhile, the younger Burrell spent five years at Houston. He was equally as successful as a collegiate athlete, setting school records in the 60m, 100m and 4x400m relay. He also ran anchor for the 4x100m relay team that won Houston the NCAA Championship in 2017 and 2018. It’s an early sprinting career that anyone would envy, but that is only a fraction of what he gained as the son of a man who broke the 100m world record twice.

“My dad taught me resilience,” Burrell says. “He’s been through a lot in his life – as a young adult and as a coach – but THE RED BULLETIN

he never quit on himself, never hung his head. He still doesn’t. When things get hard, he gets more determined. It’s one of those things he didn’t have to teach me; he just did it, and I was like, ‘OK, this is how you operate within this world and this sport.’ I caught on to his behavioural patterns when I was young and was able to accomplish a lot.”

As for the man who won four gold medals in a single Olympics in 1984?

Carl Lewis taught his godson to be a fierce competitor. “His brain is his superpower,” Burrell says. “No matter what, he was always going to find a way to win. So I get a good combination of the resilience of my dad and

very 100m race is divided into four phases: start, acceleration, transition, and maximum velocity.

As a professional sprinter, Hall pursues the mastery of those phases to the point where it becomes second nature. “When I get into the starting blocks, I visualise myself running the perfect race,” he says.

“I get down, take a deep breath, zone in, look down my lane, and rest on the fact that I’ve prepared for this moment and the only thing that can stop me is me.”

When the starter pistol is fired, Hall’s mind goes blank and all he can think is ‘go!’. “I’m staring that finish line down,” he says. “I’m not looking side to side, not looking backwards or at anyone’s feet. I’m just trying to get there before anyone else.”

In his mind, Hall’s race doesn’t begin until he’s 50m in. That’s when he has an idea of how he’s going to place. The last 40m are when he focuses on his form and zeroes in on what he needs to do to finish the race strong. “I’m not going to let the next man beat me,” Hall says.

“And if he wants to, he’s going to have to break a record on me.”

For Burrell, sprinting is like chess, thinking several moves ahead to run the perfect race. “I talk to myself when I run,” he says. “I know what’s right and what’s wrong. I know I need to gradually accelerate, to stroke my arms, to put my feet down. I know I need to open up, to turn over. I’m in a constant state of knowing what I’m doing.”

For elite 100m runners, those 10 seconds or less seem to stretch out to a minute. “Brilliant athletes can slow things down,” Burrell says. “Your brain is a powerful tool. You consciously slow time down to check your body, your posture, your positioning, your acceleration, your turnover – it’s all happening simultaneously, and it’s brilliant when executed properly.”

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Flying start: Hall admits to a weakness out of the blocks, so he targets this in training to help improve his technique

Sprinting

Ready to haul: Burrell trains hard at the University of Houston with one eye set on representing his country at this year’s Tokyo Olympics

“If you don’t respect your body, the only person you’ll hurt is you” All those moving parts require a level of mental acuity that few athletes possess.

“Track is very technical,” Burrell says.

“You can get into the science and the anatomy of the body – the strength, agility, explosiveness and all that stuff – but it starts with your brain. That’s the biggest thing my coaches instilled in me, because technique can be fixed; arm swings, block starts and endurance can be fixed; but if you don’t have a sound mind, you’re wasting your time.”

T

he Olympics have a way of capturing the world’s imagination every four years. But what about the time in between? Athletes toil away in virtual anonymity as they prepare themselves for a place on the world stage and for what they hope may be sporting immortality.

“It’s always been my ultimate goal to stand on that podium,” says Hall, who aspires to compete in the 100m and the

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200m at the Games. “Representing [the US] means a lot to me, because I have family members who fought and gave their all for this country. As athletes, I feel we have a duty to represent our country the right way.”

Hall understands the spirit of the games, but to make it he’ll first have to dig deep and deliver at the US Olympic Trials. Luckily, he has a lifelong teammate and opponent in Burrell. “Eli and I have a relationship built on sheer competitiveness,” he says. “And the way it works is interesting, because we strengthen each other’s weaknesses.

“Eli was an excellent 200m sprinter; I was not. I had a very explosive block start and was an explosive 100m sprinter; he was not. He would beat me in the longer races, and I would beat him in the shorter ones. We’d run relays together; I’d be first leg, he’d be last leg.

Over the years we’ve got better and better at each of our weaknesses, and whatever one of us was lacking, the other would pick up.”

Hall admits to his weakness out of the blocks, so he spends countless hours shoring up on his technique. “The real work is done when you’re alone practising and no one is looking,” he says. “When there is no audience, no cameras – that’s when you get the most out of yourself. I love the bright lights

at the track meet, because I know I put in the work at practice. If you put in the right work, when it’s time to race you’ll be having fun.”

Like his father, Burrell has already broken the 10-second barrier in the 100m, running an impressive 9.93s in the preliminary heats at the 2017 NCAA Championships. “My first time breaking the barrier was a school record at UH, then the next year I did the same thing twice,” he says. “I know what that feels like and what it takes to get there, but I want more – I want to get to 9.8s. Now we’re doing that kind of work.”

With so much success between them, many observers think Burrell and Hall may both find a way to wear the red, white and blue this summer.

“Eli and I are both NCAA champions,” Burrell says. “There is no reason why we can’t do the same thing now as professionals. Eli and I have had the luxury and the privilege of doing this at a high level for a very long time.

And over the years we’ve constantly made each other better and found ways to inspire each other.

“No matter where we come from, no matter what we do, what we think, we’re able to push each other. It’s like a Superman and Batman relationship.”

Instagram: @camxburrell; @_elihall 69

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RIDE THE MOUNTAIN KINGDOM Lesotho, Africa

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VENTURE Travel

“Anyone can drive on a road, but you separate the wheat from the chaff off-road, and here in Lesotho barely any of the roads are sealed” Alfie Cox, enduro champion

I

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terrain is sparsely populated, and barely any roads are sealed. Today’s Roof of Africa no longer takes place on the ‘worst road’ – there’s no road at all, just trails at best. Over 40 years, I’ve ridden ParisDakar, America, Dubai, China, you name it, but if anyone asks me what the musthave singletrack experience is, I say, “Let’s meet up in the South African coastal city of Durban and do a huge loop to Lesotho and back.” And I’m true to my word. As a Destination Red Bull guide, I tour guests around this countryside by motorbike for a week at a time. Every day is worth it.

Reading up on Lesotho is the perfect way to prepare for the trip. First thing to know – it’s pronounced Le-soo-too. This

constitutional monarchy of more than two million people is landlocked on all sides by South Africa, and more than 80 per cent of its 30,000sq-km lies 1,800m above sea level. Its highest point, the mountain of Thabana Ntlenyana in Mokhotlong, rises to 3,482m.

As a former KTM team rider and now official distributor for the brand in Durban, I provide the bikes for the trip.

You bring your own kit: helmet, leathers, hydration pack. At 58 years old, I don’t really camp any more – and that’s not even taking into account the wildlife, which isn’t always harmless – so we send the baggage on ahead and spend every night in a hotel. We cover about 350km a day THE RED BULLETIN

WERNER JESSNER

Rugged beauty: Alfie Cox leads tours along Lesotho’s sometimes punishing roads

PICTUREDESK.COM, KEVIN SAWYER, ALAMY

first competed in the Roof of Africa back in 1985. I was in my early twenties and knew nothing about it.

But I came second and realised this was my calling. I also discovered this three-day, 280km, cross-country motorbike race is aptly named, following treacherous mountain paths in the only independent state in the world that sits entirely above an elevation of 1,000m.

Even the lowest point here in the landlocked Kingdom of Lesotho is above 1,400m – the highest lowest point of any country. But the race also has another name: “the mother of all hard enduro races”, and with good reason.

If it weren’t for the Roof of Africa there’d be no Erzbergrodeo, no Red Bull Romaniacs, perhaps not even the legendary Dakar Rally. I’m not saying that because I’m a nine-time winner of this enduro race and have gone on to organise it myself, but simply because it came before all the others. When the first Paris-Dakar was held in 1979, the organisers already had the Roof of Africa experience to fall back on. Its origins date back to 1967, when highway engineer Bob Phillips asked the Sports Car Club in Johannesburg if they’d like to race on a road he’d just finished constructing from the camptown of Butha-Buthe, up the steep Moteng Pass, to the top of Mokhotlong. He openly dubbed it “the worst road in South Africa”.

We enduro riders know bad roads are good roads, exciting roads. Ideally singletrack, over grassland, through gravel.

Anyone can drive on a road, but you separate the wheat from the chaff offroad, and here in South Africa and Lesotho we have plenty of that. The

VENTURE Travel

Getting there Pretoria

Maseru

Lesotho South Africa

Durban

King Shaka International Airport in Durban, South Africa – opened in 2010 for the World Cup – services the area with regular flights by British Airways, Turkish Airlines and Emirates, among others. As the lowest point of the journey is at sea level and the highest is at an altitude of more than 3,000m, it’s advised to take an adaptable enduro jacket, an additional windstopper, and an extra pair of warm enduro gloves.

Trips will take place in autumn 2021 (dates to be confirmed), organised by Destination Red Bull’s travel specialists The Travel Birds.

destination.redbull.com

Mountain king: your guide, nine-time Roof of Africa winner Alfie Cox

Lesotho lessons Three tips for your trip

Lesotho and even features on the flag (pictured). You can buy keyring-sized trinkets of the hat everywhere in the country.

Braai

Mokorotlo

Raise your glass: you’re guaranteed a high time at Sani Mountain Lodge THE RED BULLETIN

Also known as the Basotho hat – after the tribe who wear it – this hand-woven straw headwear is the national symbol of

This is the South African equivalent of the barbecue. First, get the camel-thorn wood glowing, then throw boerewors (a type of curly, spiced beef sausage) ostrich, springbok or kudu – both indigenous species of antelope – onto the grill.

Sani Mountain Lodge

At an altitude of 2,874m, this is the highest pub in all of Africa – and you’ll pay it a visit on the trip. The signature dish of the lodge is pizza with biltong, mature Cheddar, chilli and thyme. Much-needed sustenance for the downhill leg of the journey.

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VENTURE Travel

Pick your horse As a KTM dealer, Cox gives his guests a choice of bikes, from a KTM 390 or KTM 690 Enduro R through to a full-blown KTM 890 Adventure R (pictured). “Some riders find the big 890 a bit intimidating,” he says. “And some want the same bike they have at home. Whatever they feel more comfortable with.

During the trip, they can try a different ride. It’s a great way to test out the KTMs.”

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would have finished that year. We’re still friends to this day.

When you’re riding in summer – Europe’s autumn – the weather can be unpredictable. I remember a race in 1988 when a river burst its banks due to heavy rain. It was only 15m wide, but it was 2m deep, so there was no way you could ride through it. The only thing to do was swim through and drag the bike behind you with one hand. Once we got to the other shore, we had to turn the bikes upside down to drain the water out. Then, soaked to the skin, we removed the air filters, cleaned the carburettors and dried the spark plugs. Just as well I’m a trained mechanic.

“You’d be hardpushed to find a more spectacular, varied landscape”

Today, I can still look up the canyon and see the donkey trails from those early years. No 4x4 can go up there. I get great flashbacks to those races across the mountain kingdom. Back then, I had to concentrate on what was in front of me, but you’ll have time to stop and take in the views. On a clear day, atop the world, you can see for a long way.

Whatever memories you take from this trip – whether it’s climbing 1,332 vertical metres up the Sani mountain pass, spending the night by the 185m-tall Katse Dam, or enjoying a traditional braai (that’s Afrikaans for barbecue) at my place before we start off – there’s one thing you can be sure of: sitting on a beachfront at Umhlanga, near Durban, on the last day, drinking to what has been an unforgettable week.

Alfie Cox is a South African enduro rider and desert racing legend who has won numerous races, including his class at the Baja 1000, and multiple podiums at Dakar; alfiecox.co.za THE RED BULLETIN

KTM

on our KTMs, mostly on unpaved tracks.

That’s five or six hours in the saddle or, better still, standing on the foot pegs.

You’d be hard-pushed to find somewhere else with such a spectacular and varied landscape. Each day brings something different: the lush, green Drakensberg escarpment, the barren red rock of the Semonkong canyon, the almost 1,000m-high Tugela Falls – the world’s second tallest – the turquoise water of the Indian Ocean, and the snowcapped mountains near Baboons Pass.

People are even welcome to go skiing if they still have the energy after a day in the saddle. I’m not joking; we’ll pass Afriski, the only skiing resort in Lesotho, and at an altitude of about 3000m you’re guaranteed snow. In the 1990s, it snowed so heavily during one race that Baboons Pass became near impassable.

A huge German guy, Bert von Zitzewitz, ploughed his way up through the mountain and left a trail. If it wasn’t for his snow-clearing abilities, no one

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VENTURE Equipment

Head strong You wouldn’t take a flimsy bike onto the mountain.

Choose your helmet with the same respect 76

If the human skull was made in a factory, it would be a marvel of engineering.

Near full-sized when we’re born, its 22 bones continue to fuse together into early adulthood, creating a strong shell, but not one you’d want to test on the hard floor of a woodland trail. While the skull has stayed relatively unchanged for around 300,000 years, the bike helmet has rapidly evolved from the polystyrene caps of the 1970s. Here is the pinnacle of MTB head protection…

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TIM KENT

PROTECT

VENTURE Equipment Motocross racer Troy Lee began painting helmets in the ’80s.

As his studio was a hanger, Lee was required to do planes, too. He’s still painting lids, but not aircraft

Above: TROY LEE DESIGNS A3 helmet, troyleedesigns.com. Much like the human skull, the A3 comprises various parts locked together to create a fortress for your brain. Its outer shell is made from co-moulded expanded polystyrene (EPS) and polypropylene (EPP) for low- and high-speed impacts.

Beneath that is a MIPS (multi-directional impact protection system) liner, reducing rotational motion caused by angled impacts. This tightens to fit via a dial. Sixteen vents and a sweat management system keep you cool.

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Opposite page (left to right, from top): ENDURA SingleTrack Helmet II, endurasport.com; TSG Scope Special Makeup with EPS shock absorption inside a polycarbonate shell, ridetsg.com; SCOTT SPORTS Stego Plus with MIPS, scott-sports.com; 100% Altec with Smartshock suspended rotational shock absorbers between shell and liner, 100percent.com; SIXSIXONE EVO AM with MIPS, sixsixone.com; MET Terranova with Safe-T Duo secure-fit system, met-helmets.com; TROY LEE DESIGNS A3 in silver

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VENTURE Gaming and make people interact with information. Using a game that combines both those elements creates space for something new.”

Gamify your day

Game of life Solving all the world’s problems is obviously a massive task, but, as this game designer reveals, finding important answers can be fun In the face of a global crisis, game designers aren’t the first responders you’d think to call. But a new generation of gamers are helping scientists tackle big real-world questions – from gene mutation to outerspace exploration to recycling – by breaking them down into fun, digestible puzzles.

Take online puzzle game Foldit. In 2011, its thousands of players discovered the cause of an AIDS-like disease in monkeys in just three weeks of play. Until then, the problem had remained unsolved for 15 years. The human brain’s capacity for reasoning and 78

pattern identification provided out-of the-box thinking that a computer algorithm couldn’t match. Then, this March, a collective of gamers in London took on the climate crisis.

The Now Play This festival of experimental games design asked scientific researchers, gamers and artists to play together, building fantasy environmental landscapes and responding to a simulated UN climate negotiation, to see what they could learn. One workshop was hosted by Jana Wendler, a game designer and urban geographer who teaches people to consider modern city life through play. Missing, her 2018 online game about loneliness, examined how we find missing people, and she has challenged the issues of bureaucratic red tape with Box Society, a game made of cardboard boxes and feathers.

Of course, the climate crisis isn’t something that can be fixed in just four days, but, says Wendler, by tackling big issues through play we can all become invested in making the world a better place, while also improving our daily lives.

Big decisions we wouldn’t feel comfortable making in real life are easier to try out safely in a game, explains Wendler. “It lets people change things with no real-world consequence.

That inspires confidence in activism and work outside of the game. When you’re playing, you’re interacting with the world, its people and its ideas.”

In real life, we’re all limited to our own viewpoint, but games let us see things from another perspective. “You can play the evil character to see where that goes. With games, we can examine narratives through fun. In a disaster game, there is a hero who’ll save us, but that’s not how we’ll tackle climate change. So, what else can be explored in games?

Bringing in indigenous perspectives, for example.”

Work together

Go create

Activism and chill

“Games have so much potential for bringing together different perspectives,” says Wendler about the social interactivity of play. “It can be hard for researchers to convey the scientific information they want to share. Meanwhile, game designers tell stories

“When you’re playing, you’re interacting with the world”

Gamification requires nothing more than seeing the physical world in a more playful way.

“Forget the idea that you have to learn to code and use complicated graphics to be a gamer. Repurpose the things around you. You don’t need anything fancy – you can make cool things out of cardboard.

Just put an LED in a bottle cap and you have a little glowing prop to play with. Be silly with things that are already there and see where they lead you.”

The annual Now Play This festival takes place at Somerset House in London; nowplaythis.net. See Jana Wendler’s science-based gaming work at playfuel.co.uk THE RED BULLETIN

LOU BOYD

CREATE

Be someone else

ALEKSEY KOLMAKOV, GRETA SANTAGATA

Breaking new ground: sustainable-mining board game Ecologic, created

by Russian scientific researchers Marat Sabirov and Alexey Kolmakov

Taking everyday tasks and applying a points system can increase productivity. “From a game-design background, you would call this gamification.

There are digital games where you can achieve certain levels by doing the washing-up.” And don’t worry if you’d rather not sit in front of a screen; you can apply gamification to a simple walk. “Randomise your route and see what happens. It’s not what people generally think of as a game, but it’s a way to unlock your curiosity during something really familiar.”

VENTURE Gaming

The separately purchasable ‘motion controller’ is best advised for expert acrobatic flyers.

It has an emergency button for instant ‘stop and hover’

FLY

Hawk eye

DJI

TOM GUISE

A drone, by definition, has no onboard pilot. But what if you could experience the sensation of flight from inside one? This is as close as it gets…

First-person-view (FPV) drones aren’t new. Ever since drone racing – where pilots livestream, via goggles, from a mounted camera on the vehicle – began in 2011, the market has grown. But unless you’re minted or a DIY tinkerer, it’s remained the territory of pro pilots. Until now. The DJI FPV is the first affordable (£1,249) ready-to-fly rig, its 4K, 60fps, 150° camera linked to an ultra-low-latency binocular headset. The console-style controller allows a novice to quickly enjoy speeds of up to 50kph. In Sport mode you get almost 100kph with autostabilisation, but for Top Guns there’s Manual, with total throttle control for flips and rolls at up to 155kph. dji.com THE RED BULLETIN

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VENTURE Fitness TRAIN

Jumping ahead In the ever-changing world of fitness, skipping might seem like – literally – old rope.

But here’s a technologically advanced update

The skipping rope is perhaps the simplest and most enduring piece of fitness equipment, and likely the first we’re introduced to, on the school playground. And yet there are few cardiovascular workouts that can beat a good jumprope session. Capable of burning 20 calories a minute, a 10-minute skip is equivalent to running an eight-minute mile, with less stress on your joints. It works your abdominals, arms and shoulders, too, and improves stamina, coordination and focus. It can, however, get a bit boring. Enter Tangram Factory’s SmartRope to add some pizazz and smartphoneconnected motivation. Motion sensors track your jumps and activity over time, relaying them to an app that calculates your calorie burn and connects you to a whole community of avid skippers. Meanwhile, LEDs embedded in the rope stereoscopically display your jump count in the air in front of you, while alloy bearings in the handle make for frictionless movement that’s easier on the wrists. The only thing it doesn’t do is sing skipping chants. tangramfactory.com 80

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LOU BOYD

Available in four handle colours, the SmartRope is fully charged via micro USB in two hours, This provides 36 hours of active exercise

VENTURE Fitness

DAVID MULLIS/1ST PHORM, DAVID PULLIS

MATT RAY

J

ames Lawrence likes to be called the ‘Iron Cowboy’, but don’t mock him for it; the 45-year-old triathlete doesn’t care for your criticism. In 2015, he undertook 50 Ironmandistance triathlons – a 3.9km swim, 180.2km bike ride and 42.2km run – on consecutive days across 50 US states. It earned the Canadian a 2016 documentary – Iron Cowboy: the Story of the 50.50.50 – a runaway social-media following, and, he claims, a cease-and-desist from the World Triathlon Association over a trademark. “You’re surrounded by a million silent supporters and a few haters,” he says. “You learn to ignore them and find humour when people are critical.”

The Iron Cowboy deals with dissenters by upping the ante.

His latest paradigm-shifting challenge is 100 triathlons in 100 consecutive days, and, as before, this grassroots attempt is unsanctioned by the official body of a sport that doesn’t seem to want to recognise his disruptive capacity for megaendurance. But Lawrence isn’t after validation; his motivation is pushing his own belief in what he’s capable of. “Why not 75 full-length triathlons?” he says of attempting to double a record that no one else is remotely close to overhauling.

“I wouldn’t have respected the journey as much if we went from 50 to 75. But I really, really respect the number 100. Saying you’re going to do a 15-year career in 100 days scares the hell out of anybody.

I wanted that atmosphere of urgency and respect.”

He aims to complete his ‘Conquer 100’ challenge on June 8. But, whatever happens on the way, just setting out to race more than 22,600km – or five-and-a-half times the width of the US – for 14 hours a day over 14 weeks requires a level of audacity that’s inspirational. Here’s what Lawrence can teach us about self-motivation…

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Pace cowboy: no challenge is too big for Lawrence

BUILD

Iron-clad confidence

Most of us would do well to complete one full-distance triathlon in our lifetime. This man aims to smash 100 in as many days

Defeat your doubters

Perhaps surprisingly, the first sceptic Lawrence had to convince was inside himself.

For Conquer 100, he’s working with a psychologist, who proposed asking himself on each day of the challenge, “What do you think are your chances of finishing?” “I said, ‘We can take that question off the table, because my answer

“To succeed, I had to remove the chaos”

will always be 1,000 per cent,’” says Lawrence. “If I thought it, then vocalised it, then put it in a questionnaire, it would derail my confidence – a thought put into space becomes reality.”

through days 20-30 he will actually get stronger. “The mind and body are amazing in the right environments.

They can adapt under such extreme circumstances.”

Iron it out

Only fools rush in

One lesson Lawrence took from his previous feat was that his greatest foe wasn’t physical or even mental, it was unpredictability. Fifty states meant too much travel – his body broke down; he lost six toenails; tendons and ligaments disintegrated; he had gut issues, blisters and saddle sores. “The answer,” he says, “was to remove the chaos.” He stripped out the variables, racing a fixed course in his home of Utah and hiring a team to give massages and place him in a hyperbaric chamber at night, optimising his recovery time. Experience tells him that if he can break

Think Lawrence’s ambitions are far beyond your own?

Consider this: his first step to becoming an ultra-endurance athlete was a 6.5K fun run. At the time, he’d never heard of Ironman. “Everyone wants to jump right into a triathlon, but start small, learn to swim, then sprint, then do an Olympic distance. Be patient. Don’t feel entitled to the success that people have been working towards for 10 years. That applies to all areas of life.

Triathlon is just a metaphor.”

Follow Lawrence’s Conquer 100 challenge via his Instagram (@ironcowboyjames) and at ironcowboy.com 81

VENTURE How to...

Pull out a rabbit

“I’ve been performing magic for 20 years. It takes time to hone your craft – one line or beat [the dialogue and pace] can take six months. But online I’ve had to change an entire show 90 seconds before going live to 1,000 people. Their corporate client platform wouldn’t accept my third-party program, so I had to quickly find an old webcam and a tripod. But then I no longer had access to the multiple camera angles the show relied on. Of course, I had to act like I was calm and organised. They had no idea there were problems.”

ADAPT

Conjure up new tricks When live events across the world performed a vanishing act, this magician was under no illusions about what he had to do…

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his art. “In a live performance I can control people’s attention with misdirection, so a fixed lens was a trap for me. But I soon realised that being able to drop out of frame has its advantages, allowing for things you’d struggle to do live.”

The shows were a hit. By Christmas, Flanagan had more than 80 bookings across the world in just one month. “It’s taught me perseverance and resilience,” he says. “I’m not a big risk-taker, but I had no other option. The reward was absolute elation.” Here are the lessons that this sorcerer learned from his lockdown apprenticeship…

Shuffle your deck

“I had no idea if I could translate what I do to the virtual world. I didn’t want the audience just watching me do magic. So I thought, ‘Everyone has a phone – what if I got them to create a number on the calculator?

Or pick random words on a website?’ I’d split a pack of cards and ask which half

they wanted. Every decision is made by the audience.

People say [the trick] is stronger than in person, because there’s no way I could manipulate them.”

Levitate your game

“When I started, I did shows for one household at a time.

Then I got asked to perform for five households. I thought that was impossible; I was working through the screen on my phone – how could I see all the people? So I studied online tutorials and asked friends. I was writing, promoting, doing lighting, sound, engineering, as well as performing – the learning curve was the steepest of my life. But I’ve built up to shows of 2,000 people.”

“I had no idea if I could translate my show to the virtual world”

“I used to beat myself up if I made one tiny mistake, but with virtual shows there are so many variables that errors are inevitable. What I’ve realised is that everyone understands this. My early sets had a card trick that I tried to make interactive by ensuring the audience had a pack in their house, but it fell flat. With virtual shows you don’t have time to dwell on it – you’re straight on to the next performance. I’ve learned to let go.”

Take your bow

“When the audience is muted, there are no whoops and screams, so you think, ‘Oh no, I did terribly.’ But, after the first week, I got the most amazing emails from people saying they hadn’t stopped talking about the show. Families told me it was lovely to be connected without ‘having to catch up’.

When everything felt so disconnected, it brought people together. That’s important in society – the normality of watching someone perform. I’m so passionate about the move online, I’ll continue my Zoom shows in tandem with real-life performances.” fergusflanagan.com THE RED BULLETIN

HOWARD CALVERT

At the start of 2020, Fergus Flanagan was looking at a packed working year. The 33-year-old magician from London had lined up theatre shows, was in demand for private functions (following glowing praise from illusionist Derren Brown), and had just booked a month of summer performances at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Then, within a week in March, everything was cancelled.

“I walked around my flat in my pants for two weeks, crying,” he says. “I was looking at a year with no income and probably having to move out of my flat – my head went to all these places.” Flanagan had two options: continue to wallow in his pants, or adapt and survive. The epiphany came when he began seeing people rave about quizzes on Zoom. “I thought, ‘Why not mix it up with some magic?’”

Flanagan put his first show together in three days. “Was it perfect? Of course not,” he says, “but I did what I had to.”

The magician had to relearn

Snap out of it

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Beauty and beast: the Ducati Monster is at home in a whole range of settings, from track to city to open road

THE NAKED TRUTH

Uncover why the new Ducati Monster is the perfect bike for you

DUCATI

H

ow would you describe your current journey to and from work? Boring?

Monotonous? Dull? If your answer is any of the above, it’s time to move things up a gear – and the new Ducati Monster is the perfect solution.

The superbike in street-bike clothing has pioneered the style for almost 30 years, and the iconic Italian brand’s latest release is the best one yet. The raw power of the Monster’s sporty 937cc Testastretta 11° engine ensures that every ride is unforgettable, while its exposed, fairing-free frame – full of muscular shapes and aggressive lines – will have

you turning heads for all the right reasons.

Never considered a motorbike before? The Monster isn’t as intimidating as its name suggests.

A compact and lightweight chassis and centrally positioned engine make the bike as effortless to ride as it is fun. Plus, that V-twin engine has been tuned to be at home in a range of environments – whether that’s the low-rev, stop-start nature

of inner-city riding or all-day touring on the open road.

That’s not to say that the Monster isn’t for the dyed-inthe-wool petrolheads out there, either. Switch to Sport Riding Mode and you’re left with 111hp at the twist of the throttle. Throw in the drag race-proof Launch Control and the gearbox’s MotoGP-inspired clutch-free Ducati Quick Shift up-change, and it’s a machine that could easily hold its own at a track day.

It’s not just a rocket in a straight line, either. Brembo brakes are a byword for excellence, and the Monster’s braking system guarantees you’re left with a set-up that keeps you (and not the bike) in control.

Available from as little as £115 per month via PCP finance, and in three eye-catching colourways, there’s never been a more affordable way to own a Ducati. It’s time to say goodbye to your old commute and hello to the future. ducati.com

VENTURE Equipment

Staycatıon Adventure begins at home this summer.

Get packing Photography TIM KENT

Hike

All you need for a one-day trek

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Explorer's kit: HIM From the Peak District to Land’s End, this gear will have you covered Left to right, from top: MONS ROYALE Redwood Wind jersey, monsroyale.com; MARMOT Men's Rubidoux pants, marmot.com;

BLACK DIAMOND Trekker gloves, blackdiamond equipment.com; THE NORTH FACE Men’s Active Longsleeve T-shirt, thenorthface.co.uk; MONTANE Men's Terra shorts, montane.com; RNNR Cold-weather Running beanie, rnnr.com STANCE Black Sheep

Crew Feel360 Athletic socks, stance.com; COAL The Provo UPF Tech 5-Panel cap, coalheadwear.com; YETI Rambler 36oz bottle with Chug Cap, yeti.com; ARCADE BELTS Ranger belt, arcadebelts.co.uk; BERGHAUS Sky Hiker waterproof jacket, berghaus.com;

SMARTWOOL Merino Sport 150 Two Peaks Graphic T-shirt, smartwool.co.uk; CASIO G-Shock Mudmaster Carbon Core Guard watch, g-shock.co.uk; POWERTRAVELLER Solar Adventurer II solar charger with integrated battery, powertraveller.com THE RED BULLETIN

From top: ORDNANCE SURVEY Explorer maps, ordnancesurvey.co.uk; OSPREY Talon 26L daypack, ospreyeurope. com; KEEN Feldberg Apx Ltd hiking shoes, keenfootwear.com

From top: ADIDAS Five Ten NIAD Moccasym climbing shoes, adidas.co.uk; BACH Specialist 65 S backpack, bachpacks.com; BLACK DIAMOND 9.6mm rope, blackdiamondequipment.com

VENTURE Equipment

Climb

Fast-packing essentials for a weekend’s vertical vacation Advanced climber: HER What British mountains lack in altitude, they make up for in variety and technicality.

Here's what you’ll need

Clockwise from top left: MARMOT Bantamweight jacket, marmot.com; ZEAL OPTICS Magnolia sunglasses, zealoptics.com; KAVU Skylar sweater, kavu.com; BLACK DIAMOND 100g Loose White Gold chalk, blackdiamond equipment.com; MARMOT Ascender Short-sleeve T-shirt, marmot.com; ARCADE BELTS Ranger Slim belt, arcadebelts.co.uk; BLACK DIAMOND Session Approach shoes, blackdiamond equipment.com; MONTANE On-Sight shorts, montane.com; MARMOT Woodblock Shortsleeve T-shirt and Temescal pants, marmot.com; MONTANE Protium jacket and Dart vest, montane.com; KAVU Peak Seeker chalk bag, kavu.com; MIZU D10 one-litre vacuum-insulated stainless steel water bottle, mizulife.eu THE RED BULLETIN

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VENTURE Equipment

Surf

With 18,000km of coast, Britain has plenty of spots to catch a break Board leader: HIM Packing for a UK surf trip requires more than just board shorts.

Ensure you’re ready for whatever the sea throws at you Left to right, from top: LOWTIDE Pipe Quick Dry towel, slowtide.co.uk; GLOBE Sustain beanie, globebrand.com; ZEAL Incline sunglasses, zealoptics.com; SANTA CRUZ Tie Dye Hand Boardie shorts, santacruzskate boards.eu; RED ORIGINAL 750ml Insulated stainless steel water bottle, redoriginal.com; TISSOT Seastar 1000 Powermatic 80 diving watch, tissotwatches.com; LGSC Reversible Bucket hat, lgsclife.com; O’NEILL Hyperfreak Chest Zip 3/2mm Full wetsuit, oneill.com; RED PADDLE Men’s Pro Change robe, redpaddleco.com; LGSC Kooks Are Kool Long-sleeve T-shirt, lgsclife.com; DEUS EX MACHINA Monkey Puzzle shirt, shop.eu.deus customs.com; SHOWER IN A CAN Antibacterial foam, shower-in-a-can.co.uk

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From top: FINISTERRE Rove backpack, finisterre.com; FOAM LIFE Traa flipflops, thefoamlife.com

From top: MERRELL Agility Peak 4 trail running shoes, merrell.com; STUBBLE & CO The Adventure Bag backpack, stubbleandco.com; GARMIN Forerunner 245 Music GPS running watch, garmin.com

VENTURE Equipment

Run

See your town as an urban playground to explore on foot Front runner: HER Stay light and bright with smart gear for an aerobic adventure that starts on your doorstep

Left to right, from top: SMARTWOOL Merino 150 Shortsleeve base layer, smartwool.co.uk; CIELE GOCap Athletics cap, cieleathletics.com; SALOMON Agile Short-sleeve T-shirt, salomon.com; SMARTWOOL Merino Seamless Strappy bra, smartwool.co.uk; SKULLCANDY Venue headphones, skullcandy.co.uk; KAVU Bella Coola pullover, kavu.com; RNNR Cold-weather Running beanie, rnnr.com; ULTIMATE PERFORMANCE Kielder Handheld water bottle, 1000mile.co.uk; BLACK DIAMOND Distance 4 Hydration vest, blackdiamond equipment.com.

THE NORTH FACE Easy leggings, thenorthface.co.uk; EXPOSURE LIGHTS HT1000 head torch, exposurelights.com; OAKLEY EVZero Blades Origins sunglasses, oakley. com; CRAFT Pro Lumen jacket, craftsportswear.com; STANCE Vickory Quarter Feel360 socks, stance.com THE RED BULLETIN

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SAY GOODBYE TO SACRIFICES

P

eople think having choices is good. But with choices come decisions, and with decisions missed opportunities. Take mountain biking, for example.

Riders are famous for having their eyes on bike n+1 (the number of bikes you own plus another), but the reality is that with more options come more sacrifices next time you head out on the trails.

Not being on quite the right bike leaves longer routes left unridden, trails untamed or bike-park trips parked. Even electric MTBs, with their claims of endless sessioning and batteryassisted awesomeness have traditionally had their limits.

That was before the release of

the new Specialized Turbo Levo.

Renowned for crafting some of the best riding mountain bikes in the sport’s history, Specialized’s latest Levo is one of those releases that will come to be seen as a true game changer.

The frame’s geometry has been remodified to be even more progressive. A steeper seat tube turns climbs into a cakewalk, a longer front end keeps you in control in the corners, and headtube angles and bottom bracket heights can be tweaked on the fly, leaving no trail out of bounds. Throw in 160mm of front suspension, 150mm of rear suspension, and a dedicated ‘Mullet’ wheelset (29in front, 27.5in rear), and the result is a set-up that can tame

anything you throw at it. And that’s before you get to the really fun part (it’s not called Turbo for nothing, after all). Inside that full carbon fibre chassis lie a motor and battery that transform an epic all-rounder into the liveliest, most nimble, full-power eMTB ever.

Whether you want to blast out a short session or have some extra exploring energy up your sleeves, the Specialized Turbo Full Power System 2.2 Motor has got your back. The integrated MasterMind Turbo Control Unit (TCU) responds seamlessly to your pedal strokes – supplying up to 565W power and 90Nm torque – and flattens anything in your path.

That TCU also receives over-theair updates, meaning that – like

COLLIN CHAPPELLE, HAROOKZ LEVO, PARIS GORE

Offering riders more power, speed, distance and freedom, the all-new Specialized Turbo Levo eMTB promises you your best ride, every time

ROO FOWLER

PROMOTION

a fine wine – your bike will get better over time.

Worried about range? The 700Wh battery packs enough juice for up to five hours of riding. And, for even more peace of mind, Specialized’s dedicated app, Mission Control, allows riders to access Smart Control, which ensures support levels are constantly managed to make sure that you’re never cut short.

What you’re left with is a do-anything bike where nothing is out of the question. More trails ridden, more pure stoke generated, more unforgettable experiences… experienced.

Seems like this is one choice without any downsides.

Specialized Turbo Levo Price: From £8,750 Frame material: FACT 11m full carbon Sizes: S1-S6 Wheel size: 29in front, 27.5in rear Travel: 160mm front, 150mm rear Motor: Specialized Turbo Full Power System: 2.2 Motor Battery: 700Wh Find out more information at specialized.com

VENTURE Calendar

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May onwards FAST LIFE Reality shows often deal with turbulent relationships between the protagonists. This series, which follows the world’s best cross-country and downhill riders in the UCI MTB scene, is no different, except that, alongside the main stars of this fourth season – US rider Kate Courtney (pictured right), Frenchman Loïc Bruni and Canadian Finn Iles – there’s one other ever-present relationship adding to the onscreen tension: their one with gravity. Following the intense and lockdowntruncated 2020 race season, these first two episodes deliver epic race action on some of the world’s toughest courses, as well as providing behind-thescenes drama and moments of true-grit friendship. redbull.com

One of the current challenges for fans of big-screen movies is how to enjoy them at a safe distance. Here’s one solution.

Set in epic outdoor locations nationwide, such as RAF Bicester, Hideaway’s summer programme features classics and new releases including Godzilla vs Kong, and opens with Wonder Woman 1984 at London’s Honourable Artillery Company (HAC). hideawaycinema.com

11 May onwards UNDERWATER EXPLORER Earlier this year, Danish photojournalist/explorer Klaus Thymann ventured into 300m-deep underwater caves in Yucatán, Mexico, to document the discovery of one of the country’s oldest prehistoric human skeletons. The exact location remains a secret to protect the remains from looters and preserve the delicate ecosystem, but Thymann detailed his exploits in the May issue of The Red Bulletin (read it online at redbulletin.com) and in this documentary, Underwater Explorer: Discovering Human Bones in Mexico.

“It makes you humble,” he said of the experience. Watch it and you’ll likely agree. redbull.com

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BARTEK WOLINSKI/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, KLAUS THYMANN, WONDER WOMAN 1984, JEFF WAYNE’S THE WAR OF THE WORLDS: THE IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE, REBECCA MCMILLAN/ VAN GOGH ALIVE, CLAUDIA MARCELLONI/CERN

20 May onwards HIDEAWAY CINEMA

VENTURE Calendar 4 June to 26 September VAN GOGH ALIVE Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh famously sold just one ‘officially recorded’ work during his lifetime (1853-1890), but his paintings are now among the most highly regarded in the art world and are the basis for the most visited multisensory experience on the planet. This immersive gallery, which has drawn more than seven million visitors in 65 cities, uses sight, sound and smell to drop you into the artist’s works, including his Starry Night, Bedroom in Arles, and even a Sunflowers ‘selfie room’ (below). Kensington Gardens, London; vangoghaliveuk.com

22 May JEFF WAYNE’S THE WAR OF THE WORLDS An immersive experience depicting a desolate London and featuring an unseen virus as a plot device might seem a touch risqué at present, but trust us, this one’s worth it. This live adaptation of Jeff Wayne’s musical version of the timeless HG Wells story about Martians invading Victorian England mixes theatrics, physical sets, special effects and stunning VR to amazing effect, and now includes COVID-secure (if not Martianfighting-machine-secure) precautions. 56 Leadenhall Street, London; thewaroftheworldsimmersive.com

18 May to 4 June HALO The Large Hadron Collider, the 27km-long high-energy particle generator buried underground near Geneva, was built to replicate the moments after the Big Bang.

Scientists study collisions, lasting just nanoseconds, between protons travelling at close to the speed of light – a spectacular-but-short light show. UK artist duo Semiconductor have made the experience more immersive with this installation, which has its UK debut at the Brighton Festival. Using data from the LHC, it slows down each collision by a factor of a billion, played out on a 360º screen and 384 vertical wires. Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, Brighton; brightonfestival.org THE RED BULLETIN

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GLOBAL TEAM

THE RED BULLETIN WORLDWIDE

The Red Bulletin is published in six countries. This is the cover of our French edition for June, which features Formula One driver Pierre Gasly…

For more stories beyond the ordinary, go to: redbulletin.com

The Red Bulletin UK. ABC certified distribution 145,193 (Jan-Dec 2020)

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Head of The Red Bulletin Alexander Müller-Macheck, Sara Car-Varming (deputy) Editors-in-Chief Andreas Rottenschlager, Andreas Wollinger (deputy) Creative Directors Erik Turek, Kasimir Reimann (deputy) Art Directors Marion Bernert-Thomann, Miles English, Tara Thompson Designers Martina de ­Carvalho-Hutter, Cornelia Gleichweit, Kevin Goll Photo Editors Eva Kerschbaum (manager), Marion Batty (deputy), Susie Forman, Tahira Mirza, Rudi Übelhör Digital Editors Christian Eberle-Abasolo (manager), Lisa Hechenberger, Elena Rodriguez Angelina, Benjamin Sullivan Head of Audio Florian Obkircher Special Projects Arkadiusz Piatek Managing Editors Ulrich Corazza, Marion Lukas-Wildmann Publishing Management Ivona Glibusic, Bernhard Schmied, Anna Wilczek Managing Director Stefan Ebner Head of Media Sales & Partnerships Lukas Scharmbacher Head of Co-Publishing Susanne Degn-Pfleger Project Management Co-Publishing, B2B Marketing & Communication Katrin Sigl (manager), Mathias Blaha, Katrin Dollenz, Thomas Hammerschmied, Teresa Kronreif (B2B), Eva Pech, Valentina Pierer, Stefan Portenkirchner (communication), Jennifer Silberschneider Creative Services Verena Schörkhuber-Zöhrer (manager), Sara Wonka, Julia Bianca Zmek, Edith Zöchling-Marchart Commercial Management Co-Publishing Alexandra Ita Editorial Co-Publishing Raffael Fritz (manager), Gundi Bittermann, Mariella Reithoffer, Wolfgang Wieser Executive Creative Director Markus Kietreiber Senior Manager Creative Elisabeth Kopanz Art Direction Co-Publishing Peter Knehtl (manager), Erwin Edtmaier, Andreea Parvu, Dominik Uhl Commercial Design Simone Fischer, Martina Maier, Alexandra Schendl, Julia Schinzel, Florian Solly, S ­ tephan Zenz Subscriptions and Distribution Peter Schiffer (manager), Marija Althajm, Nicole Glaser, Victoria Schwärzler, Yoldaş Yarar Advertising Manuela Brandstätter, Monika Spitaler Production Veronika Felder (manager), Friedrich Indich, Walter O. Sádaba, Sabine Wessig Repro Clemens Ragotzky (manager), Claudia Heis, Nenad Isailović, Sandra Maiko Krutz, Josef Mühlbacher Finance Mariia Gerutska (manager), Klaus Pleninger MIT Christoph Kocsisek, Michael Thaler Operations Melanie Grasserbauer, Alexander Peham, Yvonne Tremmel Assistant to General Management Sandra Artacker Project Management Dominik Debriacher, Gabriela-Teresa Humer Editor and CEO Andreas Kornhofer Editorial office Heinrich-Collin-Straße 1, A-1140 Vienna Phone +43 1 90221-0 Web redbulletin.com Published by Red Bull Media House GmbH, Oberst-Lepperdinger-Straße 11–15, A-5071 Wals bei Salzburg, FN 297115i, Landesgericht Salzburg, ATU63611700 Executive Directors Dkfm. Dietrich Mateschitz, Dietmar Otti, Christopher Reindl, Marcus Weber

THE RED BULLETIN United Kingdom, ISSN 2308-5894 Editor Ruth McLeod Associate Editor Tom Guise Chief Sub-Editor Davydd Chong Publishing Manager Ollie Stretton Advertising Sales Mark Bishop, mark.bishop@redbull.com Fabienne Peters, fabienne.peters@redbull.com Printed by Quad/Graphics Europe Sp. z o.o., Pułtuska 120, 07-200 Wyszków, Poland UK Office Seven Dials Warehouse, 42-56 Earlham Street, London WC2H 9LA Tel: +44 (0) 20 3117 2000 Subscribe getredbulletin.com Enquiries or orders to: subs@uk. redbulletin.com. Back issues available to purchase at: getredbulletin.com.

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THE RED BULLETIN France, ISSN 2225-4722 Editor Pierre-Henri Camy Country Coordinator Christine Vitel Country Project M ­ anagement Alexis Bulteau Contributors, Translators and Proofreaders Étienne Bonamy, Frédéric & Susanne Fortas, Suzanne ­Kříženecký, Claire ­Schieffer, Jean-Pascal Vachon, Gwendolyn de Vries

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THE RED BULLETIN USA, ISSN 2308-586X Editor-in-Chief Peter Flax Deputy Editor Nora O’Donnell Copy Chief David Caplan Publishing Management Branden Peters Media Network Communications & Marketing Manager Brandon Peters Advertising Sales Todd Peters, todd.peters@redbull.com Dave Szych, dave.szych@redbull.com Tanya Foster, tanya.foster@redbull.com

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Anything you can do…

Refashioning the traditional skateboarding contest Game of SKATE – one player sets a trick, then the other has to land it – for an altitude of 3,000m brings unique challenges. (For starters, gravity rules out the use of a skateboard.) But this didn’t deter skydiver Maya Kuczynska and air-racing pilot Lucasz Czepiel in March this year. The two Poles created their own version – Game of AIR – in the skies above Bovec, Slovenia, duelling with moves including front flips, knife-edge turns and low flybys.

To find out who won, watch the video at redbull.com

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The next issue of THE RED BULLETIN is out on June 8

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SAMO VIDIC/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

DAVYDD CHONG

Action highlight

GIVES YOU WIIINGS. ALSO WITH THE TASTE OF CACTUS FRUIT.

BFGO ODR ICH TYR ES ENAB LE YO U TO LIVE OUT YO U R ADVENTU R ES

E X P LO R E T H E B F G O O D R I C H ® M U D -T E R R A I N T/A K M 3 w w w. b f g o o d r i c h . c o . u k P h o t o © Ke i r o n _ B e r n d t At h l e t e @ c o c o z u r i t a

WHAT ARE YOU BUILDING FOR?