The Red Bulletin September 2013 – ZA

a beyond the ordinary magazine

HARD ENDURO

The madness in Transylvania

KINGS OF LEON

naked fans & gooseflesh!

world’s best

ACTION SHOTS

17-page photo Special

september 2013 R30

breaking even Meet Benny…

SA’s best ever B-boy

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THE WORLD OF RED BULL

September 26

the dracula rally

Four days and 600km across Transylvania for the world’s hardest off-road enduro motorcycle race

Welcome

Franz Ferdinand say hi: page 94

You probably haven’t been in an outrigger canoe.

They look like a cross between a kayak and half a catamaran, and cut across the ocean at tremendous speed. Every year, at the Olamau Race around Hawaii’s Big Island, the world’s best oarsmen and women push these boats, and themselves, to the limit. Our gripping story of the race is just one of the highlights of this month’s issue. Most eye-catching is our portfolio of winning images from the Red Bull Illume action and adventure photography contest. We’ve also got an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at Rush, the movie that retells one of the all-time great sporting rivalries: “ Kanye West came to our James Hunt v Niki Lauda for the 1976 F1 title. All shows and said he was a fan. that, plus future stars of sport and music, and Now we’re fans of his and his much more. We hope you enjoy the issue. tweets are amazing as well” 06

the red bulletin

THE WORLD OF RED BULL

at a glance Bullevard 10 news Sport and culture on the quick 14 Where’s your head at? Stephen King 16 kit evolution Microphones 18 me and my body Manu Vatuvei 22 winning formula The science behind a sprinter’s acceleration 24 lucky numbers Global stat attack

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Features 26 Red Bull Romaniacs

WAVE WArriors

Across Transylvania in the world’s hardest enduro motorcycle race

It’s not all about the surfers in the waters off the coast of Hawaii.

Outrigger canoeists take their turn for a punishing, pulsating race

36 Kings Of Leon

The Tennesee rockers reveal the secret of eternal happiness

39 Shots Of Adrenalin Cover Photography: sean lee/Red Bull Illume. Photography: Predrag Vuckovic/Red Bull Content Pool, Andy Knowles, Chris Baldwin, Brian Smith, Getty Images, Zak Noyle/Red Bull Illume, ATP Bildagentur Muenchen

The 2013 Red Bull Illume action and adventure sports photo contest

56 Heroic Survivor

Matt Damon on carving out a career and saving the world

62 Breaking Even

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get the gear

on location in sao paulo

American wakeboarder Parks Bonifay reveals how his bespoke kit allows him to innovate and exceed expectations

Brazilian supermodel Viviane Orth leads the way through her top five home-city haunts – including its best burger joint

After two years in the wilderness, SA’s best B-Boy is back riding the beat

66 F1 At The Movies

Exclusive interview with Ron Howard, director of Hunt-v-Lauda film Rush

72 Legends Of Tennis With Andre Agassi and Stefanie Graf 76 Dire Straits

The perils and pain of a four-day canoe race around the coast of Hawaii

Action

39 world’s best images

From backflips in the surf to airtime with the birds: the incredible winning entries in the 2013 Red Bull Illume photo contest the red bulletin

66 Rush: first great F1 Movie?

Niki Lauda’s epic battle with James Hunt for the 1976 F1 title hits the big screen, with Ron Howard in the director’s chair

88 89 90 91 92 94 96 98

get the gear A wakeboarder’s kit party Lesser-known Amsterdam travel Skydiving off Mount Everest training Get fit for pit stops My City A supermodel’s Sao Paulo Playlist Franz Ferdinand save the Date Events for your diary time warp Waterskiing in the ’60s

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contributors Who’s on board this issue

The Red Bulletin South Africa, ISSN 2079-4282

The Red Bulletin is published by Red Bull Media House GmbH

Robert anasi

Sean Lee This month’s cover shot, of British mountain biker Luke Ball cutting up the course in Mundaring, Australia, is a finalist in the Red Bull Illume action photo competition. A very grand total of 28,257 shots, taken by 6,417 lensmen and women, vied for glory in the largest contest of its kind in the world. Australian snapper Lee should be very proud that his excellent eye took him into the top 250. See the winning images, starting on page 39.

rüdiger sturm So, Mr Sturm, in the 11 years since you first interviewed the Hollywood star Matt Damon, is there anything that hasn’t changed about him? “Only three things: openness, that great, self-deprecating attitude and his boyish face.” That first meeting took place at the Cannes Film Festival, and afterwards Damon gifted the German a bottle of rosé.

No alcohol changed hands in the making of this new article, but the pair raised a proverbial glass to a host of topics: death, glory and all things between. It’s on page 56.

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The American writer’s book The Gloves: A Boxing Chronicle detailed his time as an amateur pugilist and earned him comparisons with Norman Mailer. His willingness to really get going when the going gets tough, and then to write about it brilliantly, made him the ideal man to document the Olamau Race for The Red Bulletin.

Anasi’s gripping report of the three-day, 101-mile canoe contest around the north tip of Hawaii’s Big Island, is on page 76.

General Manager Wolfgang Winter Publisher Franz Renkin Editor-in-Chief Robert Sperl Deputy Editor-in-Chief Alexander Macheck Editor, South Africa Angus Powers

Editor Paul Wilson Creative Director Erik Turek Art Directors Kasimir Reimann, Miles English Chief Photo Editor Fritz Schuster Production Editor Marion Wildmann Chief Sub-Editor Nancy James Deputy Chief Sub-Editor Joe Curran Assistant Editors Ulrich Corazza, Werner Jessner, Ruth Morgan, Florian Obkircher, Arkadiusz Pia˛tek, Andreas Rottenschlager, Daniel Kudernatsch (app) Contributing Editor Stefan Wagner Design Martina de Carvalho-Hutter, Silvia Druml, Kevin Goll, Carita Najewitz, Esther Straganz Photo Editors Susie Forman (Creative Photo Editor), Ellen Haas, Eva Kerschbaum, Catherine Shaw, Rudi Übelhör Repro Managers Clemens Ragotzky (manager), Karsten Lehmann, Josef Mühlbacher Head of Production Michael Bergmeister

HERBERT VöLKER To interview the director Ron Howard, on the occasion of his new film Rush, we could pick no one better than the venerable Völker. Rush tells the dramatic story of the climax to the 1976 Formula One season, in which James Hunt and Niki Lauda duelled for the title in once-in-alifetime circumstances. One of all sport’s most incredible tales, the Austrian writer has greater insight into it than most, having known Lauda for many years and ghostwritten Lauda’s brilliant autobiography, To Hell And Back.

He and Howard hit it off; the results are on page 66.

“Matt Damon still has a great, self-deprecating attitude” Rüdiger sturm

Production Wolfgang Stecher (manager), Walter O Sádaba, Christian Graf-Simpson (app) Advertising Enquiries Andrew Gillett, +27 (0) 83 412 8008, andrew.gillett@za.redbull. com

Printed by CTP Printers, Duminy Street, Parow-East, Cape Town 8000.

Finance Siegmar Hofstetter, Simone Mihalits Marketing & Country Management Barbara Kaiser (manager), Stefan Ebner, Stefan Hötschl, Elisabeth Salcher, Lukas Scharmbacher, Sara Varming Distribution Klaus Pleninger, Peter Schiffer Marketing Design Julia Schweikhardt, Peter Knethl Advertising Placement Sabrina Schneider O∞ce Management Manuela Gesslbauer, Kristina Krizmanic, Anna Schober

The Red Bulletin is published in Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, Ireland, Kuwait, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland, UK and USA Website www.redbulletin.com Head office Red Bull Media House GmbH, Oberst-Lepperdinger-Strasse 11-15, A-5071 Wals bei Salzburg, FN 297115i, Landesgericht Salzburg, ATU63611700 South Africa office Black River Park North, 2 Fir Street, Observatory, 7925 8005 +27 (0) 21 486 8000 Austria office Heinrich-Collin-Strasse 1, A-1140 Vienna. +43 (1) 90221 28800 Write to us: letters@redbulletin.com

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BEYOND THE ORDINARY

Bullevard Sport and culture on the quick

Attack!

There are more than 1,000 different martial arts, ranging from the oldest – wrestling in ancient Egypt – to today’s most widely practised, taekwon­do.

Four of the rarer varieties:

BOKATOR, Cambodia The clue to its toughness, to both study and endure it, is in the name, which means ‘pounding lions’.

DAMBE, West Africa Boxing with some kicks and holds, once only practised by butchers (of meat) due to their lowly status.

SHADOW MAKER One man creates 3D paintings just for the drill of it Andrew Myers takes a long look at his unpainted ‘canvases’ and then says to himself, “Screw it.” That’s because the 33-year-old artist, born in Germany, raised in Spain and now based in Laguna Beach, California makes portraits with paint, brush and a drill. He bores thousands of holes into plywood boards, which can measure 2ft square up to 4ft square (61cm to 1.2m) and are usually papered with pages from the phonebook. He then twists screws into the holes, at varying heights so as to create a 3D landscape of a face. Myers then paints the screwheads, adding shadows to augment real ones cast by the screws.

The face is so accurate that the blind can feel it. www.andrewmyersart.com

kalaripayattu, India Total mastery of unarmed and armed combat; near-doctor-like understanding of the body. Easy.

phototicker

EVERY shot ON TARGET

Have you taken a picture with a Red Bull flavour? Email it to us at: phototicker@redbulletin.com BARTITSU, England Jujutsu-boxing hybrid requiring followers (Sherlock Holmes was one) to be tasty with a walking stick.

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Every month we print a selection, with our favourite pic awarded a limited-edition Sigg bottle. Tough, functional and well-suited to sport, it features The Red Bulletin logo.

Zadar Water polo with a current: three against three in a Croatian harbour at Red Bull Sidrun.

Marjan Radovic

the red bulletin

MVP to PM

It is said that sport and politics should not mix. Try telling these athletes turned politicians

Photography: dominique tardY, Sunday Alamba, picturedesk.com, Andrew Myers, getty images (4)

Third time around: the new Red Bull Kart Fighter

Vitali Klitschko The reigning WBC boxing world champ entered the Ukrainian Parliament in 2012 as leader of the UDAR Party.

Play your karts right The reviews (and our many hours of playing) confirm it: Red Bull Kart Fighter 3 – Unbeaten Tracks is not only the best in the series, it’s also one of the best topdown racing games for smartphone and tablet. This third version has new karts and tracks on which you can race your friends online. In the game, as in real life, you need to be on good terms with the mechanic. He sets career goals, can tune your kart with his wild-card add-ons and has a whole load of race-winning tricks up his sleeve. Kart until your fingers creak. Red Bull Kart Fighter 3 – Unbeaten Tracks is out now for Android and Apple iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

Free download: games. redbull.com

GIANNI RIVERA Won the European Cup with AC Milan in 1963 and 1969 before becoming a member of both the Italian and European parliaments.

BILL BRADLEY Two NBA titles with the Knicks, one Olympic gold with the USA, 18 years a US senator with the Democrats (’78-’97).

She’s Next Hollywood up-n-comer Sharni Vinson on the perils of pokers and being behind the internet Swimming pool, school, swimming pool. That was Sharni Vinson’s teenage daily routine. But the Australian decided against a life as a professional sportswoman and went for acting instead.

Now the 30-year-old combines both passions in sporty roles: dancing her way through Step Up 3D and fighting off bloodthirsty home invaders in You’re Next, a rare horror-comedy that is both frightening and funny. the red bulletin: How do you prepare for your roles? sharni vinson: This time it was martial arts training.

As it was part of my role to constantly knock people out with a fire poker, I had to learn how to twirl it like

a baton, things like that. That was really entertaining.

Do you find it hard to slip into your film roles?

When we were shooting You’re Next, we were living in a motel in the middle of nowhere. I was so into my role that I even slept with a knife under my pillow. “I hope no stranger comes knocking,” I thought. For his own safety.

There is a photo blog devoted to your feet. Is that shocking or flattering?

Are you serious? That’s funny.

They might need to update their pictures because I just got a tattoo on my foot, my first-ever tattoo. The website is out of date now.

You’re Next is on worldwide release: facebook.com/YoureNextTheMovie

Just axe natural: Sharni Vinson

WE HAVE A WINNER!

Yalta B-Boys Iron Monkey, Kosto and Menno strut their stuff in Ukraine.

Sergey Illin the red bulletin

Malcesine

Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series participants salute their Italian fans down below.

Dean Treml

Tokyo In the city’s Zounahana Park for Red Bull Pump Jam, BMX riders hit a bumpy patch.

Hiroyuki Orihara

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SA champ Mawa Jekot

SKI SEASON SIGNS OFF

Music takes to the streets

CORNER TO CORNER Corner to Corner has been taking the music to the people at Jozi’s street sweet spots for a couple of months now. On any given street corner, at any given time of day, a Land Rover could pull up, unload a B-Boy or two, and then someone like Spoek Mathambo will pop up out of the roof and proceed to spin his latest tunes. Right there, real loud. Look out for more in September and October.

Twitter.com/RedBullZA or #cornertocorner

Munich Belgian BASE-jumper Cédric Dumont (right): unlikely golf champion of King Of Greens.

Phil Pham 12

Work in progress: Richard Rumney in the studio

THE BEAT GOES ON

Red Bull Studio Cape Town is building for the future with a much-awaited upgrade By the time you read this, Red Bull Studio Cape Town will be back doing what it does best, curating some of the most cutting-edge beats in the country. Studio manager Richard Rumney explains the bottom-up redesign and renovation that’s delivered a sleek and versatile recording space, packed with state-of-the-art tech. the red bulletin: Take us back to some great moments in the studio so far? richard rumney: We’ve recorded big-name artists like Khuli Chana and AKA, worked with then-upcoming talent like Das Kapital and Jullian Gomes, hosted workshops with everyone from Public Enemy to Grandmaster Flash and recorded full album projects such as Spoek Mathambo’s Mshini Wam. What can fans and artists look forward to?

The new studio will be much more in line with the international Red Bull Studios in London, Madrid, Amsterdam, Auckland, LA and New York. Before, we didn’t have a full live room to record bands in, but we’ll now have an extra recording booth, so we can have two recording sessions taking place at once. Expect more full band projects and more open workshops, info sessions and collaborative projects. To put it simply, with this new space we really want to blow shit up. www.redbullstudios.com/capetown

Atlanta Clearing 7m on a bike was no biggie for US rider Ronnie Renner at Red Bull Raising The Bar. Robert Snow

Dallas Erykah Badu gets a rousing hometown

reception at Red Bull Sound Select Presents Dallas.

Gary Miller the red bulletin

Photography: Luke Patterson, Sydelle willow smith, Chris Saunders

South Africa’s ski and snowboard season, based around the Afriski resort in Lesotho, is short but intense. The Burton Jam Tour’s only stop outside of Europe had the local snowboarders out in force, polishing moves for the SA national snowboard champs in early August.

Youngster Luke Dutton dominated the men’s category and Mawa Jekot took the women’s crown. The seasonending Spring Fest is a unique combo of sun and snow, before the summer hiatus sets in and the countdown to the June start of the 2014 snow season begins. www.afriski.net

JHB 43078 As seen on DStv/SuperrSport

1500 live games Over 12 league and Cup competitions Expert commentary and analysis

This is where

supersport.com

Full HD coverage Only on SuperSport

Bullevard

Where’s Your Head At?

Stephen King

As he returns – well, he’s never really been away – with a sequel to one of his most famous books, we go inside the mind of a great storyteller

To E Or Not To E

In 2000, the first massmarket ebook is King’s Riding The Bullet. “I’m curious to see… whether or not this is the future,” he said. In 2013, his novel Joyland, like Bullet, themepark themed, is print-only: “Let people stir their sticks and go to an actual bookstore.”

Clayt Starter

Stephen Edwin King was born in Portland, Maine, USA on September 21, 1947.

As a boy, his Uncle Clayt’s dowsing showed him the “shield of rationality” could be “laid aside”. Aged 12 or 13, a box of his father’s old paperbacks (King Sr was a failed story writer) opened his mind further.

Shine On

Worst Fears Come True

King’s Cujo (1981) and Christine (1983) are evil dog and evil car novels, respectively. In 1999, Bryan Smith, distracted by his pet dog, drove into King, out walking. “Our lives came together in a strange way,” said King, of Smith, who died a year later. “I’m grateful I didn’t die.

I’m sorry he’s gone.”

Adapt Question

There are 79 TV and film versions of King’s work, including the greatest film ever, says film-fan democracy IMDB – The Shawshank Redemption – and current US TV hit Under The Dome. A third movie of Carrie (there’s also The Rage: Carrie 2) appears next month.

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Behind Every Great Man

The Fall 1966 edition of Startling Mystery Stories has The Glass Floor, King’s first published story. He was paid $35. In 1973, his wife, Tabitha, took a draft of a novel about a psychic teen out of King’s bin and told him to try again; a year later, paperback rights for Carrie sold for $400,000.

www.stephenking.com the red bulletin

Words: Paul Wilson. Illustration: Ryan Inzana

Out this month, Doctor Sleep, King’s 42nd solo novel, is a sequel to his third, The Shining. The boy Danny, now all grown up, meets a girl with the greatest telepathic ‘shining’ gift of all.

Now stop thinking of Jack Nicholson gurning though a splintered door. Impossible.

illustration: dietmar kainrath

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kit evolution

shout out The original King of microphones has sired a device with only the barest connection to the past (and no wires)

THE LOOK

Futuristic and hard wearing thanks to a chrome-plated steel alloy casing. At 1.4kg, the 55SH was the lightest top-end mic of its time: its predecessor weighed 3.3kg.

FLIP IT

The 55SH had a three-way switch to regulate impedance, the sound generated by vibration.

Today’s audio gear has very low impedance; back then, with a long mic cable, and therefore more molecules vibrating, you had to choose the low-impedance setting.

1951

With the 55 series, designer Ben Bauer created the first true unidirectional microphones. As long as the voice was in the right place, the sounds around it were not picked up.

Shure 55SH

In 1939, Shure engineer Ben Bauer’s drive to make a microphone free of feedback and background noise resulted in the Shure 55SH. Shure mics quickly became standard kit used in radio broadcast, live music and public speaking. When John F Kennedy promised to put a man on the moon and Martin Luther King said he had a dream, a Shure ensured the world could listen.

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EVERY WHICH WAY

Elvis Presley used the 55SH model so often that it is now known as the Elvis Mic

the red bulletin

HARD HAT

Like the 55SH, the SM58 Digital has a chrome-plated steel skin. Today’s vocalists can be a little less serene than their predecessors: this grille can be dented and the mic still works perfectly.

IT’S ALIVE!

The fully charged battery lasts for about 16 hours. It has a lifetime of 10,000 hours – about 5,000 gigs, with decent encores.

SWITCH CHANNELS

Words: Florian Obkircher. Photography: kurt keinrath, Corbis, GEtty Images

The mic transmits to a base station receiver, which can be anything up to 60m away. If another device interrupts the frequency, there is seamless switching, of both mic and base, to another frequency.

2013

Shure SM58 DIGITAL

The SM58 mic came on the market in 1966. First used in concerts by The Rolling Stones and The Who, it quickly established a presence on stages everywhere. This metallic gherkin is the best-selling live-performance microphone in the world: it’s easy to use and the sound is clear. This month sees the release of a long-awaited update: a wireless digital version, complete with automatic frequency management and smart battery technology.

the red bulletin

Justin Timberlake used a wireless SM58 when performing live at the Grammys in February 2013 www.shure.com

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Bullevard

ME AND MY BODY

Manu Vatuvei

GOLDEN CHILD

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Gold teeth are a Tongan thing and I got mine done the first time I visited my relatives in Tonga in 2002. My auntie gave me a couple of her rings and I melted them down and capped two of my front teeth as a souvenir.

Nicknamed The Beast, the 27-year-old rugby league winger from New Zealand has a soft spot for pies and a hard time getting to sleep

NEEDLE WORK

1 GRUB DOWN

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Since getting my first tattoo, the Tongan shield, on my shoulder, I’ve had two koi – because I’m a Pisces – a dragon, a lion, an angel, my surname, kids’ names, parents’ names and verses from the scriptures.

I put on weight easily and the food I like doesn’t help: chop suey, taro, corned beef and pies. My playing weight this year is 108kg and it’s the lightest I’ve been. I’ve still got my strength, but I’ve gained more speed.

2 BROKEN MAN

My body is pretty beat up after 10 years in the game.

I’ve torn ligaments in my right ankle and both knees.

I’ve broken my left leg, ribs and arm, dislocated my shoulder and chipped a bone in my wrist.

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www.warriors.co.nz

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the red bulletin

words: Robert Tighe. photography: Nic Staveley

SHUT EYE

After a game, I struggle to sleep. I’m shattered and sore, but the adrenalin kicks in after a few hours and sometimes I stay up all night playing video games.

I’m into Call of Duty: Black Ops II at the moment.

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13 R30 SEPTEMBER 20 A BEYOND TH

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M EE T BE NN Y… SA ’S BE ST EV ER B� BO Y

HARD EN DMAUDNRESOS

TH E IN TR AN SY LV AN IA

K IN G S ON O F LE D FA NS

NA KE & GO OS EF LE SH !

WORLD’S BEST

ACTION SHOTS

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Simply go to www.getredbulletin.co.za or call 0860146247 or Fax 0865691192 Terms and conditions: The instructions on this page form part of the conditions of this offer. This offer is only valid for all South African residents who subscribe to The Red Bulletin. Our subscription is provided on a pre-paid basis and cannot be cancelled until the contract has expired. To ensure uninterrupted service, your subscription will automatically renew and then billing will take place monthly in advance. We may amend the fees payable in respect of your subscription but will notify you of such an amendment as soon as practicable prior to implementing it, so that if you want to terminate your subscription, you may do so. We may alter the payment instruction to correspond with any changes in your fees. Renewal price subject to annual increase. Regular delivery begins up to four weeks after the processing of your application.

Bullevard

HArd & FAST

Top performers and winning ways from around the globe Board meeting: skaters get together to improve Durbanville skatepark

SKATERS DO THE DIRTY WORK

Ronnie Renner of the USA took gold in Moto X Step Up, the motorcycle ‘pole vault’, at the X Games in LA, clearing the bar at 11.7m.

At the MotoGP in Laguna Seca, USA, Spanish rookie Marc Márquez overtook pole-position starter Stefan Bradl of Germany for the win.

Colombian cliff-diving master Orlando Duque beat the UK’s Gary Hunt by just 0.9 points in Barcelona to win the first-ever FINA High Diving World Championship.

Carissa Moore rode the waves to victory at the US Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach, the Hawaiian’s third on the ASP tour this year.

DIY has always been part of the DNA of skateboarding culture, whether it’s the building of obstacles at street level or the hands-on development of more ambitious skateparks like the famous Burnside project in Portland, Oregon.

With requests for skate infrastructure falling on deaf ears at municipalities everywhere, the credo behind Red Bull DIY is to put tools in the hands of local skaters and to inspire and empower them to build and customise their own parks.

First up for some DIY TLC was the skatepark in Durbanville, Cape Town. “Durbanville park is built on an old dump site,” explains local skater and Adidas skate rep Pieter Retief. “The council simply filled in the dump and said, ‘Here you go, a skatepark with nothing in it.’ From day one, it was a DIY project. For Red Bull to come in and donate is amazing because we have the manpower to build things and all the ideas to make the park flow better. This will bring more people to the park and hopefully get the council to realise it’s time to act.”

Hawkers Street in Johannesburg, the stomping ground of the Soweto Skate Society, also got a Red Bull DIY makeover in August, as did the Indigo Skate Camp in the Valley of a Thousand Hills in KZN. (The Eastern Cape scene hasn’t been forgotten with a project earmarked for Port St Johns.) Skaters of all ages got stuck in and got creative with the obstacles they chose to build.

Each location was obviously different to any other, so where one spot might have needed the addition of a manual pad, another was crying out for a transition or just a simple ledge.

“More obstacles allow for more creativity and this will push the level of skateboarding,” says Retief. “The upgrade will attract more skaters. It’s one thing putting on a show or an event where you fascinate thousands for a day, but building obstacles and getting the skate community involved can’t compare.” www.redbull.co.za

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the red bulletin

Words: Angus Powers. Photography: Seth Phitides

Red Bull DIY is breathing new life into South African skateparks

FATE DOESN’T ASK. IT COuLD ALSO bE mE. Or yOu. David Coulthard.

13-time Formula 1 Grand Prix Winner and Wings For Life Ambassador.

SPINAL COrD INJury muST bECOmE CurAbLE. In funding the best research projects worldwide focusing on the cure of spinal cord injury, the Wings for Life Spinal Cord research Foundation ensures top-level medical and scientific progress. We assure that hundred percent of all donations are invested in spinal cord research.

your contribution makes a difference.

Donate online at www.wingsforlife.com

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Bullevard

winning formula

The Art of start

LIGHT BULB MOMENT “At major athletics meetings,” says physicist and sports scientist Dr Martin Apolin, “each starting block has its own loudspeaker. At 20°C, the speed of sound is about 342m per second. If the starter is inside and the starting signal comes from the pistol alone, the runner in the outside lane hears the bang 3/100s after the runner in the inside lane – an eternity in sprinting. Therefore the sound is transmitted through speakers without time delay.

“In Fig. 1 we see a schematic rendering of the course of horizontal forces in effect when a runner is leaving the blocks. It clearly shows why you should put the stronger leg forward in the starting block. Here, force equals mass times acceleration, F =ma. Acceleration is the rate of change in velocity over time, a= Δv/Δt. And so we get F = mΔv/Δt and thus FΔt = mΔv.

“The value of force multiplied by time is called momentum. The momentum corresponds to the area under the curves in Fig. 1 and is responsible for the ‘lift-off speed’ Δv of the sprinter out of the blocks. The momentum of the lead leg is much greater than the trailing leg because it is less stretched in the starting position (Fig. 2) and leaves the block later. That’s why the lead leg should be the stronger.

“From the reaction setting in to the detachment of the feet takes around 0.3s. World-class athletes fly out of the blocks at around 4m/s, which equates to about 30 per cent of later maximum velocity. Acceleration at the start can be estimated with a = Δv/Δt = (4m/s)/0.3s ≈ 13.5m/s² If a sprinter could maintain this acceleration, which of course is impossible, he or she would accelerate from 0 to 100kph (27.8m/s) in about two seconds!

“But how do you guarantee a fair start to a race?

At major meetings, the starting blocks are fitted with dynamometers. Studies have shown that humans cannot react to acoustic stimuli faster than 0.12s. To be safe, world athletics’ governing body, the IAAF, shaved off another 2/100s and so a spike in force within 0.10s is defined as a false start. A sprinter has then ‘started in the shot’, as the electronics incorruptibly demonstrate.”

LIGHTNING MAN If he can be said to have a weakness, then Usain Bolt, the fastest human being of all-time, isn’t the best of starters.

He false-started out of the 100m final at the 2011 World Championships, and lost the Jamaican Olympic trials last year because he was too slow out of the blocks. “The more I focused on it, I think the worse it got,” he said on the eve of the London Olympics. “So I sat down with my coach.

He said stop worrying about the start and compete.” Three subsequent golds suggest he got his head around it. www.usainbolt.com

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Words: Martin Apolin. Photography: getty images. Illustration: Mandy Fischer

Top sprinters accelerate from the blocks at a rate that would see them do 0-100kph in two seconds. Here’s how, says our speed scientist

Blocks party: top sprinters like Usain Bolt can explode out of the starting blocks at up to 4m per second

Bullevard

Lucky Numbers

around the world Globetrotters and circumnavigators through the ages

Jules Verne’s book Around The World In Eighty Days was published in 1873. An eccentric American businessman claimed he was the model for Phileas Fogg: George Francis Train travelled the world three years earlier and had a similarly eventful trip, getting to know Japanese etiquette and the inside of a French prison.

1,426

Graham Hughes visited all 201 countries recognised by the UN, beginning in his hometown of Liverpool, England, on January 1, 2009, and finishing his epic tour in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, on November 26, 2012. Not once in those 1,426 days did he fly. A Russian visa snafu is keeping this world record out of the Guinness book.

Jules Verne

International Space Station

Jean Béliveau

Loïck Peyron

1

In August 1519, Ferdinand Magellan set out westwards from Sanlucar in Spain, with five ships and 237 crew. After mutinies, scurvy and battles with indigenous peoples – the Portuguese seafarer was killed in the Philippines – a single ship, the Victoria, with 18 men, limped back into port on September 6, 1522: the first circumnavigation of Earth.

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Concorde holds the record for the fastest circumnavigation of the planet: 31h, 27m and 49s, set in 1995. At speeds of up to Mach 2.23 (2,405kph), it saw two sunrises and two sunsets. Up in space, however, since 1998, the International Space Station has been completing 91-minute orbits of the Earth at about 28,000kph.

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“My classmates took the bus to school on the other side of the bay, I went by sailboat.” So began the sailing career of Loïck Peyron. In 2012 the French skipper set a new record for sailing around the world.

He and a crew of 13 in the Banque Populaire V took 45 days, 13h 42m and 53s to claim the Jules Verne Trophy.

75,000

Ferdinand Magellan; the Victoria

Business gone bust, midlife crisis… on his 45th birthday, August 18, 2000, Canadian Jean Béliveau left home and walked the Earth for 11 years. He went through 64 countries and 54 pairs of shoes, clocking up 75,000km. He never paid to stay overnight, either camping or staying with locals, including South African cops who let him sleep in an empty jail cell. www.theodysseyexpedition.com the red bulletin

Words: ulrich corazza. Photography: corbis, graham hughes, getty images (3), picturedesk.com (2)

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Graham Hughes

Four days and 600km across Transylvania on the hardest off-road enduro motorcycle course in the world

Credit:

words: Andreas Rottenschlager

Photography: Dmytro Vakulka/red bull content pool

Belgian rider Pascal Berlingieri runs into a water section in this year’s Red Bull Romaniacs Hard Enduro Rally

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Photography: Dmytro Vakulka/red bull content pool

Off-road madness: Graham Jarvis goes through a rocky patch. The British rider is a master of trials sections like this

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The fine-featured Walker is the teen idol among the pro riders in the race: 22 years old, British trials bike champion, winner of races across Europe. Girls scream his name at finish lines, but Walker knows that none of that will help him today. He has 131km of off-road biking ahead of him, through the Romanian slate mountains home to Europe’s largest bear population.

Walker pushes his visor down.

At 6.50am he hits the gas, tears over the steep slope and disappears at the first left turn.

What he doesn’t know is that today will be the worst day of the rally.

n his first day riding through the Carpathians, on a bumpy mountain road south of Sibiu,Jonny Walker sits on his KTM bike and stares at the steep, grassy slope behind the arch that marks the start of the rally. In two minutes, the first stage will begin. It’s 6.48am.

The thermometer is showing 8°C. 30

At the 2013 Red Bull Romaniacs Hard Enduro Rally, 365 riders battle the Romanian wilderness for four days.

The route stretches over 600km through the mixed forests of the southern Carpathian mountains, in wide arcs around the city of Sibiu, former capital of the Transylvania region of Romania.

Technically demanding trial routes alternate with mountainsides and downhill stretches. With all the upand downhill racing, the riders in the pro category will experience 80,575m of altitude difference, about nine times the height of Mount Everest. The stages of the rally go through one of the largest forested areas in Europe. A wrong turn wastes fuel, with valuable time lost in the woods. Cyril Despres, three-time victor from France, says that this is “harder than the Dakar Rally”. Jonny Walker says “you ride at the limit for four days”.

In the run-up to this year’s race, the most frequently asked question is: who will beat Graham Jarvis? The reigning champion, from the UK, manoeuvres his Husaberg bike through the terrain like a mountain lion. If Jarvis wins, it will be his fourth Romaniacs victory, a record. But that won’t happen if riders like Jonny Walker can help it.

About 5km before the finish line of the first stage, the course rises on a slope wooded with beech trees.

The race director calls this place “Bad Shape”. A cardboard sign on the approach promises “You are almost there!” Bad Shape has steep gradients, some close to vertical, and the last few days’ rain have left the ground wet. By 2pm on day one, it looks like a battlefield.

Motorcycles slip, riders fall, bikes have to be winched over the slope on ropes. Jarvis, currently the best trials rider in the world, shouts for help. Jonny

Photography: Dmytro Vakulka/red bull content pool

IN BAD SHAPE

Wet work: Italian rider Enrico Garavelli steers his Husaberg through choppy water

Uphill struggle: Dutch rider Erik Ekelmans keeps up with the pack

Walker is held up. New Zealander Chris Birch forms a partnership with English rider Paul Bolton. Together they haul their bikes over the slope.

Bad Shape is what most of the pro riders’ pre-race hopes are in: of the 41 riders, only eight make it through the forest within the time limit of nine hours.

Reports from the front line reach the finish line, where it’s 38°C. Birch, shirt off, arms way more tanned than his chest, says that “the slope was unrideable. Without Paul’s help I would still be stuck there.” Bolton looks like he’s just got out of a pub brawl. “They told me I fell off, but I can’t remember.”

Near the finish line, Walker sits in the grass and pours water from a plastic bottle over his neck. He has the composed face of a gymnast and the worn hands of an old-fashioned dock worker. Calluses bulge on his fingers, souvenirs from thousands 32

of kilometres on the bike. For the riders, the first quarter of the course is over.

In the evening a blackboard reads “1st place: Graham Jarvis – 25-minute lead.”

HEAT AND DUST Hard enduro is the most extreme form of off-road motorbike racing, attracting competitors from all over the world. In the riders’ camp in Sibiu, competitors from India work on their off-road bikes.

New Zealand has sent a delegation led

by Chris Birch. Mexican racer Jesús Zavala is the wild man of the pro group.

He has dishevelled hair and is blind in one eye. He underwent three operations after noticing his eyesight deteriorating eight years ago – the doctors couldn’t tell him why. Now his left eye is filled with silicone oil to hold his retina in place. Zavala only gave a moment’s thought to giving

Alfie Cox The SA rider on familiar pains, enduro stars of tomorrow and what it takes to win Romaniacs Red Bull Romaniacs is your first race for eight years. Which part of your body hurts most?

Everything: arms, legs, shoulders.

I wanted to ride with the expert class for fun – but even that route is insane.

What makes Graham Jarvis so good?

He barely wastes energy, and he’s excellent in the trials sections. Jonny Walker is faster on the speed stretches.

Jarvis is better at pacing himself.

Rising SA rider Wade Young came eighth this year. Do you think he’ll go far?

Physically and mentally, Romaniacs is still too much for him. But he’s only 17 and for his age he’s phenomenal.

Photography: Mihai Stetcu/Red Bull Content pool, Dmytro Vakulka/red bull content pool

up motorcycle riding before realising that “your brain can get used to anything”.

He says he prefers hard enduro to other kinds of bike racing because of “the motorbikes, the beautiful girls, my friends in the camp. I train the whole year for these four days.”

Stage two of the race is over a 163km route from Sibiu to the coal town of Petrila. There are long stretches of relatively simple terrain, where riders can tear it up and put pressure on Jarvis, who is known more as a technical specialist than for his speed.

The stage starts early in the morning on a dew-sodden cow field. Back wheels send clumps of earth flying through the air. Motorbikes disappear at the horizon, rattling loudly. At kilometre 160, at Petrila, there is a river crossing. For the riders outside the pro group – there are 260, in teams and competing solo, in hobby and expert classes, with less stringent time constraints than the pros – this is an exhausting torture. Their bikes fly out from under them and land on the riverbank.

Spectators cart bikes back to the route.

Many riders turn the wrong way and look disoriented. This is why it’s called hard enduro. How heavy is a motorbike when you have to pick it up a hundred times?

The buildings of the Petrila coal mine are dismal, soot-caked constructions with

broken windows and rusting steel struts.

The last section of stage two leads through the innards of the works.

Motorbikes are tearing between hoisting shafts, being hauled up narrow staircases.

In the factory hall, it smells of coal dust and sweat. The expressions on the riders’ faces say, “Am I really riding this?”

The arch at the finish line is on the flat roof of a pit building, 12 storeys above the ground. Two riders take stock on the scorching roof tar: “The air in there was evil.”

“That’s Romaniacs, mate.”

In the pro group, the fastest man of the day is Jonny Walker, but Graham Jarvis remains in the lead overall.

SILENT ASSASSIN Ask anyone in the riders’ camp about Graham Jarvis and you’ll get the same answer. The enduro king is quiet, shy and intelligent. Sitting opposite Jarvis before the start of stage three merely reinforces the impression. He is a pale Yorkshireman of average build who drinks water for breakfast and listens to Elton John to relax. He avoids all eye contact. A simple question about his hobbies seems to cause him physical pain. His opponents refer to him as the Silent Assassin, because, he says, “I never talk bullshit.”

RED BULL ROMANIACS When founder of the rally Martin Freinademetz first saw the landscape around Sibiu through the eyes of a motorbike rider, he knew these were the ideal conditions for a two-wheel torture run. The first race took place here in 2004, with Dakar winner Cyril Despres riding to victory and putting Romaniacs on the map. Now adventure specialists from all over the world line up to humbly take their punishment.

UKRAIENE

CHICKEN RUN OR POOL PARTY MOLDova

h ung a r y R o m a ni a

SIBIU

bucharest

SERBIa BULGARIa

THE STAGES

THE TERRAIN

THE STAR

Riders have to slog through 600km in four days. The route varies according to class.

Mountains, streams, forests, quarries, industrial ruins, speed stretches: all the rough stuff that the Sibiu region has to offer.

Graham Jarvis has won the race four times thanks to his total mastery of the trials sections.

the red bulletin

No one controls an off-road bike off-road better than him. “You have to find the line with the most traction,” he says.

“Everyone here is looking for that line.

I rely on my instinct to find it.”

What do you do after a race, champ?

“Preferably sleep, but the adrenalin is still pumping through my body. You can forget sleeping.”

And what’s your best Romaniacs moment?

Jarvis is silent, then says “The afterparties aren’t bad.”

Day three brings the field back to Sibiu. Grey clouds hang over the conifer forests. Around midday the rain sets in.

Each stage of the Red Bull Romaniacs Hard Enduro Rally is divided into two halves by a service point: a temporary town of vans and plastic tents which provide man and machine with the bare essentials. The service point on day three is by a stream in the little village of Voineasa. Helpers in neon yellow raincoats scurry about the filthy riders. Service personnel tighten screws and change air filters. A soaking wet Jonny Walker scoffs down two Mars bars and a Twix to keep his blood sugar up.

The regulations stipulate 20 minutes’ break at a service point. Afterwards, riders disappear into the forest. When the last rider leaves, this travellers’ rest of vans vanishes.

German Husqvarna rider Andreas Lettenbichler does the good deed of stage three. He rescues Alfredo Gomez, of Spain, who is stuck under his bike in the forest, waiting for help. Gomez rides to the end in fuel-soaked trousers. Jarvis wins the stage and extends his overall lead.

Paragraph six of the race regulation requires each starter to carry a survival kit. The most important item is the minitracker, known as the “panic button”, which alerts rescue services in an emergency. The race officials boast that they have never yet lost a rider in the forest. Nonetheless, the kit contains a litre of drinking water, a foil blanket and two red smoke flares for attracting attention. Better to be safe than sorry.

Day four begins with everyone who is not Graham Jarvis hoping that Graham Jarvis will slip up. Riders always make mistakes during this part of the race, say the riders. The final hurdle after 600km hard enduro is known as ‘chicken or macho’. About 400m before the finish line each rider must choose between two routes: ‘chicken’, a ridiculous off-road 33

Romaniacs veteran Chris Birch of New Zealand after taking a tumble on his KTM: “We were pulling each other up steep slopes”

Photography: Predrag Vuckovic/red bull content pool

Race officials recommend riders reach 90kph in the run-up to the pool. Then you lean back, step hard on the gas and hope for the best passage which will eat up 10 minutes’ racing time, or ‘macho’ a pool of water, 20m long and a metre deep, that can only be crossed by aquaplaning. In other words, riders have to make bikes surf.

Race officials recommend riders reach 90kph in the run-up to the pool. Then they should lean back, step hard on the gas and hope for the best.

By 1pm, some 4,000 spectators bustle around the U-shaped natural arena that spans the finish line area. The southern European minced meat kebabs, ćevapčići, sizzle on the grills. There’s ice-cold beer. The entire ‘chicken or macho’ scenario is in plain view, so that 8,000 eyes get to see how the riders decide. Bow to peer pressure or choose sensibly? Slide safely across the finish line or risk a dunking?

Graham Jarvis chooses ‘chicken’ after less than a second’s thought. He rides to his fourth victory and throws his arms in the air in jubilation. The no-bullshit man has just made history.

Andreas Lettenbichler pummels his Husqvarna over the surface of the water, almost crashes and then dances like Rumpelstiltskin for the spectators.

Jonny Walker surfs the water at full speed. Chris Birch rides straight through the water on the bottom of the pool.

All around, sweat-soaked shoulders shake off the tension. The finish turns into a party. Jonny Walker takes his shirt off and goes swimming with the champagne girls. Paul Bolton dives in with them. It takes four riders to throw Graham Jarvis into the pool. He smiles – no bullshit.

The cursing, the pain, the bloody scratches are now just souvenirs for the riders in this dirty water hole in Romania. Next year they’ll all be back again, because they love it. www.redbullromaniacs.com

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kings of leon

Back On The Throne With new album Mechanical Bull imminent, cousins and Kings of Leon guitarists Jared and Matthew Followill on life without music, Twitter for the single man and the secret of eternal happiness

A suite in the Ritz-Carlton, Vienna.

Matthew Followill flops down on the leather couch, exhausted. The lead guitarist’s cousin,bassist Jared Followill, hides his eyes behind black Ray-Bans – “Jet lag, man” – and draws on an electronic cigarette. Six hours to go until the gig.

j: Tell him what you play on [album track] Wait for Me. m: … j: He doesn’t want to say. He’s embarrassed!

Is it a recorder? m: You can hardly hear it, anyway: it’s a sitar.

How do Kings of Leon get over writer’s block in the studio? j: By taking a two-week break from music. m: Listening to music non-stop. All day long. After about a month in the studio, I reach a point where I’m floundering.

the red bulletin: What do the Kings of Leon do backstage right before a performance? jared: We form a circle and clap hands. Pure superstition, but if we didn’t do it, it wouldn’t feel right.

The most important rule of drinking? j: Don’t get too drunk. We all have varying tolerances. matthew: I don’t drink at all before a gig. I’ve messed up a few shows by being drunk. That’s when I realised: you have to be fit. j: I’ve messed up a few shows sober.

That’s when I realised: “F— this!

I need to drink more.”

When you’re in the supermarket and you hear Sex On Fire, do you Kings of Leon live: pre-show rituals, full power on stage think, “Cool, that’s us!” or, “Oh Then I put on my favourite bands – the God, they’re playing our music new Wild Nothing album or Thin Lizzy – in a supermarket”? and then in the evening it’s flowing again. j: It makes me happy. And when someone You grew up in religious families. takes the last carton of milk right in front Which Bible passage rocks hardest? of my nose, I think, “So what? That’s me m: The Old Testament! No, just kidding. on the radio – motherf—er!” j: The Old Testament is pretty brutal. I think m: I’d lay down an air guitar solo for most religions preach the battle of good the people in the store. versus evil. As a rock star the thing you j: Hearing your own songs on the radio learn is: treat people well when you’re is a great feeling. Especially when you go career is on the up because they’re the shopping with your wife. I mean, you same people you’ll meet on the way down. want to impress her. m: And as a songwriter you can find What’s the better way to approach great stories in the Bible. a new album: experiment, or refine j: I’ll say one thing: Sodom and Gomorrah. the classic sound?

You didn’t have a TV at home as kids. m: I like experimenting and changing Was that a good time or a bad time? things. On Mechanical Bull we have m: Probably a good time. But my parents strings and a steel guitar.

36

were divorced – when I wanted to watch MTV, I went round to my dad’s place.

You named your band after your grandfather, Leon. What has the old man taught you? j: Tons of jokes – and the secret of a good marriage. He says the two most important words for a husband are “Yes, honey.”

Another motto: “Do you want to be right or happy?” He’s been married a long time.

Can you remember the first song that infected you with the rock ’n’ roll bug? j: The first song that got me really excited, when I was 13 and old enough to understand music, was Where Is My Mind by the Pixies, from the album Surfer Rosa. m: I got one that is way less cool.

When I was nine, I heard More Than a Feeling by Boston, [sings] “More than a fee-eeling!” And I thought: ‘Wow, what a great song.’

Is Twitter a blessing or a curse for rock stars? j: I started tweeting when I was single. Social media is great when you’re single. That was the only reason I started using it.

It also gives you a chance to correct false rumours. j: Absolutely. And you can include the fans when you’re planning live shows. When a few hundred people on Twitter suggest you play a particular song, you should play it.

Do you still get goosebumps on stage? m: Absolutely. When everyone sings along, I can really feel it. j: When the audience starts singing or people jump up and down I get a shiver down my back. And when a girl in the front row lifts up her T-shirt: goosebumps. m: When I get a solo right: goosebumps. j: But mostly when someone takes off their T-shirt.

Mechanical Bull is out on September 20: www.kingsofleon.com

the red bulletin

photography: Dan Winters/sony, getty images

Interview: Andreas Rottenschlager

Kings of Leon, clockwise from top left: Followills Matthew (guitar), Jared (bass), Nathan (drums) and Caleb (guitar, vocals)

Today’s essential music makers tell the stories behind their beat: Fireside Chats on rbmaradio.com

s h ots o f

ad r ena l i n Wo r l d’s b est i m ag es From surf i n the snow to a irti m e w ith th e bi rd s: the i ncre d i b l e w i n n i n g e nt r i es i n th e 2 013 Re d Bul l I l l um e a ctio n a n d a d ve nt u re sp orts p hoto contest

t e n p h o t o g r a p h s ta k e n b y n i n e p h o t o g r a p h e r s f r o m s e v e n c o u n t r i e s

redbullillume.com

lorenz h older germany

w inner catego ry: pl ayg r o und

“I found this place in summer and my idea to shoot in heavy snowfall wasn’t going to be easy. There was pretty much just one chance to get the shot. I used two big strobes to light up the snowflakes and a four-second exposure to get light from the moon.”

Athlete Xaver Hoffmann Location Raisting, Germany Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II Lens Zeiss Distagon T* 3.5/18 ZE ISO 1000 F-stop 3.5 Shutter speed 4 Flash Elinchrom

romi na amato sw i t z e r l a n d

w inner categ o ry: ener gy

“I was in a boat covering the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series. I like pictures that leave the viewer questioning. In this case: where’s he coming from? Will he survive this? Does that guy seriously think he can fly?”

Athlete Todor Spasov Location Vila Franca do Campo, Azores, Portugal Camera Canon EOS-1D X Lens EF70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM ISO 400 F-stop 6.3 Shutter speed 1/1600 Flash none

“Tomas tries to do new and ‘impossible’ tricks on his mountain bike.

I wanted to create a backstage feeling for the shot. We suspended the bike from the ceiling: one rope for Tomas and two smaller ones for the bike.”

win n er category: New Creat i vi t y

Da n i e l Voj t Ech c z ec h r e p u b l i c Athlete Tomas Slavik Location Prague, Czech Republic Camera Nikon D800E Lens 24-70mm f/2.8 ISO 100 F-stop 7.1 Shutter speed 1/100 Flash Fomei

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Athletes Jake Marshall, Taylor Clark, Frankie Harrer, Thelen Worrell, Colt Ward, Nolan Rapoza, Dryden Brown Location Tavarua, Fiji Camera Nikon D700 Lens Nikon 16mm f/2.8 fisheye ISO 250 F-stop 5.6 Shutter speed 1/500 Flash none

w i n n e r cat ego ry: l i f est yl e by l e i ca

mo rgan maass e n usa

“A group of America’s next generation surfers, surfing 10 hours a day, only coming in for food or sunscreen.

I captured them one morning, discussing everything from the surf they were enjoying to homework they’d forgotten to do. I was fascinated by their camaraderie, their laughing and hollering at each other’s successes and misfortunes.”

“We thought it would be a long session of the best cold-water waves any of us had ever scored. Suddenly, the winds changed and within minutes it began to snow. Caught in a blizzard, we paddled in and made it back to the truck to wait out the storm. Snow piled high around us. It was clear the truck wasn’t going anywhere, so Keith and Dane made their way home.”

Wi nner categ o ry: spir it

chris b u r k a r d u sa

Athletes Keith Malloy, Dane Gudauskas Location Unstad, Lofoten Islands, Norway Camera Sony SLT-A77V Lens 70-200mm F2.8 G ISO 200 F-stop 4 Shutter speed 1/320 Flash none

win n er categ o ry: C lo s e U p

J e r oe n N i e u wh u is n l

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Athlete Erik JournĂŠe Location Denekamp, Netherlands Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II Lens 15mm f/2.8 fisheye ISO 320 F-stop 16 Shutter speed 1/50 Flash none

“My buddy Erik and I thought it would be cool to try something different. I wanted this shot to be less set up, less studio lit. The sun was just right, so we grabbed our skateboards and I grabbed my camera. After almost smashing it on the concrete, I thought I would give it just one more try. This is the last image I shot.�

“This was not a large day by North Shore standards.

When the waves are smaller, the surfers usually go out for a surf right before the sun sets. By pulling the lens back, I was able to get the sand and sky, so it is almost as if someone was walking down the beach and looking over – to see Gabriel doing this massive backflip.”

W in n er categ o ry: s eq u e n c e

za k a ry n oy l e u sa

Athlete Gabriel Medina Location Oahu, Hawaii, USA Camera Canon EOS-1D Mark IV Lens EF70-200mm f/4L IS USM ISO 320 F-stop 5.0 Shutter speed 1/800 Flash none

“After shooting on a tripod, I end up with shots that are essentially the same, with minor changes.

In Photoshop, I flip them and arrange them to create something that doesn’t exist in real life, with perfect symmetry: something I like a lot. In this one, I mirrored parts of a building to give the impression of a really, really big structure.”

W in n er categ o ry: e xp e r i m e n tal

lor e nz h o l de r ge r m an y

Athlete Jordan Mendenhall Location Ornskoldsvik, Sweden Camera Canon EOS 40D Lens Hartblei 50mm f/2.8 ISO 160 F-stop 4.0 Shutter speed 1/1000 Flash none

winner categ o ry: win gs

sa m o v i d i c slov eni a

Athlete Jorge Ferzuli Location Athens, Greece Camera Canon EOS-1D Mark IV Lens EF15mm f/2.8 fisheye ISO 200 F-stop 3.2 Shutter speed 1/2000 Flash none

“I was booked for the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series stop in Greece, to capture the action from the water. It’s very difficult to shoot from water as you are limited with angles. The bird was pure luck.”

winner Cat ego ry: i l lu m i n at i o n

sc a nca daott s e rfas “I really wanted to shoot a photo from a helicopter, right above Travis Rice as he was riding a line, but another chopper was in the air too.

The sun was setting fast, so as Travis dropped into place and made his second turn down the mountain, I snapped this shot – the last photo of the trip.”

Red Bull Illume Partners

Athlete Travis Rice Location Tordrillo Mountains, Alaska, USA Camera Canon EOS 1D Mark IV Lens Ef 100mm F2.0 USM ISO 200 F-stop 10.0 Shutter speed 1/1000 Flash none

on understanding women, his killer instinct and why

life is like poker Interview: R端diger Sturm

Photography: John Russo/Columbia TriStar

DAMON

Matt Damon is one of the most successful actors of his generation, but a dozen years ago, he feared his career would be over: “I’d already had two films bomb, and I was about to have my third. It was goodbye, and there was nothing I could do. So I went to London, did a play and I was happy”

the red bulletin

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att Damon has overcome many challenges in his career. He has physically transformed himself – losing 22kg for Courage Under Fire (1996) and gaining 13kg for The Informant (2009). He’s been a regular victim of George Clooney’s notorious on-set pranks. He battled to reverse a downturn in fortunes after a career highpoint: winning the Best Screenplay Oscar for Good Will Hunting. All this has been good training for playing a heroic survivor who takes on Earth’s future ruling class in sci-fi movie Elysium. The 42-year-old actor also showed great stamina while speaking to The Red Bulletin, ignoring a hangover gained at a premiere party the night before.

THE TALENTED MR DAMON

Chasing Amy The Rainmaker Good Will Hunting

Matt’s roll call of roles: some major, some minor and the one where he’s a talking horse

Mystic Pizza

School Ties

Geronimo: An American Legend

1988

1992

1993

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Courage Under Fire

1996

1997

the red bulletin: Do you feel guilty? matt damon: Why should I do that?

Because you belong to the chosen few basking in the high life as a opposed to the millions living below the poverty line. Just like the bad guys of your upcoming sci-fi movie Elysium.

No, I don’t feel guilty. I feel lucky to have been born where I was born. We were shooting the movie at a dump in Mexico City where there’s 2,500 people who were born and raised there and live there and die there and never leave. That’s by luck of birth.

So the question is: how do we lift as many people as possible out of that poverty? I am very optimistic that we can achieve that. Because today’s generation of young people is more aware of the situation and much more engaged than I was at that age.

Would you be willing to kill for a place in the sun, like you do in the movie?

The motivation of my character goes beyond that.

It’s not that he wants to live in this utopian world, he is looking to be cured from cancer. But to answer your question – no.

But could you kill someone if your life, or a family member’s life, depended on it?

I definitely have the human instinct of protecting myself and my loved ones. And if I could look into somebody’s heart and see that their intentions were pure evil, I might perhaps be able kill that person.

But I don’t know that there is pure evil, or at least I have never encountered it. One my close friends, however, went into the special forces, and his job at the end of his career was to track down war criminals in Croatia and Bosnia and take them to the international court in The Hague. He read the dossiers on those people and said there were a few that he thought could be labelled as pure evil.

You are fortunate to live in a bubble of luxury.

Do you ever worry about losing touch with reality?

Yeah and I don’t know what to do. I live in New York

The write stuff Good Will Hunting is the story of a young man forced Saving to use his brainpower to Private Ryan improve his station in life.

Rounders Matt Damon was forced to use his brainpower to overcome his station in life: he co-wrote GWH with his pal Ben Affleck, so they could be involved in a good movie, because no one else was offering that chance. The US$10 million film earned US$225 million at the global box office and an Oscar for Best Screenplay.

1998

All The Pretty Horses Titan A.E. The Legend Of Bagger Vance Dogma The Talented Mr Ripley

1999

2000 the red bulletin

Photography: John Russo/Columbia TriStar (1), Rex Features (11), Getty Images (2) Kobal Collection (9), Dreamworks, Paramount, Night Life Inc, Universal

City, which is its own kind of Elysium at this point.

It’s pretty elite now, because it’s so expensive to live in the city. But at least you can walk down the street and feel a part of a community. When I lived in Miami it was a much more suburban lifestyle. You go from behind your gate to your car, then to your destination, back in your car, and finally back behind your gate.

Do you have an understanding of what’s going on beyond your own experience of the world?

Of course. I have since childhood. My mother took me places. We went by bus around Guatemala in the ’80s, and I went to language school in Mexico. Those experiences were really eye-opening for an American kid, so I hope I can do that with my children, when they’re older. I want them to see the world.

You have four daughters. Do you enjoy being the only man in the house?

I’m lucky to be the only guy in the house. It’s a man’s dream. The testosterone deficit at home makes me very special: you learn a lot by looking at the world from their point of view. I’m now convinced we’re different species, more than I thought before.

Do you feel women understand men?

Oh, I think they understand us totally. I just don’t think we can completely understand them.

What about your daughters? Do they realise that their father is a bona-fide movie star?

I don’t know when that’ll happen, but when it does it will happen by osmosis. Alexia, my 14-year-old stepdaughter, heard stuff at school and started asking questions. But by that point the whole thing had been so demystified. They’ve been on movie sets, they’ve seen that process and they’ve met all kinds of people who work in the business. They say things like, “Uncle George is a movie star?” and I say, “Yes, George Clooney is a star, believe it or not.”

The movie business can be fickle. Do you worry your star status might go away at some point?

It will definitely go away. The movie business is

The Bourne Identity Gerry Spirit: Stallion Of The Cimarron (voice)

Ocean’s Eleven

2001

Team America: World Police (puppet voiced

by Trey Parker) The Bourne Supremacy Ocean’s Twelve SPY GAMES In terms of action cinema, the three films in which Damon plays truth-seeking spy Jason Bourne are influential and just plain kick-assingly great. Identity and Supremacy caused the makers of James Bond to reboot with Daniel Craig in Casino Royale (2006), while Ultimatum is the best one-man-on-a-mission movie since Bruce Willis’s Die Hard, 25 years ago.

Stuck On You

2002

the red bulletin

2003

2004

The Brothers Grimm Syriana

2005

BORN TO PLAY IT Damon has acted in only one movie that has won the Oscar for Best Film: The Departed, for which Martin Scorsese also won the Oscar for Best Director. Being from Boston himself, he was perfectly cast as a Boston hood who joins the police.

The film was a remake of Infernal Affairs (2002), which won its homecountry Best Film Oscar equivalent, the Hong Kong Film Award.

The Good Shepherd The Departed

2006 59

The Adjustment Bureau Contagion Margreat Happy Feet Two (voice) We Bought A Zoo

Steve adores Directors love Damon. He has appeared in two films by Clint Eastwood and Francis Ford Coppola, three by Kevin Smith and Paul Greengrass and four by Gus Van Sant. But his great partnership is with Steven Sodebergh: seven films, including the Ocean’s trilogy and The Informant!

Ocean’s Thirteen The Bourne Ultimatum

The Informant!

Invictus

Behind The Candelabra Elysium

Promised Land

2007

2009

2010

“ The movie business is cyclical.

Some guys are up, some guys are down” cyclical. Some guys are up, some guys are down.

The key is not trying to retain some level of popularity, trying to do something with what you have and trying to do good work. How much you get paid – that’s always going to go up and down.

It’s like when you play poker: you can’t bet scared, you have to bet because you want to bet – not because you need to win the money. If you do a movie, it could be the end of your career, or maybe not – just do it.

So you weren’t scared when your career was in the doldrums before the success of the Bourne movies?

No, I always knew I could write. I can’t be any more cold than I was when we did Good Will Hunting.

Nobody knew who I was at that time. But I was very aware that things weren’t going great. When the Bourne Identity came out, it had bad buzz from Hollywood. Everyone was going, “This is going to be a disaster,” because it had been delayed and delayed. And that was it for me. I’d already had two films bomb, and I was about to have my third.

It was goodbye, and there was nothing I could do.

So I went to London, did a play and I was happy.

Do you regret some of your career choices?

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2011

2012

matt to the future After playing Liberace’s lover – aged 17! – and a saviour of space in 2013, Damon has two more films due: The Monuments Men, for director and co-star George Clooney, in which he plays a hunter of Nazi art, and “a very small part,” he says, in Terry Gilliam’s The Zero Theorem.

2013

No. Regret is the worst thing in the world. All the decisions I’ve made professionally and personally, even if they have not worked out, I have taken something away from them. I have made the decisions for reasons that I can back up. The way I choose a movie is: I just look for a director and screenplay that I can learn from.

All The Pretty Horses, for example, is one of my favourite things that I’ve done. In its original version it was three hours and 12 minutes long.

The studio took it away from director Billy Bob Thornton and cut it down to two hours. The critics tore it apart and it bombed at the box office, but I am incredibly proud of that movie. It had a big impact on me, as an actor and hopefully some day as a director. Knowing what I know now, I would go back and do the movie again and again.

You’re a big fan of poker [Damon starred in the poker movie Rounders (1998)]. What’s been your most painful loss at the poker table?

The last time I played was a couple of months ago.

I was against a really good player and I was very wary of him. We got it all in, I had a higher full house than he had, and on the final card he pulled four of a kind, so it was a bad beat. That was my most recent and painful loss. But the main thing is: you may know you are going to lose, but don’t do it by playing your hands wrong. You should lose when you’re doing the right thing in that moment.

Then you can leave the table with some dignity.

It’s been reported that at one point in your career you were so desperate for success that you were willing to give up your dignity and do a porn movie.

That was a joke. The director of The Bourne Identity, Doug Liman, came up with it. He said, “We should add one shot in at the end and make it the most expensive adult movie ever: The Porn Identity.”

Elysium is out now: www.itsbetterupthere.com

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Photography: rex Features (5), Universal (2), Warner bros (4), PAramount PIctures, Kobal Collection, Focus Features, TCFFC/Camelot Pictures

Green Zone Hereafter True Grit

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BREAKING

EVEN After two years in the wilderness, Benny – South Africa’s best-ever B-Boy – is back riding the beat Words: Angus Powers Photography: Tyrone Bradley

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Totally flipped: B-Boy Benny is an explosive package of power and flair

“I

am not thinking about my own moves, and I’m not thinking about what he is doing either. It’s difficult to describe, but when I’m in a battle, it’s like I’m somewhere else. It’s almost as if I go into a trance.

But I am there, watching him, without being focused on him. Because if you are focused on him, the moment he does something unexpected, you go blank. And then you have to freestyle!”

Alfred Burgess is no sports psychologist.

Nor does he ever hassle about how to reach the holy grail of high performance.

But a more intuitive understanding of what it takes to be in ‘the zone’ would be hard to find. And the scene in this humble Kuils River cottage would be stranger still if Alfred Burgess, collar of his flamboyant beige jacket turned up against the chill, were actually Alfred Burgess. But he’s not. At least not anywhere other than his ID book. Because this is not Burgess analysing his art, but B-Boy Benny (right), one of the most gifted, self-made South African athletes of the past decade.

Think of it like this: the Burgess family move from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town in the late ’90s. Alfred is 13, he’s picked up some gym moves – flips and such like – and he’s into dancing. In Cape Town, he discovers breaking. It feels like his destiny, what he’s been searching for. He joins a crew, but ends up being mostly self-taught, with a talent for imitating and then perfecting – with stunning speed – the toughest moves on the breaking scene.

What takes some B-Boys months, even years, to learn, Benny picks up in a matter of weeks. He gets involved: does shows, enters competitions, makes a name for himself. Eventually he gets an invitation to the 2005 Red Bull BC One in Berlin.

He’s knocked out in the first round, but what a learning curve. When the world finals come to Johannesburg two years

Beaten hands down: 9 Ether (left) was no match for Benny in the SA cypher final

“I have to change my game. This year is going to be more difficult – I want to go out there and show them” later, Benny makes it through to the second round. He starts turning heads.

“Benny’s a talented individual. The first time I saw him in South Africa in 2007, he was doing stuff that was very advanced. Twenty-round 90s, 20-round elbow spins – those moves are hard to do. I mean, it’s hard to do even three or four and he was doing stuff that at an international level certain individuals weren’t doing. Me, Lilou and Pelézinho, we had a certain dynamic, but we didn’t use big moves the way Benny did. He was that X-factor that we didn’t have.”

That’s American B-Boy RoxRite, the 2011 Red Bull BC One world champion, on the first time he saw Benny in action.

In 2008, Benny tours Australia with RoxRite and co, as well as Hong 10, Physicx and Ben-J. A year later, in India, they talk about launching a core group of elite B-Boys who could travel the world, spreading the breaking gospel. It’s a radical idea for a niche dance form. In 2010, the Red Bull BC One All Stars is born.

RoxRite again: “Every year it just gets better and better. It’s a crazy trip. You’re sponsored, but that doesn’t mean you become a rock star; it just means you have reached a pinnacle in breaking.

You still want to stay relevant, you still the red bulletin

wanna go to the grimiest jams and get down on concrete with the rawest B-Boys.”

As one of the original touring crew, Benny is a must-have for the Red Bull BC One All Stars. The call goes out on every channel, but no one answers the phone.

And so the trail goes cold. Nobody, including Benny himself, can convincingly explain how a local B-Boy in the form of his life, poised to break into the big time, suddenly drops off the radar. There are a number of excuses – none of them decisive, all of them valid. Benny fathers a child with his girlfriend. He is injured.

His cellphone number changes. He doesn’t have email. His manager suckers him. He gets into show business. He picks up work as a gym trainer. He burns out and swaps training for partying. Life happens.

Fast forward to late 2011. Benny resurfaces, takes the Solo Pro title in Joburg and earns a wild card entry for the Red Bull BC One South African cypher in July 2012. Unexpectedly, he pulls out at the eleventh hour. “I didn’t enter because I hurt my rib,” Benny explains, and drops out of sight for another year.

It’s a loss for the SA breaking scene because B-Boys who can match Benny’s combination of power and flair are thin on the ground. With the country’s strong

dance traditions, there are plenty of stylers with an energetic top rock and intricate footwork. And, sure, some have the dynamic power to pull off big freezes and flips, but few can rival the effortless style that Benny brings.

Back in Kuils River, Benny finds the fire again. “If you don’t get out into that world, you won’t become a better B-Boy. You won’t grow,” he says. “Maybe this year I will show them I should be there with the All Stars. My dream is the All Stars, but my goal is to be a better B-Boy.” Benny trains six hours a day, five days a week, for two months solid, preparing for the 2013 South Africa cypher. He meticulously plans his moves, and records them in a notebook that he’ll refer to on the night. And he chooses his outfit carefully: sneakers, tight brown chinos, a cap and hoodie which he can ditch mid-battle for dramatic effect, and a black vest which reveals his ripped arms and shoulders.

The draw is cruel. It is a match-up worthy of the final, but instead Benny will meet The Curse, the defending SA champ, in the first round. Then it looks like Silent Sam, also a 2012 finalist, will stand in the way in round two. And then the dangerous Shorty Blitz. And so it goes. If Benny wants to lift the title, he will have to do it the hard way.

Against The Curse, Benny is flawless.

He hits hard and first. It’s a strategy Benny employs throughout the night: taking the battle to the opposition, using his reputation to intimidate. He rolls out his classic moves – the elbow spins, air flares and bridge 90s. The Curse crumbles.

Sam is ultimately blown away. Shorty fumbles, and 9 Ether is routed in the final.

When chief judge RoxRite lifts Benny’s hand to indicate he’s won, Benny collapses to the floor in joy and relief.

It’s not over yet, of course. The supreme test still beckons. To celebrate the 10th anniversary of Red Bull BC One, the world finals will be held in South Korea in November this year, and will feature all eight previous world champions. It’s a line-up of the modern legends of breaking.

Benny knows the score. “I have to change my game,” he says. “This year is going to be more difficult, but even with the best B-Boys, anyone can win.

It can be anyone’s night. When I go on the floor, I just want to express myself.

I want to go out there, and show them, and not be scared. Sometimes when a B-Boy is scared, he loses his hope.

I want to give my best and let the world see what I really have in me.” www.redbullbcone.com

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grand

Prix’s Greate st story

Inspired by Formula One’s most dramatic season climax, the 1976 clash between James Hunt and Niki Lauda, is Rush the first great F1 movie?

Words: Herbert Völker

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the red bulletin

photography: atp

Horror crash: on August 1, 1976, Niki Lauda crashed his Ferrari in the German GP at the Nurburgring.

It was the catalyst for one of sport’s most remarkable tales

Grand Prix, Le Mans – rather than the modern films like Fast & Furious.

There they move the cameras in ways that are impossible. The physics don’t make sense. Our film should not be like that. I wanted the physics to make sense, to make it something that people could accept: a coherent world with cool characters. A world in which you could lose yourself and not be distracted by the director’s hand.

How did you mix real filmed action with the computer-generated footage?

Those times required every bit of

the red bulletin

photography: picturedesk.com, atp

on’s OK. He’s a character,” says Niki Lauda.

This is high praise indeed by the standards of the Austrian F1 legend. He is talking about Ron Howard, the 59-year-old director of 21 films, including Apollo 13, Frost/ Nixon and A Beautiful Mind, for which he won the Oscar for Best Director. As a director, producer and actor he has, for more than 50 years, been a central figure in Hollywood, a darling of the dream factory.

His latest film, Rush, dramatises the battle for the 1976 F1 World Championship as fought by Lauda and James Hunt. Howard’s office, without a hint of Hollywood baloney, is at one of the best addresses in Beverly Hills. Displayed on the walls and shelves are sports memorabilia and family photos, along with trophies of the entertainment industry plonked casually rather than solemnly placed. There is nothing slick, nothing affected about Howard. He is agile, fit and in fine form.

the red bulletin: Formula One is a rather exotic theme for the big movie business. Can it work? ron howard: We didn’t make a film following the typical Hollywood formula.

It became a labour of love for us. It’s simply one of those great rivalry stories that one often finds in sport: a clash under extraordinary circumstances.

But I also thought that it’s been a long time since racing was dealt with in a theatrical movie with the intensity, authenticity and respect it deserves.

‘Respect’ is a concept that motor racing today might embrace more; in the 1970s it was a lifesaver. There were fewer electronics, more flying aluminium debris and safety zones didn’t exist. Drivers who crashed had a 50:50 chance of serious injury, or worse. Today, they fly off the circuit and walk away with only a bad case of frustration.

That’s why the ’70s provide a better setting for a motor racing movie, quite apart from the actual story.

You don’t find a rivalry like the 1976 Lauda-Hunt duel every day, even in the hype of motor racing. In fact, something like that doesn’t happen once in a decade. I believed that with today’s film technology that we had a good chance to truly recreate that time as realistically as possible.

Did you unleash the digital tool kit for the racing scenes?

No, I made a choice to try and replicate the style of the classic racing movie –

Critical condition: Lauda’s injuries were so severe, he was taken to intensive care. Six weeks after he was pulled from his burning car (below left), he was back racing

technical expertise, experience and technology that we could provide. We had Academy Award winners in almost every position behind the camera. We wanted to be authentic. For me, it was a similar challenge to Apollo 13. This time we didn’t have the issue of trying to be weightless, but we still recreated all these races, all the tracks, and we were doing it on a very responsible budget. We used real racing cars. Owners of historic cars actually made the vehicles available to us for filming – that was tremendous. The most challenging exercise was the actual the red bulletin

‘ w e wa n t e d i t to b e au t h e n t i c , s o w e f i l m e d s o m e h i g h -s p e e d s c e n e s w i t h r e a l r ac i n g c a r s . t h e c i n e m at i c p uzz l e o f

replicating races on historic circuits was a challenge’ 69

filming of the high-speed scenes – using cars that cost a fortune so you really didn’t want to crash them. We also built some replicas and had some computergenerated cars to fill the field and re-enact crashes. We used archival footage, plus we created our own footage and sometimes we combined the two.

So this puzzle to try to replicate these races, sometimes on historic circuits, was a tremendous cinematic challenge.

How did you cast your drivers?

We hired action professionals from England and Germany, as well as drivers from the Grand Prix scene. The most famous was Jochen Mass [F1 driver, 1973-1982]. It was great having him there. He’s low-key and very cool.

Mass was delighted to be able to drive his original 1976 Marlboro-McLaren in the film, made available to him from a private collection. James Hunt was Mass’s teammate in 1976, with Niki Lauda racing for Ferrari. The season only became interesting after Lauda, leading the championship, suffered nearfatal burns in an accident at the German Grand Prix at the Nurburgring. Hunt was able to catch up in the points before Lauda’s return, which led to a showdown at the final race in Japan. As drama, it has the right stuff: Hunt the playboy versus Lauda the achiever, high life versus iron will, beautiful women all over the place, the resurrection of the almost-dead, damaged inside and out.

How much influence did Lauda have on the plot? There are scenes that diverge from reality.

The racers: James Hunt, who went on to win the title, and Niki Lauda (right) a few days after the accident

Peter Morgan is one of the most successful film writers in the world. He would never relinquish creative control. It was explained to Lauda how things would unfold and he could say yes or no to the contract. He had to expect that there would be some details that he wouldn’t like.

Poetic movie licence.

Right, and Lauda agreed to this licence, that is, he hardly appeared on the set and didn’t complain when he learned of a scene in the script that deviated slightly from his memories. Sometimes he actually found the ‘new’ scenes really good, they were necessary to express

The man behind the movie: director Ron Howard says that making Rush was a labour of love

70

the feeling of that time within a few minutes, something that the audience could relate to. So Peter Morgan has written a scene that puts Lauda, a supposedly shy boy, right in the middle of the fan adoration, eroticism and the hard-core thrill of speed that captures the Ferrari magic of the time. On a country road in Italy, an unsuspecting lady in a car, a hitchhiker who turns out to be a fan. In truth, Niki probably won his girlfriend in a somewhat more subtle way.

The truth isn’t too bad, either. Lauda says he was in Salzburg at a party hosted by film star Curd Jürgens, most famous for playing the villain in the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, and Jürgens’ girlfriend Marlene. He hardly knew anyone and just sat around. Marlene, who knew nothing about motor racing, assumed that the young man was some sort of athlete and said something like, “Um, you’re that famous tennis player.” Soon she left the film star for the Formula One driver, eventually becoming Lauda’s first wife.

Did you meet Lauda before deciding to make Rush?

No, I’d already decided to make the film, even if I didn’t like Niki. But I liked him immediately, although before the meeting I had found him difficult to pigeonhole. On paper you can’t the red bulletin

Photography: Michael Horowitz/Anzenberger Agency, constantin, Rainer Schlegelmilch/Getty Images, twitter

The film stars: Chris Hemsworth as Hunt (left) and Daniel Brühl as Lauda

understand a person’s sense of humour or intellect, or the way that he solves problems, his thought process. When we finally met, he reminded me of the astronauts I got to know making Apollo 13. It’s a very similar combination: a person who has confidence to put himself into a dangerous situation and believes he can survive it – such people exude a kind of relaxed strength – Niki’s one of them. He has this confidence that reminds me of a karate master.

The meeting with Lauda must have been a sentimental return to Vienna for you. the red bulletin

The Journey, which we shot there, was my first job in the film industry. I was four years old. I grew up in showbiz thanks to my father [actor Rance Howard]. Deborah Kerr was also in the film, but what I really remember is Yul Brynner. He played a Russian commander at the border crossing in the Hungarian revolution of 1956. He was great with children. In one scene he takes a shot of vodka and bites the glass. He said to me, “You can’t do this in real life. You can’t bite a glass, you will hurt yourself. This is not a glass, it’s

sugar.” He let me lick the glass and it really tasted like candy. To me, the whole set was like a children’s playground. I sat on top of the tanks and real soldiers played with me. When I met Niki in Vienna a good 50 years later, I had to revisit the highlights of my memories: the Ferris wheel and a castle like Sleeping Beauty’s.

How do you feel about the work done

by Rush’s two lead actors, Daniel Brühl and Chris Hemsworth?

I’m delighted, honestly. Daniel is already an acclaimed actor, but when we filmed in Germany, I noticed that people were curious about what his performance as Niki would be like. They didn’t immediately connect Daniel with Niki.

We changed his teeth and some other little things about his appearance, but more importantly than anything, he got to know Niki, who shared a lot of information about those days. Daniel worked very hard on learning to speak like Niki, to get the dialect right. After the screening in Germany, people actually thought he had looped everything – but of course he hadn’t. It just shows you what Daniel’s talent and hard work has led to. And for Chris, who is primarily known for action and fantasy, this is a tremendous breakthrough. People here in Hollywood have seen some of his work in this movie and have offered him different jobs – important dramatic roles – as well as adventure stories.

The film’s ending differs from reality.

Wouldn’t the truth have been enough?

That in the pouring rain at the last Grand Prix of the season in Japan, Lauda was one of three drivers to stop because of the dangerous conditions – understandably so, three months after his accident. He is not the type of guy who throws a world championship away for the love of a woman. He said it was at this point that he really wondered about the script. It’s a little like Casablanca, with the waiting aircraft and so on.

Well, he really was on his way to Tokyo airport, and he told me that he simply didn’t want to die in this race under such adverse conditions. There are a lot of good reasons for this. Love for a woman is one, at least subconsciously. Niki doesn’t admit to such sentiments, but we can very well express them in the film. He had to make a decision and we believe Marlene had something to do with it. The audience would also like to see it that way, but that does not necessarily have anything to do with Hollywood.

Rush is released this month: www.rushmovie.com

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‘it is

illus to think that setting

achieving them

happy.’ Andre Agassi Graf on the mysteries 72

the red bulletin

an

ion goals and

makes you and Stefanie of success the red bulletin

Interview: Stefan Wagner

THE red bulletin: Together you’ve won 30 Grand Slam tournaments, earned fortunes, achieved worldwide popularity and business success.

You raise millions for children’s charities, look after young tennis players, have a strong marriage and are bringing up happy children.

Everything you touch seems to be successful, but what was it like after the end of your tennis careers?

Did you have to relearn what success is? A tennis tournament begins on a Monday, the goal is victory in the finals on Sunday: that’s relatively straightforward. stefanie graf: And on the Monday you get the new rankings, which tell you where you stand. When I was still playing tennis, a friend once said to me, “You’re so lucky, you can say that you are the best in something.” Today I understand better than ever what he meant. This phrase provides a certain kind of security. A doctor or a therapist never knows exactly how good he really is, there’s always the question of whether or not he could be better.

Was it easier for you playing sport than it was afterwards?

SG: No, there were different questions.

For example, whether the success that you have achieved is actually what you wanted to achieve. For a sports player these questions go even deeper with age.

ANDRE AGASSI: I have my own view of success.

Which is?

AA: I believe success is an illusion.

But you won all four Grand Slams, over $31 million in prize money and were world number one. That is an illusion?

AA: Success in itself, as an end in itself, is an illusion. Whether it’s in sport or a charitable foundation. Let me put it this 73

way: in the last year, Stefanie has helped 1,000 children with her Children for Tomorrow foundation – and even if it were 2,000, there are still umpteen thousand out there that she can’t help.

Would you describe that as success?

It would be crazy not to.

AA: It wouldn’t, because you describe something as success that isn’t actually success. In tennis I learnt that the final isn’t the goal, it can’t be. That would have meant, ‘Shit, on Monday it all starts again.’

Following your logic, Roger Federer isn’t a successful tennis player.

AA: He is, of course – but not because he’s won the most Grand Slam titles, but because he’s the all-time best, which he is beyond a doubt, and yet he still tries to develop. True excellence is the person who understands that success won’t come sometime in the future, but rather here, now. As soon as I understood that, a few important things became clear: it’s not what I do that’s important, it’s how I do it. I won’t accept not giving my best.

I won’t accept not wanting to be better.

Every day, I have to try to be better, no matter what the scoreboard says or what the world rankings say, or how much I’ve raised in donations.

But you can’t separate ‘success’ from goals which are objectively set and attained.

AA: Yes you can. In fact you have to.

Try it! Set yourself a goal, work hard to achieve it – will it make you happy? No. It’s an illusion to think that setting goals and achieving them makes you happy.

How much money have you raised in the last 15-20 years for your charity projects?

SG: I concentrate on the necessary amount year by year. In total it’s millions, many millions.

AA: For me, over the years it’s been almost exactly $175 million.

And do you know how many children you’ve helped?

SG: In the past year it was 1,000 children, which was our highest number for 15 years.

AA: Recently we had 1,300 children per year in our academy.

But you must regard that as success?

AA: Success isn’t what comes out, but what you put in. Doing things completely or not at all. Caring about what you do. When it comes to charity: invest yourself in your project. Find out how you can make something exceptional out of it. Does your fame help? Do you have to collect donations yourself? Will you have to spend time 74

So success is subjective, not objective?

Andre Agassi: ‘When you see success as a goal, you’ll never be successful.

Because it becomes like an addiction, you can never have enough.

NeveR’ away from your children to give interviews? Then you have to do it with all your heart. When it comes to tennis: find out what you’re responsible for, and concentrate on that. Work on your fitness, on your stroke. Don’t lie to yourself and look for shortcuts.

Success isn’t a result. Success is a way of living you choose for yourself.

So success is subjective, not objective?

SG: Absolutely.

AA: When you see success as a goal, you’ll never be successful. Because it becomes like an addiction, you can never have enough. Never.

But how do you measure success?

SG: By how you feel when you go to bed at night.

More and more tennis pros come to you in Las Vegas to learn from you.

What can you teach these players, some of whom are world class?

SG: Actually sometimes it is about technique. Not the basics, sure, but there’s often room for tips.

You once said that you could teach a young player in 10 minutes what you learnt in 10 years. What would happen in those 10 minutes?

AA: There are a few things that are important to me, simple things. For example, that there is only one important point you play in life, that is, the next one. And that you should concentrate on the things that you can influence – you can control your attitude, your work ethic, your concentration. If it’s windy or hot or something aches or you’re tired from the match yesterday, then you have to accept it. I also try to teach young players that tennis isn’t a sport where you’ll get perfection.

There’s no 100 per cent tennis. There is only the 100 per cent that is within you on the day. It’s all about bringing out your own 100 per cent.

SG: I can’t put it as succinctly as Andre, I couldn’t fit it all in 10 minutes. Also I see my task a little differently: I don’t give life lessons. I prefer listening to talking. the red bulletin

Photography: LONGINES

Stefanie Graf and Andre Agassi: the first couple of world sports met The Red Bulletin in Hamburg with the help of Longines

In Open [Agassi’s gripping and brutally honest autobiography], there are descriptions of depressive episodes, even after winning Wimbledon and becoming number one in world rankings. Was the pain of losing really stronger than the joy of triumph?

AA: Yes, and that still applies.

How do you deal with it?

AA: I’ve learnt to enjoy every moment.

A good day with a major final, that’s a good moment. But you have to learn to value all the moments before that led to it. The moment of victory can’t be better than the moment of preparation.

Learning that is pretty much a question of survival for a tennis player.

SG: Andre’s right. The feeling you have after a victory fades so quickly. What we call success has a terribly short half-life.

You would have been amazed if you’d seen Andre or me after a major victory.

There was some relief, maybe, but no rejoicing or excitement. After a major the red bulletin

victory there’s an emptiness, a routine, ‘Let’s go home, we’re done here.’

That sounds really sad.

AA: Oh, it is. Learning to see things differently is utterly essential. The day in the weight room, on the training court – that has to count just as much as finals day at Wimbledon. Not understanding that can be dangerous, because you make bad mistakes. So you think, for instance, that money is important, but money is nothing more than an expansion of opportunities for spending your time.

Money can’t make you happy. When you’re happy with the opportunities that come with less money, money completely loses its significance. Money is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Exactly the same as what you’ve been describing as success: Success isn’t an end in itself.

Success doesn’t mean winning.

Not many world-famous sportspeople would say that. How does an athlete come to think like that?

SG: Life is a good teacher, whether you’re

a tennis player or not. You just have to ask yourself one question and answer it honestly: is the life I live the life that I want to live?

Did you already have that attitude during your career?

AA: At 27 I was number one in the world, I had won Grand Slams, I had taken drugs, I was divorced, I fell to number 141. I was unhappy. And I had to make a decision: do I keep playing tennis or not? That was the moment when I thought, even if I didn’t choose tennis for myself, because my father did that for me, perhaps tennis will give me the opportunity to get my life together. To do that I needed some meaning in my life. The school I built was that meaning.

And so tennis had a purpose, tennis allowed me to create and maintain something which is really important.

Suddenly it was all completely simple: tennis became a tool with which I could do something I really wanted to do.

You said that fear is a great motivator.

Given your life story, what you suffered as a child through fear and pressure – did you really mean that?

AA: The fear of losing is an important motivator. Fear of not making the best of a situation.

It seems as if you raise your children without fear. With your charities you try to make the lives of others easier.

AA: But the fear of losing stays. That doesn’t go away. Ignoring the fear doesn’t help. I have a fear of failing my children: that fear is good and right, because it keeps me alert.

Is there such a thing as a life without fear?

AA: We humans can love and hate, we feel joy and fear, all these emotions are within us. It would be wrong to try and turn one of them off. Quite apart from the fact that it would be impossible.

Can you raise a child to be successful in the conventional sense of the word?

SG: No. AA: But you can screw it up.

SG: That’s something we’re really afraid of, that we screw up with our kids.

AA: You can teach someone to put the scoreboard ahead of everything. But that would be wrong. Children have to learn to push themselves every day.

For themselves, not for anyone else, certainly not for a scoreboard. When you see the result on the scoreboard, that’s a bonus. But what’s on the scoreboard shouldn’t be the meaning of life. Life is bigger than any scoreboard. www.childrenfortomorrow.de www.agassifoundation.org

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Hawaiian paddlers Jeff Silva (left) and Nicolas Schenk traverse the tide in the Olamau Race

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At the Olamau Race, the world’s fastest outrigger canoe teams compete around the rugged coast of Hawaii. Skill, grit and knowledge of the ocean aren’t always enough to win, but they do keep you alive W o r d s : R o b e r t A n a s i P h o t o g r ap h y : C h r i s Ba l d w i n

he yellow-and-white outrigger canoe jets across the water, the six-man crew of the Shell Va’a team paddling in an uncanny tight rhythm. The canoe catches each wave perfectly, shooting forward with a grace that belies the sweat on the men’s faces and the muscles bulging under their T-shirts. Day one of the world’s biggest outrigger canoe race seems to be playing out predictably: the best team, Shell Va’a, has taken the lead.

They are from Tahiti, where canoe paddling is one of the most popular pastimes. Everyone paddles in Tahiti – mothers, children, grandparents – and big corporations such as Shell sponsor teams. Each member of Shell Va’a is a star.

A Shell Va’a victory at the Olamau Race is by no means a foregone conclusion. Mellow Johnny’s Va’a are muscling in on the Tahitian team’s chances. The American outfit is led by Raimana Van Bastolaer, a legendary Tahitian waterman who pioneered stand-up paddleboarding (SUP) techniques and mastered the world’s biggest wave on home surf at Teahupo’o.

“In Tahiti you know how to swim, fish, surf and paddle.

The ocean is all around us and we live in the water,” he says.

“Parents actually enrol their kids in paddling schools and they spend their days racing with friends. To the kids it’s just play, but if they’re very talented, the parents know their child is going to have a good job, social security – everything.”

What’s going on between Shell and Johnny’s in the choppy water around Hawaii’s Big Island is more than child’s play.

Each team must give as good as they get or be left behind.

Today they will paddle 38 miles between Laupahoehoe

The OPT team’s canoe, with its outrigger (right), is one of the most high-tech vessels in the Olamau race

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and Keokea on the north of the island, the first of three days’ intensive paddling. Teamwork and rhythm are everything in paddling. The crews move in unison to the call of the strokers, paddles throwing up spray as they dip and rise. The fastest paddlers are seated at the front to set the pace; those with the most stamina take up positions in the middle and the steersman sits at the end to navigate, coach and monitor the waves.

Two hours into the men’s race and the 14 outrigger canoes have spread out. Support teams following in motorboats shout encouragement and drop off supplies. The frontrunners will complete the course in just over three-and-a-half hours; others will take up to five. Over the three days they’ll cover 101 miles. Most teams in the race are picked from a squad of 12 paddlers, and the first 83 miles up to the penultimate stop at Kukio on the west of the island must be completed by an ‘iron man’ crew of six paddlers with no changes permitted.

The final stage allows for one change of up to six paddlers.

It’s this iron man component that makes a tough event even more gruelling. One of the paddlers in the women’s 404 team has to quit the first stage, flopping out into the water drained of energy, leaving her teammates to finish the stage with five paddlers. “I hope she gets better quick,” says 404 captain, Jill Schooler, “because she’s going out again tomorrow.”

The iron man element of the competition and US$50,000 in prize money awarded in men’s and women’s categories aren’t the only factors that separate the Olamau from other outrigger races. It’s also an unlimited event, meaning that teams can bring, with a few restrictions, any canoe they choose – any weight, shape or size.

The event is in its second year, but it has grown so fast that the big teams have put the race on their calendars.

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the red bulletin

Rolling in the deep: a member of the Alaka‘i Nalu team hauls himself out of the water after capsizing. Facing page: composure before the event’s frenetic start

“Paddling needs to grow,” says race organiser Mike Nakachi.

“Last year, we had 11 teams taking part. This year it’s 24 and next year we hope to double that. It will keep getting better.”

Mellow Johnny’s not-so-secret weapon in this year’s Olamau race is their pioneering canoe, the latest model to come out of Odie Sumi’s renowned Pure Canoes And Paddles laboratory in Hawaii. Sumi’s design might mean they have the fastest six-man canoe ever to skim the waves.

From sleek hull to sharp prow, the outrigger crackles with power. Even the glossy mint-green paint seethes and gleams.

To one side of the canoe the ama (outrigger) hangs from the curved ‘iako (struts) like a booster rocket. The canoe looks like a vicious species of wasp or a Star Wars X-Wing starfighter, and on the waves it flies. “They talk about the red bulletin

tradition,” says Sumi, “but if you’re going to paddle a canoe made of fibreglass, why not paddle something fun?”

For centuries, Hawaiians built outriggers from single logs carefully selected from the island’s native koa trees in forests covering the volcanic mountains. After months of charring and scraping with a stone adze, the outriggers slowly took shape. The process is very different now. Composite materials and computerised engineering have trumped old methods.

For years, cutting-edge canoes have entered races and blown away the traditional boats. The Olamau also serves as a field test for new models of canoe while also having one foot in the sport’s past, and Sumi is at the forefront of this.

Out of the 24 canoes in the race, Sumi built 11, making him the Henry Ford of competitive outrigger racing. His rise 81

Credit:

Tough going: each team must use the same six paddlers for much of the race – changes are only permitted in the final stage

in the field has been rapid. The 31-year-old Hawaiian started out making paddles and selling them on eBay. After graduating from California Polytechnic, he toured surf spots along the west coast of America with a friend, selling paddles and making contacts. His business grew when he moved back to Hawaii four years ago, and before long he had a waiting list. “I was making paddles, so I knew how to glue wood and put fibreglass on it,” says Sumi. “The concept was pretty much the same: take this hollow wood, glue it, sand it, make it into something.”

Just three years after making his first canoe, Sumi and his designs dominate racing. His humble origins make him more of a Bill Gates than Henry Ford: like Gates, Sumi started in his garage; he now works out of a couple of warehouses just outside Kona on the west side of the Big Island. One of his race-ready canoes with wood-core hull, carbon fibreglass body, resin-infused ama and carbon-reinforced aluminium ‘iakos will set you back US$19,000. The personal touch remains: each outrigger has waterproof skirts hand-sewn by Sumi’s mother.

T

he Olamau Race plays out against a backdrop of astonishing views. In the distance looms the Mauna Kea volcano which, at 10,210m, is the tallest mountain in the world, from base underwater to peak, sorry Everest. Big Island is the newest of the Hawaiian Islands – its youth contributes to the constant landslides and lava flows exploding into the sea. The Olamau teams paddle by black cliffs and dozens of waterfalls that drop sheer into the surf. No team runs closer to the cliffs than Pacific Northwest. At the moment, they’re regretting taking their line inside as the rebounding waves make it impossible to push ahead. They paddle at full tilt, fighting the waves, fighting the current. Most of the teams have a local steersman who knows the course, or at least an escort boat, but Pacific Northwest are struggling, the frontrunners way ahead and out of sight.

Paddling is a labour of love for members of the Pacific Northwest team. Conditions are very different in that part of America compared with Hawaii. Wetsuits are a must in winter, when paddlers often have to hack through ice before practice sessions. They are also hindered by having to train in bays and rivers, missing out on gaining experience of big swells, which requires a unique skill set. Plus, the crew – former swimmers, distance canoe paddlers and Hawaiian expats – live many miles from each other and have to fit in training around full-time jobs. “We keep a record of our training days,” says team captain Lance Mamiya. “When you see that someone else has logged in, it drives you to keep going yourself.”

Mamiya looks a decade younger than his 46 years. His thick muscles slope from his neck and shoulders down to weightlifter’s arms. He grew up in Hawaii, but his father’s career as an Air Force fighter pilot took the family around the world. It wasn’t until Mamiya settled in the Northwest that he started paddling seriously. For him, it’s both an adrenalin sport and a way to stay connected to his island roots.

“When you come back to Hawaii,” he says, “and get to surf and paddle without any kind of wetsuit, you have a pure connection to the water. Every time I visit, it gets tougher for me to get back on the plane to Seattle.”

Traditionally, the canoes taking part in the Olamau lack rudders or fins. It’s the steersman’s job to keep the line – not so easy as swell and wind jerks the outrigger stern from side to side. Catching a swell on an outrigger is like six surfers trying

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Dire straits: Mellow Johnny’s get caught in a swell on Day One near Keokea. Hawaiian paddler Heiva Paie (facing page) is one of the stars of their crew

Mauna Loa

Keokea Beach

H awa i i Kawaihae Kukio Kamakahonu

Laupahoehoe Big Island

from battling the waves, they now have to fight each other. “Every time I’d look up another attack was coming,” says Mathisen. “Dropping those teams wasn’t easy.”

After winning day one, Mathisen and her team finish second on day two, just losing out to Na Hoa, but retain their yellow jerseys in the overall rankings. Last year, only one women’s team competed in the Olamau – this time round there are five, enough for separate rankings and prize money.

to ride a wave on one longboard. Every paddler has to feel the wave and adjust his stroke. Once the wave speed is matched, the strokes need to be shorter and quicker to keep pace. Meanwhile, the steersman has to keep the canoe angled so the bow doesn’t get buried in the wave in front of it, while staying on course.

Yet the Pacific Northwest crew plough forward. Last year, they raced the Olamau in a spec canoe, and finished in last place in the men’s category, but their grit impressed the field so much that Sumi loaned them an unlimited canoe for this year.

Day one ends with Mellow Johnny’s and Shell neck and neck. Shell pulls across the line 81 seconds ahead. On shore, a crewman from the Sea Shepherd team lies groaning on a table in the banquet pavilion, an IV needle sunk into to his arm. Croquet, this isn’t, and it’s about to get much worse.

The Pacific Ocean erupts on day two. Thirty-knot winds and 10ft swells crash onto the shore. Tourists in sightseeing boats cling to the rails. Just reaching the starting line is a survival test: the Sea Shepherd boat capsizes in the surf, paddlers struggling to keep their heads above water. The escort boats disappear behind the swells, leaving the canoes paddling alone. Minutes into the race, Mellow Johnny’s get swamped and have to bail. The best teams take advantage of the stormy weather, using the wind to drop into the bigger swells.

Anna Mathisen is the captain of the Pacific Wahine women’s team, and she’s in her element. A one-time professional swimmer, she’s spent her life in the water. Mathisen’s Norwegian ancestry shows in her ash-blonde hair and light blue eyes, but her soul is at least half Hawaiian. “Personally,” she says. “I thrive in the big stuff. Our head second-day steerswoman Katie Stephens also does canoe sailing and has a ton of experience in rough seas. We weren’t worried.”

“I had to lean out of the canoe and hold my paddle firm to keep us straight. Then switch back to paddling. The weight of water and the anaerobic intensity left me shaking.”

After an intense hour of surfing, Pacific Wahine enter the flats to find three women’s teams – Oceanic Connection, Kawaihae and 404 – only a few yards away. Exhausted the red bulletin

O

n day three the water is pure glass, so velvet and still you feel like you could put a blanket on it and have a picnic. Out in front it’s a three-team race, with Shell, Mellow Johnny’s and EDT fighting for the lead, running side by side. Shell have a four-minute advantage in the overall rankings but they want to win every stage.

Finishing a stage in first place will earn a team US$2,500, while the overall winner in the men’s category nets another US$15,000 on top of that. It sounds like decent money, until you think about dividing it 12 ways and the cost of getting to Hawaii. Shell could win every race they enter, and still not come close to breaking even. But the upsides outweigh the downsides for these paddlers: the competition and camaraderie, the practice of an ancient craft along a coast that shimmers with natural beauty. It’s paddling into an ancient tradition, while maintaining a 21st-century competitive edge.

At a post-race pool party, the teams mingle, slapping each other on the back, trading war stories and working through their own abiding memories of the race. “The overall message to take away from Olamau can be so many different things: strong life, or live strong, or live life to its fullest,” says race organiser Mike Nakachi. “To me it’s living at its best.”

“We were in the first race,” says Lance Mamiya, “and we’re in this one, and we’ll keep coming back as long they’ll have us. It might not be as sexy as BASE-jumping or skydiving, but it has its own intensity, and there’s the tradition. We’re paddling new boats but we’re connected to something that’s a thousand years old.”

Shell edge out EDT and Mellow Johnny’s to claim overall victory and a sizeable cash prize, while Pacific Wahine take the US$5,500 prize money for winning in the women’s category.

But one team that won’t make a dime from the event is Pacific Northwest. They head back to the mainland with sore muscles and a 13th-place overall finish. One after another, crews paddle into the harbour at Kamakahonu, weary and satisfied.

European tourists stare at the paddlers from their sun loungers as they lift their canoes out of the water. It’s a different Hawaii from the ancient heartland, but the Olamau ties all these Hawaiis together. Next year, the race will follow the same route, and continue to transform outrigger racing. www.olamaurace.com

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WINGS FOR EVERY TASTE.

CRANBERRY. LIME. BLUEBERRY. AND THE EFFECT OF RED BULL.

Solar flair: headphones that look good and charge your smartphone. MUSIC, page 94

Where to go and what to do

ac t i o n !

T r a v e l / G e a r / T r a i n i n g / N i g h t l i f e / M U S I C / p a r t i e s / c i t i e s / c l u b s / E v e n ts

photography: Everest Skydive

The Other Everest

Jumping from a helicopter hovering at the top of the world is the ultimate in James Bond-style adventure If the world is not enough, take a trip to Earth’s highest drop zone

the red bulletin

Travel, page 90

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Action!

Safety Fi rst

PRO TOOLS

Ronix Parks Boots

Hot foot The soft inner shoe is heated in a special oven before use. When it’s warm it fits the shape of the foot perfectly

Saving Parks’ life

Comfort break A deeper opening allows more mobility in manoeuvres. A foam insert in the sole softens hard landings

Pro-tec Ace Wake Helmet This has saved my neck on many occasions. Perfect fit, great padding and detachable ear pads. www.pro-tec.net

Ain’t heavy Mesh inserts and fewer seams than other shoes keep the weight down to a mere 2.5kg

Ronix Impact Jacket The light, elastic zip vest fits me like a glove. I’ve worn it when leaping out of helicopters and riding powerful kickers.

Parks Bonifay won his first X Games gold aged 14

www.ronixwake.com

On the best of a wave Wakeboarding Parks Bonifay on the gear that lets him exceed expectations The best wakeboarder of all time? Those in the know regard the 32-year-old Bonifay as the greatest practitioner of his craft. The Floridian developed his kit to exactly suit his wakeboarding style and is also constantly experimenting with new tricks. In 1999, he landed the first-ever switch toeside 1080 – a three-spin move once thought

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impossible. When it comes to equipment, he values manoeuvrability of the board and boots, weight reduction and comfort, but always plays it safe. “Before I was born, my uncle drowned and so my mother never let me go out on the water without a helmet and swimming vest.” www.parksbonifay.com

Ronix Parks ATR EDTN My ‘all-terrain ride’ board is 139cm long and ideally suited to all types of tricks and moves. www.ronixwake.com

the red bulletin

Photography: Chris Garrison/Red Bull Content Pool

Well adjusted The boot is fixed directly to the board with two screws, but the angle remains adjustable

Action!

party

roll with it Can you still smoke joints in Amsterdam?

Last year there was talk of a ban on foreigners buying cannabis.

Here’s the blowby-blow of what happened.

Hidden in the party and theatre district of Leidseplein

Milky way out

Words: florian obkircher. Photography: de fotomeisjes (4), DigiDaan

AMSTERDAM Once home to hippies, now a hipster haunt: the Melkweg – the ‘Milky Way’ – has been at the centre of subculture for 40 years Two concert halls, two theatres, a cinema, a gallery, space for 3,800 people. In its 40 years of service, the Melkweg has grown to become Holland’s largest cultural centre. It opened in 1972 in an abandoned dairy factory in the heart of Amsterdam and attracted hippies from all over the world.

Before the decade was out, the punks followed, and the Melkweg was a popular stop for British and Irish bands making European tours.

In September, there are concerts from Californian skate punks Good Riddance, singer-songwriter Kate Nash and the electronic stylings of Jon Hopkins. Together they’re an embodiment of the Melkweg ethos of good times and culture for all.

Melkweg Lijnbaansgracht 234A 1017 PH Amsterdam, NL www.melkweg.nl

the red bulletin

GR E E N LIGHT Show time: a concert every day, sometimes even two

Fi rst Things Amsterdam’s breakfast options are as numerous and excellent as its night banquet.

Three ways to drive away a hangover

JUICEd Gartine serves produce it grows on the premises.

A bucolic spot can make you forget you’re in the middle of the city.

Taksteeg 7-BG

BAKED Barney’s Breakfast Bar offers water pipe and space cakes first thing, but they also have great crêpes and breakfast rolls.

Haarlemmerstraat 102

FRIED Amsterdammers love fries.

The best, at Vleminckx, come with exotic sauces, such as Oorlog (war) with red onion and peanuts.

Voetboogstraat 33

The new rule: each city and town can decide if it wants to sell cannabis to tourists.

Amsterdam decided for; many places in the south, including Maastricht, against.

RED FLAG You can’t smoke in the coffee shops – at least not tobacco. If you’re smoking pure hash, puff away. But many places offer a herbal substitute as an alternative to tobacco.

GR E Y A R E A Lighting up outdoors is forbidden, but a blind eye tends to be turned.

The Blowverbod signs erected in 2007 have been removed permanently – because tourists kept stealing them.

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Action!

travel

On top of the world: the planet’s highest skydiving experience

And anoth er thing See all in Nepal

By water Nepal is known for its exhilarating river rafting.

Novices and rafting regulars alike will find a river run at their level. www.nepalraft.com

Might of the mountain

By air Skydivers who’d like a ride in a plane they don’t have to jump out of should take a scenic flight around Mount Everest for a breathtakingly up-close view.

E verest Skydive A leap at more than twice the normal height requires nerves of steel, but the incredible views and adrenalin rushes are a unique payoff

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www.buddhaair.com

Advice from the inside Hit the gym “You trek for six days before the jump to gradually acclimatise to the altitude,” says Bedingfield, “so I started training at the gym two months before.

It helped to feel fit, strong and prepared.”

Kitting up

“We supply pretty much everything jumpers will need,”

says Wendy Smith of Skydive Everest, “from puffer jackets to bespoke thermal suits, which look like an astronaut outfit.

But for the trek, people need walking boots. I’d recommend they’re nicely broken in and comfortable. We’ll do the rest.”

By land If skydiving hasn’t depleted your energy reserves, Everest Skydive can organise a seven-day trek to Mount Everest base camp followed by a helicopter ride back to Kathmandu.

the red bulletin

words: ruth morgan. photography: wendysmithaerial.com, everest skydive

At an altitude of about 12,500ft, a standard skydive is adventure enough for most. If you double that, then add another 4,500ft, you’re at the cruising altitude of a jumbo jet, or the same height as Mount Everest. Before 2008, no one had skydived near Mount Everest. Many thought it was too high, but, with the help of an extra oxygen supply, a team of daredevils made the first jumps, and have since run an annual expedition in October. To date, fewer than 100 people have made the jump. “It was the first time I’d contemplated skydiving,” says Molly Bedingfield, who jumped with Everest Skydive to raise money for her charity, Global Angels, “but it was the most amazing experience – from trekking to the world’s highest drop zone to the jump itself. I did a tandem skydive with an expert, and when I put my arms out it really felt like I was flying. You drop faster www.everestthan usual as the air is so thin, but you skydive.com have around six-and-a-half minutes Solo skydive from US$25,000 before landing. The scenery, Everest Tandem skydive and the Himalayas, is breathtaking. from US$35,000 It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing.”

Action!

workout

The ABT crew aim is to achieve pit-stop times of under three seconds

“Our goal is to work on the mechanics at least twice a week. Not easy because their work on the car takes priority,” says Axel Funke

n ever tire with tyres

Four in three

Words: Werner Jessner. Photography: tim Lüdin. illustration: heri irawan

dtm You have to be mighty fit to change the four wheels of a touring car in less than three seconds The souped-up Audi A5 is still a good half-metre from the stop line, but the impact screwdrivers are already at work loosening the still-moving wheels.

A lever on the driver’s side activates the pneumatic jack and the car shoots up on four stilts. The man with the screwdriver rests his elbow on his right knee; with his left hand, he sticks the old wheel on a spoke while the second man puts the new wheel on. Screw in, lower the car, drive away. All that in under three seconds.

In a day of training, the mechanics of the ABT Sportsline team in the German touring car championship (DTM) do up to 16 pit-stop changes like this, usually in sets of four followed by a break of at least 90 minutes (when they work on the cars).

A front wheel of the ABT DTM Audi A5 weighs 22kg, and a rear wheel 24kg – about three times heavier than a Formula One wheel. Using the impact screwdriver is a test of strength: it weighs 6.8kg. the red bulletin

Functional strength training on a weight stack ensures that mechanics’ movements come naturally when called upon, says Axel Funke, Audi Motorsport’s fitness coach and ABT’s sports scientist

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The mechanic’s position at the weight stack corresponds with his pit-stop position: a slight crouch.

Repetitive movements demand all-round strength. Left and right body parts are trained equally to prevent muscular imbalance.

We do two sets of 12-15 reps with weights lighter than the wheel, then one set of 2-6 reps with greater-than-wheel weights.

Consistency can be improved with classic bench presses. Around 80kg is ideal, but 60kg is normal.

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Action!

city Guide

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Action in Brazil’s fashion capital

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TOP FIVE MY Sao Paulo HIGHLIGHTS

pumping, with plenty of live music in the bars. I really like the Salve Jorge, which has the coldest beer in the city: they serve the bottles in ice buckets.

Wow in Sao: Vogue and Elle cover star Viviane Orth

1 Ibirapuera Park,

“Burger and Fendi handbag to go”

Av. Pedro Alvares Cabral A great park with structures by genius architect Oscar Niemeyer and a great place to jog. Skateboarders, bikers and skaters fly past as you run. Every kind of sport is allowed here.

SaO PAULO Glamour shops, top bars, jogging in a Niemeyer park: supermodel Viviane Orth leads the way through her city – and to its best burger joint One of the most in-demand models in the world, Viviane Orth grew up in Sao Paulo and is as keen on the city as any of its 12 million residents.

“A great city with the most hospitable people in the world,” says the 22-year-old, “although for non-residents it can sometimes be a bit frightening – because it’s so big.” Although Orth now lives abroad, she regularly returns to her favourite city.

“The coolest boutiques and the best restaurants in Brazil are here. And the most thriving nightlife.”

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motor up A Mecca for speed junkies, the Kartódromo Granja Viana offers four excellent outdoor kart tracks.

A 25-minute spin costs 85 real, about US$35, including helmet and overalls.

4 Cidade Jardim

Av. Magalhaes de Castro This is the best place for a shopping spree, with shops like Hermès, Chanel and Brazil’s most venerable boutique, Daslu. And the best burger place, Lanchonete da Cidade. I can’t walk past without getting one.

skates on Sao Paulo’s best skateboarding spots are in the Morumbi district and the CEU Butanta skate park. Also try Toobsland, a skate shop with its own skatebowl. You can make reservations and enjoy a private session.

off road

2 Pe no Parque

Rua Inhambu, 240 After jogging I eat in the park’s snack bar, with a clear conscience. Here they have fresh fruit and my favourite food: puréed frozen acai berries, which are best eaten with muesli.

3 Bar Salve Jorge

Rua Aspicuelta, 544 The city’s nightlife is constantly

5 Casa Juisi

R. Roberto Simonsen, 108 This second-hand shop is my insider tip for vintage fashion, antique furniture and retro sunglasses, as well as cool old handbags. My last purchase was a Fendi handbag from 1970.

The Tiete Ecological Park east of Sao Paulo is an oasis of relaxation, a nature reserve and a paradise for BMX riders. With several tracks, it’s perfect for both beginners and freestyle pros.

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Photography: tuca vieira (4)

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music

FRESH EN U P YOU R VINYL! how to get your platters clean

When Franz Ferdinand released their debut album in 2004, the verdict was unanimous: no other band could so skilfully and casually join references to the Russian avant-garde with jagged New Wave drums and catchy melodies. Nine years and the sale of over three million records later, the kings of art-school rock are back with a fourth album, Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action. Drummer Paul Thomson reveals the music that the Glasgow-based quartet were listening to while they made it.

Art of darkness playlist Gloomy hip-hop, ADHD electro and Danish industrial: music to make a Franz Ferdinand album by

1 Kerri Chandler

www.franzferdinand.com

2 Kanye West

3 Zomby

The original is good, but even better is the remix by Foremost Poets, a house producer from New Jersey.

The way he sloganeers over the top to make the track his own is fantastic. I saw him DJing in Glasgow; he had to borrow someone’s records because his had been impounded by customs. He had the charisma to pull it off. Amazing guy.

Apparently this record was inspired by his visits to the Louvre in Paris. I think it’s hilarious that something like this can result from looking at Renaissance paintings. Kanye is amazing and I am glad that he exists. Back in the day he’d come to our shows and he said that he’s a fan. Now I’m a fan of his, and his tweets are amazing as well.

A difficult artist. In fact he’s nuts: 33 electronic tracks on this album, none much longer than two minutes. For DJs, it’s impossible to mix. His beat puzzle pieces are amazing. It’s dance music for people with ADHD. He says everything that he’s got to say and moves on to the next one. He proved that with his remix for our song Ulysses.

4 Vår

5 The Doppelgangaz

Bar A Thym

The World Fell

Elias Ronnenfelt fronts Danish punk band Iceage, one of the wildest young bands anywhere.

I saw them in Glasgow and they set the roof on fire.

Recently Elias and a friend released a dark album under the name Vår. It’s young boys making music like Depeche Mode. At the moment I’m listening to the track The World Fell all the time.

94

Black Skinhead

HARK!

At school somebody copied me a cassette of Fear Of A Black Planet

by Public Enemy. I was blown away; before that I was mainly listening to thrash metal, but Public Enemy had a different kind of power. These kids remind me of great ’90s hip-hop. Like Wu-Tang Clan, or RZA’s side project Gravediggaz, it’s horrorcore at its best.

THE WASHING MACHINE Spin Clean is a plastic tub with brushes on the inside. Fill it with cleaning solution and water, turn the records clockwise then let them dry.

With Love

THE PISTOL Shoot vinyl with the positive and negative ions in the Milty Zerostat gun, which electrostatically neutralises the surface, and the dust just drops off.

shine on rays up your power levels

Onbeat Solar The headband of these headphones is outfitted with solar cells; small lithium-ion batteries in the earpieces store the energy harvested by those cells, which can then charge your smartphone via a USB cable. www.onbeatheadphones.com

THE HOME REMEDY Apply a thin layer of wood glue evenly into the grooves with a spatula. Then let it dry and slowly peel off the film of dust-coated plasticky glue.

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Words: florian obkricher. Photography: Splash News (1)

Paul Thomson, 36, is the drummer for indie rock band Franz Ferdinand

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save the date All set for SA: DJ Alexander Ridha, aka Boys Noize, plays Rocking The Daisies

don’t miss ink these dates in your diary

27 september

STR CRD Joburg’s hip street culture fest (pronounced Street Cred) brings together musicians, designers, artists, athletes, DJs, pop-up stores and more. Catch the action at Constitutional Hill in Braamfontein. www.strcrd.com

28 september

H2o Africa

October 3-6

Spring break

Now in its eighth year of dominating the Cape music scene, 15,000 Rocking The Daisies devotees will flock to Cloof Wine Estate during the first weekend of October. Last year was a sell-out, and with international acts like Alt-J, Boys Noize and The Hives on the bill, as well as local drawcards such as Spoek Mathambo and Desmond And The Tutus, it’s a safe bet that tickets will only go one way this year, too.

29

www.rockingthedaisies.com

September

October 3-6

Grom warfare The finest young surfers from around the country head to the Point at Jeffrey’s Bay for the Hurley SA Junior Championships. www.sajuniorchamps.co.za

96

September 14

September 24

Wheely rewarding

Return to the Pumas’ den

At the annual Eight Bells enduro, you can take on either the 35km or 75km mountain bike race – and then one of the 5km or 10km night trail runs if you’ve got energy to burn – before quenching your thirst at the Eight Bells Mountain Inn at the foot of the Robinson Pass on the Garden Route. www.trisport.co.za

Argentina welcome South Africa to Mendoza for their first home game of the 2013 Rugby Championship.

Heyneke Meyer’s side will be out to improve on the 16-16 draw they played out here last year (above), but the Pumas will be confident of registering a first victory over the Springboks in their second season in the competition. www.sanzarrugby.com

NIKE StrEET Kings The cream of South African basketball talent will show off their skills at a one-onone exhibition as part of STR CRD festival.

Think shooting hoops isn’t an African game?

Think again… www.strcrd.com

the red bulletin

Words: Angus Powers. photography: Getty Images (3), Roy Harley

For the wettest and wildest daytime electro party you’re ever likely to see, get down to the Wild Waters Complex in Boksburg for H2O’s 15th anniversary bash, featuring more than 100 DJs and 10 dancefloors. www.h2oparty.com

p ro m ot i o n

Must-haves!

1 2

1 Canon PowerShot SX280 hS Canon’s new PowerShot SX280 HS is not only powerful but also compact and extremely versatile. The camera combines Canon’s brand new DIGIC 6 image processing technology with a 20x optical zoom, which makes it the ideal travel companion for recording everything from panoramic landscapes to family holidays, in stunning detail and full HD 60p video. Shooting and sharing high-quality images on the move is also easy with the PowerShot SX280 HS’s integrated Wi-Fi function, allowing instant connectivity with other devices such as tablets, PCs or smartphones. PowerShot SX280 HS key features: 20x zoom, 25mm lens, HS System: 12.1 MP CMOS, DIGIC 6, Intelligent IS, Enhanced Dynamic IS, Wi-Fi, Full HD (60fps), 7.5 cm (3.0“) PureColor II G LCD, GPS with A-GPS, Hybrid Auto; Smart Auto, Manual, Av and Tv modes, High-speed shooting. Optional Waterproof Case. R2 999.

www.canon.co.za 2 adidaS new BooSt teChnology The groundbreaking cushioning technology BOOST™, which provides the highest energy return in the running industry, is being rolled out to more adidas running products and colours.

In addition to the Energy Boost franchise, which will come in four colourways for both men and women, BOOST™ cushioning is now also available in adistar and adizero running footwear. In fact, BOOST™ foam will replace the common EVA material in all adidas running performance shoes by 2015. From R1 299 ranging to R1 699.

3

www.adidas.co.za/running 3 doSh wallet The dosh aero wallet is a streamlined six-card money clip wallet that holds true to the goanywhere lifestyle. The dosh aero range is inspired by the global traveller, with a handcrafted stainless steel money clip and is moulded in a highly durable water-resistant polymer material, with a luxurious soft feel.

It‘s FREE - when you subscribe to The Red Bulletin for only R228 for 12 months (only R19 per month).

4

www.getredbulletin.co.za 4 red Bull raCing eyewear The featured frames are from the exclusive Red Bull Racing Eyewear Sports Function collection. Frames are manufactured from TR90 Grilamid, synonymous with being flexible and durable, and the rubber lining along the ears, nose and temple areas ensures a comfortable and secure fit for athletes. Transparent Smoke frame with red rubber lining and the grey lens with red revo. Available colours: Matt Crème, Transparent Red, Matt Black, Matt White, Black, Metallic Silver and Transparent Blue. Starting from R2117.

5

www.spectacular-eyewear.co.za 5 the new dStv eXPlora The best TV just got better with the launch of the DStv Explora. This state-of-the-art HD PVR comes with advanced search functions, more content on BoxOffice and DStv Catch Up, and up to 220 hours of personal recording time. It also boasts stylish, HD user menus and a new remote which connects instantly to DStv Central – the ultimate homepage that helps you navigate.

Prepare to watch TV like never before with the DStv Explora. R2 499 (Excludes installation.

Terms and conditions apply. SA only.).

www.dstv.com/explora

Time warp

Ski jump

Photography: Alan Band/Fox Photos/Getty Images

A waterskiing team reach a high-water mark during a high-speed demonstration at Cypress Gardens, Florida, USA, on November 25, 1965.

Today at this place, stacking of a different kind: it’s the site of Legoland Florida.

the next issue of the red bulletin is out on october 1 98

the red bulletin

JHB 43078 As seen on DStv/SuperrSport

1500 live games Over 12 league and Cup competitions Expert commentary and analysis Full HD coverage Only on SuperSport

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