The Red Bulletin US 09/22 by Red Bull Media House

BEYOND THE ORDINARY

U.S. EDITION SEP./OCT. 2022, $5.99

BEYOND THE ORDINARY

WINNING WITH STYLE REILLY OPELKA

is making a big statement on—and off—the court THE RED BULLETIN 09-10/2022

NOW D E TA I L S

INSIDE

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EDITOR’S NOTE

DIFFERENT STROKES There’s no single formula for success. This issue features two top athletes who share an intense desire to win but approach life quite differently. Our cover story profiles tennis pro Reilly Opelka, who has cracked the top 20 in the world. Opelka has a keen interest in studying and collecting art, and he believes that having interests beyond his sport allows him to maintain an even keel amid an endless competition schedule and inevitable ups and downs. For him, balance sustains excellence.

CONTRIBUTORS THIS ISSUE

BRAD CULP

The Chicago-based writer flew to Norway to spend two days with triathlete Kristian Blummenfelt. “Flying to Bergen to hang out with one of the fittest humans on the planet is as exhausting as it sounds,” he says. “Kristian never stops moving, even in terrible weather. The highlight was running up and down a local mountain with him in the rain.” Culp is the former editor in chief of Triathlete and Lava. Page 38

Wolfgang Zac briefly looks down on Reilly Opelka.

By contrast, triathlete Kristian Blummenfelt is a study of single-minded focus. The Norwegian, who recently won Olympic gold and an Ironman World Championship, trains tirelessly and leans into his obsessive pursuit of sporting perfection. Of course, neither approach is better than the other. To reach your full potential, you need to examine what makes you tick—and what makes you happy. 04

The New York- and Montrealbased artist, whose visual identity is informed by his background as a world-class B-Boy, shot our feature on the history of West Coast breakers. He describes his work as “dreaming out loud” and says this project was firmly in line with his “vision for bringing breaking culture into the mainstream in order to elevate what a B-Boy/BGirl can be or do.” Perez’s clients include The New York Times, i-D, Converse and Vans. Page 58

THE RED BULLETIN

WOLFGANG ZAC (COVER)

FRANKIE PEREZ

Rugged strength. Relentless endurance.

CONTENTS 26 September/October

GAME ON

FEATURES 26

The Art of Winning

Nothing Is Impossible

“Winning is always the ultimate high,” says cover star Reilly Opelka, who was photographed for The Red Bulletin on April 13.

Tennis pro Reilly Opelka approaches life like a match on the court—with creativity, perspective and imposing directness. With unprecedented range, Norway’s Kristian Blummenfelt has rewritten what is possible in triathlon.

48 Life on the Edge

A new series from Jimmy Chin explores how elite adventure athletes take on the greatest challenges of their lives.

Break Out West

Peak Obsession

For decades, West Coast dancers have fueled breaking’s progression. Now they have their eyes on the Olympics. Meet Ginge Fullen, the man who has climbed the highest peaks in more countries than anyone in history.

48 MAKING WAVES

French big-wave surfer Justine Dupont is one of the athletes featured in Jimmy Chin’s new series on Nat Geo.

THE RED BULLETIN

THE

DEPARTURE

Taking You to New Heights 9 Battle-winning B-Girl

Jeyna Ponce breaks out

12 Fashion designer Bobby

Kolade’s upcycling crusade

14 Surfer Kai Lenny goes big

in Nazaré, Portugal

16 Racing downhill in

Bogatá, Colombia

19 Rapper Flo Milli shares her

empowering playlist

GUIDE

Get it. Do it. See it. 81 Travel: Ditch the crowds in

Grand Junction, Colorado

86 Surfer Eli Hanneman

reveals his top training tips

88 Dates for your calendar 90 The best new audio gear 94 Anatomy of Gear 96 The Red Bulletin worldwide

JIMMY CHIN, WOLFGANG ZAC, FRANKIE PEREZ

98 Skating on a Spanish island

BALANCING ACT B-Boys like Nico Castro Aguilar of San Diego represent a new level of athleticism in the breaking world.

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READY FOR THE BIG TIME

A NEW FORMULA 1 PODCAST FROM THE RED BULLETIN

LI STE N NOW!

Available on:

LIFE

STYLE

BEYOND

THE

ORDINARY

THE

FRANKIE PEREZ

Ponce, 21, was photographed in Hollywood for The Red Bulletin on June 20.

BREAK OF DAWN

Once a teenage social media sensation, Jeyna Ponce forges a new path as a battle-winning B-Girl. Words GLORIA LIU THE RED BULLETIN

T H E D E PA RT U R E

Jabbawockeez and Super Cr3w, both of America’s Best Dance Crew fame; cousins and other family members are part of a Vegas-based breaking crew called Full Force. Ironically, growing up, Ponce was intimidated by breaking, so she pursued ballet, hip-hop and other styles of dance instead. She began dancing at age 10, attended performing-arts magnet schools for middle and high school and was headed to college in New York as a dance major when, the summer after graduation, she suddenly changed her mind. Ponce says she just didn’t see dance as a viable long-term career: “I was just trying to think about what was more realistic for my future,” she explains. She decided to stay local, to study interior design at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. A period of transformation and hardship followed. At the age of 18, she began to see the toxic effects of social media and eventually distanced herself, taking down 800 posts on Instagram and changing her username. She also took an extended break from dancing—and fell into a depression. Outside of school, “I was just always in my room,” she says, “not doing anything whatsoever.” The pandemic jolted her to make a change. She started taking dance lessons at a local studio again, and this time, she began learning how to break. After the long hiatus, dancing lifted her spirits almost immediately. “It felt like this cloud that was following me nonstop completely disappeared,” she recalls. Ponce was quickly noticed at her breaking classes, and Carreira recruited her to start taking classes at

Alchemy Breaking Academy, which he co-owns. Under his tutelage, and that of other members of his crew, Battle Born (which she eventually joined), Ponce progressed quickly. To build more power—moves in breaking that rely on strength and acrobatics—Ponce began cross-training, going to the gym, hiking and cycling. Where she shines, says Carreira, is in her flow and musicality—a dancer’s ability to, basically, become “the visual representation of what the music is,” he explains. Her years of performing on stage as a classically trained dancer also show up in her presentation and showmanship during battles; her style is unusually clean and polished. The night of Red Bull BC One in Vegas, Ponce says she felt confident. “Everyone was telling me that I was gonna be able to take it,” she says. But in the past, she might not have listened to those voices. That was one of the effects of social media: “It completely shattered my confidence,” she says. “It broke me down a lot. You’re just this little girl with 100,000 followers,” she explains, and putting on a persona to constantly seek validation felt like “chasing the wind.” But now, she’s intentionally building a confidence that comes from within, through selfaffirmations and positive thinking. That night, competing at the cypher, she reminded herself that she had worked hard, that she had picked up breaking incredibly quickly, that more was possible for her, that she could win. And she did. Now, Ponce posts on social media rarely, and when she does, it’s almost all breaking.

Ponce recently won the Red Bull BC One Cypher in Las Vegas and has her eye on the national championships in Los Angeles in September. FRANKIE PEREZ

n April, a 21-year-old named Jeyna Ponce materialized onto breakdancing’s biggest stage like an infinite number of tiny particles gathering, mixing with light and energy to form atoms, then exploding spontaneously into a universe, which is to say that she appeared out of nowhere. That month, Ponce won the Red Bull BC One Cypher in Las Vegas, her hometown, and a week later, she made the finals at the city cypher in San Diego. But—at least up until this moment—if you had asked Google about “jeyna ponce b-girl” or “jeyna ponce breakdance,” the internet would have shrugged: no prior battle wins; heck, no online record of Jeyna Ponce breaking at all. Ponce was once very much a known quantity, though—as a teen social media influencer. From the age of 13, she began growing a large following for her modeling photos and dance videos, and by 16 her Instagram account boasted 100,000 followers. She was accustomed to being approached by strangers in grocery stores; once, at an event in California, hundreds of fans came to meet her. But that was a past life. Now she’s Jeyna Ponce the mysterious breakdancing phenom, who only began learning the discipline a year and a half ago, whose very first battle win was that city cypher in Vegas, who’s targeting the Red Bull BC One national and world championships later this year. This kind of progression is, “like, not even heard of,” says Geom Carreira, professional B-Boy and Ponce’s mentor. Ponce does come from what is essentially breakdancing royalty. Her uncles were in the

THE RED BULLETIN

“IT FELT LIKE THIS CLOUD THAT WAS FOLLOWING ME DISAPPEARED.” THE RED BULLETIN

She sets time limits for the apps on her phone, spending no more than a few minutes a day: “It’s honestly a waste of time, in my opinion, to be obsessing over other people’s lives,” she says. I ask whether she sees a parallel between breaking and influencing, in the sense that both are performed for an audience. “Oh yeah,” she says. But

breaking “captures more of who I am, rather than just my looks. It captures my craft and my talent.” B-Girl Jeyna is more authentic to the real Jeyna: “This is just me at my rawest form rather than me as Instagram Jeyna. I just feel like that’s what everyone else wanted to see, rather than what I wanted to see.” 11

T H E D E PA RT U R E

Bobby Kolade

purchases in [Uganda] are secondhand, so it’s hard to compete as a designer and producer. Uganda produces world-class cotton, but 95 percent is exported as a raw material.

s a teenager growing up in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, Bobby Kolade would buy secondhand clothes and get a tailor to remake them to his own designs—belts sewn onto shirts, trousers reassembled with patches. Almost 20 years later and now a professional designer, Kolade is doing it himself, except his modern-day creations are as much a political statement as a fashion one. Uganda, like many countries in Africa, has a huge secondhand clothing industry, which is fueled by the overconsumption of disposable “fast fashion” in high-income countries. Used clothing—often donations to charity—is shipped to African countries, where it is resold or, worse, dumped in landfills. Kolade turns this around. Born in Sudan and raised in Kampala by his Nigerian mother and German father, the designer studied fashion in Berlin and spent more than a decade working for fashion houses in Europe, including Balenciaga and Maison Margiela. In 2018 he came back to Kampala, where he launched his clothing brand, Buzigahill, three years later. Its first collection, Return to Sender, sees Kolade and his team transform clothes discarded by consumers in the Global North into high-end pieces to be sold back to them. Sweat stains not included.

the red bulletin: When did you become interested in fashion? bobby kolade: When I was 14, I’d cut up clothes and get them sewn back together. Then my interest developed in Berlin. I was studying graphic design, but I was always with the fashion crowd, so I changed courses. The idea of working with different materials, colors, textures, and playing with shape and form is what attracted me. I wanted to start a brand that used Ugandan cotton to create sustainable clothes, from a studio in Berlin. That’s embarrassing, because it shows I had the mindset of the Global North: extractive—the highlevel jobs would be in Europe, and we’d just have people in Uganda producing things. After doing more research, toward the end of 2017 I decided to relocate permanently [to Uganda]. It was liberating. When did you become aware of issues with secondhand clothing? Around 2015. As a teenager I’d go to Owino Market in Kampala and rummage through the piles to find cool clothes. Then, in Berlin, I was donating clothes to charity bins. So I was a participant, unaware what was going on. I was disappointed in myself and furious with the system. Around 80 percent of all textile and clothing

What are your plans for Buzigahill? We’re looking for studio space— the six of us are working from my living room right now. There’s huge potential for us to work in upcycling, generating new fibers using waste and also integrating Ugandan cotton into the collection—my initial dream. I’d like to introduce local craft, set up small factories and develop national pride through clothing. All these issues are political, environmental, and we’re in the middle of a clothing catastrophe. But the atmosphere in the studio is great—we’re all learning, we laugh a lot and we’re making a positive story out of this situation. buzigahill.com THE RED BULLETIN

EMINE SANER

This 32-year-old Ugandan designer is turning the world’s exploitative secondhand clothing industry on its head, one beautiful garment at a time.

What’s the psychological impact of wearing these cast-offs? There’s a lot of choice and it’s affordable, but culturally it’s a problem. Is there anything left that’s Ugandan? [The country has] been overtaken by Western styles. I open a bale of clothes and all the armpits on the white shirts are stained with sweat. Many people in the Global North assume there are poor Africans running around naked and in need of these clothes. That idea has to change. This is a huge business, and there are people making a lot of money. In an ideal world, the CEOs of [fashion retail] companies would seek therapy and ask themselves, “Is what we’re doing beneficial only to the Global North?” Then we’d be talking about colonialist consumption patterns—that people in wealthier countries can only buy cheap clothing because they’re exploiting people at the production and disposal ends.

IAN NNYANZI

RECLAMATION REVOLUTION

“WEARING CAST-OFFS IS AFFORDABLE BUT CULTURALLY IT’S A PROBLEM.”

THE RED BULLETIN

T H E D E PA RT U R E

Nazaré, Portugal

BIG BREAK

CHRISTIAN STADLER/RED BULL ILLUME

DAVYDD CHONG

Hawaiian Kai Lenny is a legend among big-wave surfers, so it’s no surprise that he’s (camera) clickbait for photographers. But for Christian Stadler, who took this dramatic shot, providence still played a part. “It was my first time at the Nazaré big-wave event,” says the German, “[but] I didn’t have a special plan to get photos. Then, on training day, I could see Lenny getting lots of air time— impressive in those conditions. So, on event day, when I saw him going out of a huge wave at full speed, I kept my focus on him.” A semifinal place in Red Bull Illume was Stadler’s reward. Instagram: @stadlerphoto redbullillume.com

TH E O N LY TH I N G M O R E R EWAR D I N G THAN C HAS I N G YO U R D R E AM , I S CATC H I N G IT.

b fg o o d r i c ht i re s .c o m

WHAT AR E YO U BU I L D I N G F O R ?

Billed as the world’s longest urban downhill race, the Red Bull Monserrate Cerro Abajo is an exhilarating ride/plunge down the 10,341-foot-high Mount Monserrate in Colombia’s capital, Bogatá. This involves negotiating more than 1,000 steps. Not that the 2020 champion, MTB pro Tomáš Slavik—shot en route to victory by local photographer Kevin Molano—was counting them, obviously. Looks like the Czech rider enjoyed it so much, he did it 10 times. (Or the shot—a Red Bull Illume semifinalist—is a clever composite. Could be either, really.) Instagram: @kevinmolanoph redbullillume.com

KEVIN MOLANO/RED BULL ILLUME

CITY HEIGHTS

DAVYDD CHONG

Bogotá, Colombia

T H E D E PA RT U R E

Playlist

PRETTY INFLUENTIAL Rapper Flo Milli shares her playlist of inspiring and empowering songs by trailblazing female artists.

lo Milli is a force to be reckoned with. The 22-year-old from Alabama—given name Tamia Monique Carter—has been making lots of noise since her 2018 song “Beef FloMix” became a viral hit via TikTok. Its 2019 follow-up, “In the Party,” has had more than 125 million plays on Spotify, and her debut mixtape, Ho, Why Is You Here?, arrived in 2020 to critical acclaim. Her latest single, “PBC”—Pretty Black Cute—celebrates Black women and highlights the microaggressions they face day to day. “I think it’s extremely important for young girls to have strong women to look up to for inspiration,” she says. Here the rapper turns the spotlight on four female musical trailblazers whose songs most inspired her. flomilli.com

SCRILL DAVIS

WILL LAVIN

Scan this QR code to hear our Playlist podcast with Flo Milli on Spotify.

KERI HILSON “PRETTY GIRL ROCK” (2010) “ ‘Pretty Girl Rock’ was such a strong and necessary anthem at the time it came out. Everything that [Hilson] was saying was very empowering to me. When I was a little girl, I needed to hear those words—they added to my confidence. This song taught me not to be afraid of being confident about myself, or to feel like I have to dim my light around others because they feel uncomfortable.” THE RED BULLETIN

MISSY ELLIOTT “WORK IT” (2002) “Every time this song plays, it brings back memories from when I was a little girl, and how I wanted to be a star. My favorite part is when Missy reverses her words—I thought that was so creative. Missy impacted me a lot growing up. She, of course, is a dark-skinned female, and I really admired that she was a badass woman. Everything she wrote was just so creative.”

SHAKIRA FEAT. WYCLEF JEAN “HIPS DON’T LIE” (2006) “I must have been about 6 when I first heard this, and it’s one of the first pop songs I really fell in love with. I remember sitting in front of the TV watching the video and doing the little hip thing Shakira used to do. It opened up my tastes in music. Shakira had her own lane; she was so different from everybody else. I loved her accent, her energy and her videos.”

FERGIE “LONDON BRIDGE” (2006) “Fergie definitely brought something different to the game, from her beats to her demeanor and attitude. When I was in daycare, I’d take my own CDs, and this song [from Fergie’s solo album, The Dutchess] was on one of them. I made a whole [dance] routine for it, showed it to the girls in my class, and we did it at a talent show. I feel like that’s what sparked my love of performing.” 19

PASSPORT TO ADVENTURE

If you’re itching for a hearty, beautiful getaway—somewhere beyond where the pavement ends—here are three overlanding routes for your life list. And if you want a capable SUV to get out there, the Honda Passport TrailSport is the perfect vehicle for a ruggedly dreamy road trip. Words KELLY BASTONE

Photography JUSTIN BASTIEN

THE RED BULLETIN

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east to approach the lip of Linville Gorge and offer panoramas of its 1,500-to2,000-foot cliffs. After overnighting at a dispersed campsite, drive to Linville and follow paved roads for 23 miles to Wilson Creek Gorge, where you pick up the gravel Brown Mountain Beach Road heading north. Stop off at the Owl’s Eye swimming hole to penguin-slide on polished stone ramps, then continue north to Mortimer (a ghost town) and follow unpaved Roseboro Road to Gragg Prong Falls. Hike through rhododenrons to this rockwalled swimming hole, then drive to the Blue Ridge Parkway, heading northeast to Grandfather Mountain State Park. Hike the thrilling Grandfather Trail, which begins with a mile-high swinging pedestrian bridge and includes stints on steel ladders before attaining a scenic ridgeline traverse at 5,500 feet. Finally, pick up Edgemont Road to Gragg, follow Anthony Creek Road to the small settlement of Globe, and head north on Globe Road to Blowing Rock. This 21mile stretch passes ample opportunities for dispersed camping and spectacular leaf-peeping in autumn: The hardwoods here put out a riotous show of reds, ambers and yellows. Refuel Here Never has a burger and a draft pint tasted better than at Foggy Rock Eatery and Pub. The beef and brews are both locally produced, and the fried green tomatoes are worth a long, rugged drive.

OFF-ROAD UPGRADES

Three gear options to uplevel your next overland adventure.

BFGOODRICH TRAILTERRAIN T/A The Honda Passport TrailSport’s stock tires come with a rugged tread that handles dirt and pavement. But for greater off-road durability, consider these rollers. Because they’re built primarily for use on asphalt, they issue very little road noise. But their serrated shoulder patterning offers superior traction on soft dirt, and the toughened compound doesn’t get chipped or torn on gravel. Thus, flats are less likely, and thanks to their threepeak mountain snowflake designation, snow performance is standout. From $168

ONX OFFROAD FOR APPLE CARPLAY More than just a mapping application, onX includes a robust library of overlanding and off-road trails that are described in detail to help you plan your getaway. And the app’s seamless integration with the Passport TrailSport’s Apple CarPlay allows for handsfree navigation: With your phone plugged in, you can access your offline maps from the dashboard, where you can follow prompts or flag a waypoint for future reference. From $30/year

HYDRO FLASK 20L CARRY OUT SOFT COOLER Here’s the cooler that road-trippers need for portable lunches and snacks anytime. Weighing just 2.5 pounds, it’s light enough (even when loaded) to serve as a go-anywhere picnic basket. Burly, 600-denier fabric stands up to abrasion, and extra insulation in the base keeps cold from leaking out when the cooler is stored on warm leather upholstery. Plus, the inner lining is waterproof—meaning that melting ice won’t soak the car’s interior should the cooler tip over. $90

Once you have a plan and the right vehicle, the only thing left to do is get out there.

THE RED BULLETIN

Reilly Opelka is always seeking balance between his competitive spirit and his multidimensional interests.

THE ART OF WINNING

Tennis pro Reilly Opelka approaches life like a match on the court—with creativity, perspective and imposing directness. Words RICHARD EDWARDS Photography WOLFGANG ZAC

“I think I have a good balance,” says Opelka, who was photographed at the Club at Ibis in West Palm Beach, Florida, on April 13.

It’s early summer in London. The sun is out and the mercury is high. The Brits are baking. Reminders of the world’s most prestigious tennis tournament, meanwhile, are everywhere you look. Outside Ralph Lauren’s flagship store on New Bond Street, a picture of a huge tennis ball, positioned next to a bowl of strawberries and cream—a Wimbledon staple—is plastered on the shop front. On the sweaty London Underground, billboards featuring the faces of some of the most recognizable faces on planet tennis, including Serena Williams, Rafa Nadal and Novak Djokovic, hang at every platform. The London Eye, the giant observation wheel that is one of the English capital’s most famous landmarks, is offering a Wimbledon Pod, which includes a champagne view of Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace, the home of a Queen who has just celebrated her 70th year on the throne. But Reilly Opelka, the second-highestranked American man in world tennis and the joint tallest tennis player in history—6 feet 11 inches, if you must

THE RED BULLETIN

They may not be pretty, but Opelka says that the blisters on his hands are a constructive occupational reality of playing tennis professionally and actually help him get through grueling tournaments without pain.

know—has other sights to see. As The Red Bulletin accompanies him around the headquarters of Phillips, one of the world’s most prestigious auction houses, in London’s Berkeley Square, it is paintings rather than points that consume Opelka. His passion for the world of art is as obvious as his main weapon on the tennis court. Opelka reels off facts about the artists in the gallery as effortlessly as he reels off on-court aces with a serve that regularly exceeds 140 mph. His knowledge of artists such as Cy Twombly— the son of a pitcher for the Chicago White Sox, who made his name and his fortune in Rome—borders on the encyclopedic. The majority of athletes have a reputation for being one-dimensional. But the 25-year-old Michigan-born big hitter isn’t one of them. “I’m not sure I’d call it a guilty pleasure, but I do love art,” he says. “I can still remember the first piece I bought. It’s one of those things that stays with you.” Opelka estimates he spends less than 100 days a year in a Florida home

that now doubles as his own private gallery. For the vast majority of the time, he’s on the road. For some, it could prove a lonely existence. For Opelka, it’s nothing of the sort. “I’m a pretty social guy and I think I have a good balance,” he says. “I have friends on the tour, a few good friends here in London, friends in France. Wherever I go, there are people I’m excited to see because the chances are I haven’t seen them for a year. Then there are times when I like to be alone and go to dinner by myself or go to a gallery or a museum. I get a nice balance; I don’t find it lonely at all.” It clearly helps that Opelka has a range of interests and friends on and off the court. He readily admits to being addicted to the rush that winning gives him, but it’s not the singular force in his life. Yes, he’s a professional tennis player—good enough to battle his way into the top 20—but he’s also someone who is acutely aware of the fact that sports and everyday life have to coexist. And he’s mastered that balancing act. 29

hether he’s on the court or off it, Opelka is relentlessly direct. This is quite evident as he sits sipping an espresso—we’re at an air-conditioned coffee shop that offers some relief from the stifling humidity. He’s explaining his feelings about a Wimbledon championship that has already been as controversial as any in the tournament’s storied 145-year history. There are no ranking points on offer for players this year, with the ATP (the men’s tour) and WTA (the women’s equivalent) proceeding to strip the tournament of its ranking points as

a result of its decision to ban Russian competitors from the event. Should they be allowed to play? “100 percent they should,” says Opelka. “100 percent.” That outspoken view shouldn’t come as any surprise. Opelka, who has been burned before for speaking his mind in media interviews, feels strongly that the world’s most prestigious tournaments should keep their noses out of politics. “I’ve loved all of them [the Grand Slams] at different times, but right now, the French Open is the best by far,” he says. “It’s my least favorite surface, but

I love Paris, and it’s the only Grand Slam that has done it right in recent years. All of the others have gone so political. Australia didn’t allow Novak Djokovic to play [because of his COVID vaccine status], but I think they’re going to allow the Russians to play. The French allowed everyone to play, Wimbledon are banning the Russians but allowing Djokovic and the U.S. Open is banning Djokovic but not the Russians. So the French Open is hands-down the best Grand Slam. For me, it’s the only true Grand Slam now.” That said, Opelka didn’t enjoy the best of luck in Paris back in May. In a

THE RED BULLETIN

Opelka, ranked 18th in the world, won two ATP tournaments in the first half of 2022: the Dallas Open and the U.S. Men’s Clay Court Championships. THE RED BULLETIN

GETTY IMAGES

Opelka had his run in this year’s French Open cut short by a bad case of food poisoning, resulting in a firstround loss to Filip Krajinovic of Serbia.

first-round match against Serbian Filip Krajinovic, he lost in straight sets on the clay at Roland-Garros. But that defeat only tells part of the story. “I ate some chicken onsite right before the match,” he says. “The next thing you know, I was as sick as could be. I played the first set of my match fine and then it hit me. I started to get shivers and aches. I was miserable—I just wanted to get out of there. I finished the match but I could barely shower. I laid down at the hotel and had a sharp pain in my stomach.” The ordeal got worse. “I was vomiting nonstop and had a crazy fever,” he recalls. “I remember booking an Uber from my hotel but no Uber would pick me up because I had put the American Hospital in Paris as my destination. They saw I was going to the hospital and assumed it was COVID related. I just couldn’t get a ride. I eventually typed in a restaurant nearby, so I Uber’d there and walked the rest of the way. It was only a quarter of a mile but it felt like forever. I honestly thought I was going to pass out. My fever was 104°, I had a headache and this crazy pain in my stomach. It was just a blur. They thought they were going to have to take my appendix out. It was just a disaster. That really set me back.” Given that experience, it’s something of a miracle that Opelka is sitting here with his appendix and perspective still firmly in place. Even if he has already had enough of the constant focus on his height when he’s on English shores. “I hate it—it’s my biggest pet peeve in life,”

he says. “I get stopped everywhere. In England it’s so bad. It’s the worst. It’s nonstop. Here in England, I have my headphones on all the time. One of the transport guys said to me, ‘Do you play basketball?’ Come on, I was dressed in white, I had a tennis bag on my back and I was just about to get on the Wimbledon transport vehicle.” Opelka says the preoccupation with his height is only an issue in England and the U.S. “In England, it’s 20 times a day, I can’t avoid it. Just checking into the hotel, getting a car, any conversation I engage in involves people saying the same thing. Do I give a polite answer? No, but sometimes it’s tough because most of the time I need something from that person. I can’t be a dick to people working at an airport because my bags might not show up. But if these people aren’t making my coffee, then I’m not even going to look at them.” When you’re as tall as Opelka—and let’s face it, there’s nothing you can do with the cards Mother Nature deals you—you’re going to stand out. He has made the most of those attributes on the court, but it’s little wonder that he gets tired of people focusing on his height off it. And while it’s clear the discussion about his height riles him, in The Red Bulletin’s time with Opelka, he’s as open and honest about other topics as any athlete on the planet— an attitude as refreshing as the plumes of cold air being expelled from the airconditioning unit perched on the ceiling above our heads. 31

ennis is a brutal business. Few sports are as gladiatorial—a oneon-one battle between individuals with the solitary aim of beating the other. For Opelka, who first picked up a racket at the age of 5, it’s the reason he plays the sport in the first place. “I fell in love with tennis when I was a young age,” he says. “I won a lot and when I was 9 or 10, I was playing up in the 14s, maybe even the 16s to get some better competition. I was always a top 10 guy in the country from the age of 12 to 18. But I was never a prodigy or phenom, by any means.” Everything is relative, though. Opelka admits that it got to the stage of him having to travel for an hour just to find someone that could give him some competition. By the age of 14, he was boarding in U.S. Tennis Association (USTA) accommodations after shooting to teenage prominence by winning two of the four major junior tournaments in the country. By the time he won the Junior Wimbledon title in 2015, victory was already a drug.

OPELKA REELS OFF FACTS ABOUT ARTISTS AS EFFORTLESSLY AS HE REELS OFF ON-COURT ACES.

“Winning is always the ultimate high,” he says. “As a competitor, as someone who plays a one-on-one sport especially, tennis is the ultimate meritocracy. It really is. It’s one-on-one and you really feel it all. You take it all on your own, for better or worse—that’s why you get such a significant high, no matter the size of the tournament or the match. It’s a rush. I don’t think it will ever stop. That’s what makes it hard to stop.” Opelka points to the examples of Andy Murray, who has already had two hip surgeries, and Serena and Venus Williams, as players who have achieved so much but keep coming back for more despite the physical pressures of playing at the highest level. He’s good friends with all of them and regularly practices with the Williams sisters in Florida. “Venus will go down as the secondgreatest tennis player of all time,” he says. “Serena is first by a mile. You have to put her up there with [Michael] Jordan and LeBron [James] or [Cristiano] Ronaldo. I practice with both of them;

Opelka is a man of many interests. Fielding questions about his height isn’t one of them.

they live just up the street from me. They hit the ball as good as anyone. Serena and Venus played in the toughest era of women’s tennis and changed the game. But they still love tennis and winning tennis matches. There’s no other reason for Serena to play. I know Venus still loves it, too. Serena has so many records; she’s already known as one of the greatest athletes ever. I think that buzz of winning has to be the only reason she’s still playing.”

Blessed with great reach and perfect mechanics, Opelka has served in excess of 144 mph, among the fastest in history.

At the age of just 25, Opelka has plenty of time on his side. Which isn’t the case for the trio of male players who have dominated the sport since Roger Federer won his first Wimbledon title in 2003. The Swiss, along with Spain’s Nadal and Djokovic of Serbia, have won 63 Grand Slams between them. All sporting cycles eventually run their course, though. And Opelka will be one of those looking to capitalize when their lengthy era of dominance ends.

“They’re on their way out, but it’s crazy,” he says. “It’s all I’ve known, it’s all most of us have known. I’m curious to see what it is like. [The list of winners] will be more spread out and I think it will help the sport. It will bring more attention to more countries. All of Greece is going to watch tennis once [Stefanos] Tsitsipas wins a Slam, and all of Italy is going to be following it when Matteo [Berrettini] wins one. I think it will more exciting.”

Opelka says that an era dominated by Rafael Nadal, Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic is coming to a close and will radically change the pro landscape, with many more players in the mix for the biggest wins.

y the time the final Slam of the year rolls around, the 2022 U.S. Open, Opelka will hope his serve is in perfect working order in front of a raucous home crowd. But whatever happens in the intervening period and at the tournament itself, his outlook is unlikely to alter dramatically. “Every time you’re training to be fit for a whole year of tennis, then your mind and body are getting destroyed,” he says. “It’s always finding the right balance—that’s the key to everything in life, but especially in one-on-one sports. When you sacrifice everything, you become so fixated on one thing. When the results don’t come—and results don’t come around that often for so many people—it’s hard to have

a balance. Unless you’re great and you’re winning every match, it’s so easy to see how your mind can get screwed up.” Once again, the word “balance” enters the conversation. “You need that balance,” Opelka declares. “You can’t be too zone-orientated; you can’t just worry about your results. I have my family, I have my friends. If I’m too worried about my results, then I back out of it. Perspective is everything. If I lose at Wimbledon, I’ve got 12 more tournaments before the end of the year.” Opelka would, in fact, exit the tournament, in the second round. But as he knows only too well, the next tournament, the next opportunity, is only ever a few weeks away, and agonizing 35

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“WINNING IS ALWAYS THE ULTIMATE HIGH. IT’S A RUSH. I DON’T THINK IT WILL EVER STOP."

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over one specific defeat does not help you next set foot on the court. It’s that balancing act all over again. It helps that Opelka is a man with plenty of interests off the court, although someone once known for his passion for fashion admits to falling out of love with it in recent years. “Fashion is a whole crazy world, but it’s more of a thing of the past for me,” he says. “I don’t think the art is there anymore; the art in it has gone. It has gone so commercial. It’s who’s who—it’s so Hollywood. It’s actually everything that’s wrong with society. It’s a world of hypocrites. If you make a piece for 2 grand and it has Dior written on it, someone is going to buy it, put it on Instagram and then never wear it again because it’s so super recognizable. How is that sustainable?” It’s a point well made, and one served with characteristic candor. Away from the catwalk, Opelka’s own fashion sense is based around far more prosaic requirements. “If I find an outfit I like and it’s practical, then I buy three or four of them and rotate them over three or four weeks,” he says. “I like to spend a lot of time in New York or L.A. When I’m gallery-hopping I’m just about practicality. There’s a pant I like that’s got a huge pocket, which means I can fit my phone, my wallet, my charger, even a sandwich or a bottle of water. It’s just so practical.” As our time draws to a close, Opelka talks admiringly of how Twombly making it as an American in Rome—the home of some of the world’s greatest painters—is one of art’s great tales. In many ways, Opelka rounding out the interview by discussing something unrelated to tennis sums him up rather neatly. This is an athlete who loves to win and will be doing all he can to feed that desire in the coming months and years. But despite all his success, Opelka is still very much the 5-year-old kid who first picked up a racket and smashed the ball over the net. He plays tennis because he loves both the sport itself and the feeling he gets when he vanquishes his opponent across the net. But in victory or defeat, he’s not going to let it go to his head. Partly because he has so much to occupy his time off the court. Just like Twombly, and despite his disappointments in Paris and London this season, as we say goodbye, you get the feeling there are more than a few plot twists in his own career to come. 37

NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE Norway’s Kristian Blummenfelt has rewritten what is possible in triathlon over the past 12 months. From a gold medal to multiple world titles and the fastest Ironman finish in history, he’s done it all—except beat the sport’s greatest champion on the most storied course. Words BRAD CULP

Photography EMIL SOLLIE

Blummenfelt notched a staggering historic double—Olympic gold and an Ironman world title—in one year. But he’s far from satisfied.

Blummenfelt was photographed in his hometown of Bergen, Norway, on June 14 and 15.

It’s impossible to go anywhere but up from the city center in Bergen, Norway. The old wharf is surrounded by seven small mountains, and the one nearest the city—Mount Fløyen—has a tram car that creeps its way to the top, carrying hundreds of cruise ship passengers to the top every hour. Ironman and Olympic triathlon champion Kristian Blummenfelt knows the top of this mountain well, even though he would never set foot on the tram. During the four or five weeks per year he spends in his hometown, it’s where he spends much of his time cycling and running, almost always in the rain. At the summit, just a few hundred feet from an outlook where tourists draped in plastic ponchos snap pictures of the city from 1,300 feet above, there’s a tiny brown barn where a handful of goats live. Nearly every time he runs by, Blummenfelt, 28, jokes that it’s Jan Frodeno’s house, referring to the 41-year-old German who has dominated the sport for more than a decade and is universally considered the greatest triathlete of all time: the GOAT. Some of Blummenfelt’s teammates have given all the goats names to honor other legends of triathlon, but as far as he’s concerned, it’s the house of Frodeno. Up until May, Frodeno was the only triathlete in the long history of the sport to win both an Olympic gold medal and an Ironman World Championship— something once considered impossible because of how different the distances and styles of racing are. The Olympics are contested over a 0.9-mile swim, 24.8-mile bike and 6.2-mile run. An Ironman consists of a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike and 26.2-mile run. Frodeno won the 2008 Beijing Olympic triathlon in a thrilling sprint finish, and then the Ironman world title seven years later in his second attempt. While it may seem like an eternity in most sports, taking seven years to figure out an event that’s nearly four times as long was considered remarkably swift

by triathlon standards, and many wondered if such a feat could ever be repeated. That was until May, when Blummenfelt won the Ironman world title in his first attempt, just nine months after standing atop the podium in Tokyo. A rough equivalent would be winning Olympic gold in the 10,000 meters on the track and the Boston Marathon in the same year— which has never come close to happening. But there are two asterisks next to Blummenfelt’s title, and neither is small. He won his Ironman World Championship in St. George, Utah—a temporary home of the event that has lived in Kona, Hawaii, since 1978. Due to COVID concerns and a very limited number of hospital beds in Kona, the event was moved to St. George after two years without a race on the Big Island. Ironman and Kona are intrinsically linked, much like the Masters in golf. If the Masters were moved from Augusta for a year, it would lose virtually all of the allure, for athletes and fans alike. Even calling it “The Masters” would seem like a slight to tradition. To honor the legacy of Kona—the race that essentially built the sport—Ironman chose one of the hardest courses on its 65-race circuit to serve as a onetime stand-in, moving the event scheduled for October 2021 in Kona to May 2022 in Utah. The 2022 Ironman World Championship is slated to return to the Big Island this October, and that’s where the other asterisk comes in. Absent in St. George were the only two men with a legitimate shot of defeating Blummenfelt. One was Frodeno, who suffered a tear in his Achilles tendon while trying to prepare for a world championship much earlier in the calendar year than is normal. It was supposed to be the first race between the two, who have never met—nor spoken. The other missing man was Gustav Iden, who knows Blummenfelt better than anyone else on the planet. 41

Two years younger and also from Bergen, Iden is the two-time winner of the Ironman 70.3 World Championship (half of an Ironman distance), and the pair spend upwards of 300 days a year training and traveling together. Iden came down with a respiratory infection the week before the race—as did Blummenfelt—but the younger of the two Norwegian superstars wasn’t cleared by team doctors to compete before race day. In Norwegian triathlon, everything is about the team, and the team are almost all from Bergen.

ocated on the southwest coast and home to nearly 300,000, Bergen is Norway’s secondlargest city and is about as far removed from the rest of Scandinavia as possible. Oslo, Stockholm and Copenhagen are the geographic hubs of the region and share many cultural similarities, while Bergen is a bit of an oddity. There’s a Scandinavian sentiment known as hygge, which refers to their desire to live a life of contentment, without being loud, ostentatious or egotistical. Scandinavians don’t go around proclaiming their cities to be the best on Earth, even though, by many metrics, they’re consistently labeled just that. Hygge isn’t quite so prevalent in Bergen. The rainiest city in Europe isn’t exactly lacking in confidence or personality—locals like to say that

they’re from Bergen first and Norway second. Before football matches for Brann Bergen, the anthem of the city plays before the Norwegian national anthem, and the city and national flags fly at the same apex. “We talk like we’re the greatest people and city on Earth,” Iden says of his hometown. “Our football team is really bad—so bad we’re in the second division in Norway, which is really sad for the second-biggest city. But we all say they’re the greatest team in the world. Bergen is special that way. The confidence level is really high here and we’re very proud of that.” Blummenfelt clearly isn’t lacking in confidence either, but his isn’t directed outward in the way many Bergensers—like Iden—are famous for. He’s more of an introvert, and his teammates joke that he’s socially awkward—something Blummenfelt doesn’t refute. He doesn’t do small talk and claims his only fear is going on dates with women. “I’d be way more nervous going on a date than at the start of a world championship,” he says. “It would be nice to meet someone, but I wouldn’t sacrifice my sport for it—for now.” Right now he’s most comfortable being fully immersed in his sport, which means three training sessions most days and spending his few free hours consuming every ounce of triathlon content possible. He loves social media and reads almost everything

Prior to the Tokyo Olympics, Blummenfelt converted the lower level of his Bergen apartment into a heat-training chamber.

Blummenfelt has been running and riding Ironman-like training volume since he was 17.

lummenfelt was born the youngest of three children in what he and his teammates joke is the rough side of Bergen. His father was a construction worker and mother a nurse, and he and his two older sisters enjoyed a relatively normal middle-class upbringing, which is pretty comfortable in Norway. Neither of Blummenfelt’s parents were athletic, and his father was a heavy smoker throughout much of his childhood. But like most Norwegian families, they spent nearly all their free time outdoors, hiking, skiing and camping as often as possible. Swimming was the sport that made him fall in love with racing, and he was good but not great in a country not known for its prowess in the pool. At only 5-foot-7, his biggest limiter in the water was his height, but he was remarkably efficient on land, routinely dusting his teammates when they would go out for runs as a means of cross-training. At 12 years old he ran 10 kilometers in 36 minutes, which is a world-class time for a preteen. Realizing his biggest talents were outside of the pool, a coach suggested he compete in one of the first triathlons in western Norway. Only 14, he finished first as the youngest of 32 competitors. It’s not like he was up against world-class competition, but the ever-boastful Bergen was on a mission to produce Olympic and world champions, and the result caught the eye of the local sports academy. Roger Gjelsvik is a mountain of a man with a booming voice and an eye for athletic talent. He wears many hats in Bergen, one of which is recruiting athletes with Olympic potential to Tertnes Toppidrett

“The big lungs may help, but he was born with that toughness you can’t learn. He’s a Viking.” 44

Sports Academy. While many other Northern European countries enlist their most promising sporting youth in military academies where training is top priority, Norway has a number of sports high schools, where the best of the best can essentially start training like an elite athlete before they can even drive. “There wasn’t really anything physical we noticed about Kristian. We could tell straight away he was different up here,” Gjelsvik says, pointing to his temple. “Sure, the big lungs and big capacity may help, but he was born with that toughness you can’t learn. He’s a Viking.” Prior to Blummenfelt’s arrival in 2010, Gjelsvik had never recruited a triathlete to the school, and Norway had never sent a triathlete to the Olympics since the sport’s introduction in the 2000 Summer Games. There were already swimmers, cyclists and runners, so he was a perfect fit. Two years later, Iden was enrolled as well. The goal was simple but ambitious: produce an Olympic medal by 2020. Arild Tveiten, a sports scientist and triathlete, was brought in to run the program, and things started happening quickly by triathlon standards, but still not quickly enough for Blummenfelt. Tveiten and Norway’s growing team of coaches designed a program that adheres to strict testing and data science; anything that can’t be measured is thrown out. Blummenfelt was tasked to do a huge amount of easy bike and run volume. It’s part of why he’s been able to do the seemingly impossible and perform well at all distances at once: He’s been doing Ironman-like mileage since he was 17. After three years at Tertnes Toppidrett, he was one of the top-ranked juniors in Europe and was ready to pursue triathlon full-time. And he had the support of a new federation with a laser focus on getting one or two athletes to the top of the sport. He was living a nomadic lifestyle and certainly wasn’t getting rich, but he had the kind of backing that made athletes from more established federations envious. There were months spent at altitude camps in the Pyrenees and Alps, endless testing of both body and equipment and a new level of professionalism for pro triathletes. Other athletes paid out of pocket to join international training groups with big-name coaches. Norway kept its small group together and gave them the funding they needed to achieve the mission. At the 2016 Rio Games, a 22-year-old Blummenfelt became the first triathlete to represent Norway in the Olympics, finishing 13th as the second-youngest of the 55 men competing. From the outside, it was a monumental achievement for the upstart federation. For Blummenfelt, it was devastation. He’d finished on the podium at a handful of races in the buildup to Rio, so being so far removed from the medals felt like a complete failure. The post-Olympic depression that grips so many athletes was very real for Blummenfelt, but it also helped create the monster that has taken over the sport today. THE RED BULLETIN

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that’s posted about him, keeping tabs on who believes in him and who doesn’t. It’s motivation, and it helps create an extreme tunnel vision on triathlon. When he gets some time at home at the end of the day—whether that’s in his small apartment in Bergen or even smaller apartments in his favorite highaltitude training destinations of Font-Romeu, France, and Sierra Nevada, Spain—he sets a timer for two hours, so that he has a reminder to shut everything down. If he has a momentary break from triathlon, it’s a few minutes of Netflix before bed. “My favorite TV series is Dexter because of his personality,” Blummenfelt says. “He’s obsessed with one thing. Just instead of murder, my obsession is triathlon. It’s kind of the same: He wakes up and has the same routine, and he’s working on this one specific thing all day. And he’s working on fitting into society while doing this one thing he really likes.”

GOING SUB-7 It was a stunt, but it was an incredible one.

Capped by a brilliant 2:30 marathon, Blummenfelt notched the first sub-7 Ironman in June.

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Just three weeks after winning the Ironman World Championship in St. George, Blummenfelt took on a oneof-a-kind exhibition triathlon to see if it was possible for a man to break seven hours in an Ironman-distance triathlon if most of the rules were removed. Paced by pro cyclists on the bike and world-class marathoners on the run, he finished the 140.6-mile course at the Dekra Lausitzring racetrack in Germany in 6:44:25, more than 36 minutes faster than his current Ironman world record of 7:21:12. Only two men and two women competed in this unique event. (The women set out to break eight hours, which both did.) Blummenfelt was pitted against British Ironman superstar Joe Skipper, who was a lastminute substitute after twotime Olympic gold medalist Alistair Brownlee withdrew due to injury. Skipper posted an incredible 3:16 bike split, meaning he rode 34 miles per hour for 112 miles. This left Blummenfelt with a three-minute deficit to start the marathon, but he closed with a 2:30:50 marathon to win by just more than three minutes. It’s still unclear whether Sub7/Sub8—funded by Polish billionaire Sebastian Kulczyk to market his nonprofit Pho3nix Foundation—will be a onetime affair or if it will return in the future with even loftier goals. Given the ease with which Blummenfelt broke seven hours, sub-6:30 could be the next barrier he sets out to break. —BC

After a recordbreaking year, Blummenfelt has one more huge goal: a win in Kona.

mblazoned in gold letters on Blummenfelt’s prototype triathlon bike are the words it hurts more to lose. He’s not entirely sure where it started, but at some point after Rio, it became a mantra that has pushed him to the most dominant and improbable year in the relatively short history of triathlon. “People love asking me how I’m able to dig so deep in races,” he says. “My answer is always that the pain of not winning a race—or thinking that you could’ve gone deeper into the basement—that pain is what drives me in the race. I might have to suffer a lot for the next 10 or 15 minutes, but it’s never as bad as the depression I’ll feel for the next days, weeks or months if I don’t go there.” The five-year stretch between Rio and Tokyo involved a lot more losing than winning, as is often the case with Olympic-distance races that are decided by seconds. The few victories came as he dabbled in the Ironman 70.3 distance, including setting and resetting the world record on a very fast course in Bahrain. It’s a sport where world records don’t exactly mean much, but speed is speed, especially on the run. Blummenfelt was demonstrating he could run faster than anyone before him at multiple distances. His only major win in the buildup to Tokyo came in the final race of 2019—the World Triathlon Grand Final in Switzerland—where he won on the top circuit for the very first time. He was now one of the handful of Olympic favorites, and the year off from COVID didn’t change any of that. Asked if the extra year of preparation was key to his win last year in Tokyo, he shrugs. “Our preparation was going right heading into 2020 and 2021,” he says. “I don’t think it made much of a difference.” The three Norwegians in the 50-man field finished first, eighth and 11th. The other two—including Iden, who finished eighth—were extremely disappointed with their result. When Blummenfelt announced he’d like to win the Ironman world title after winning the Olympics, he was mostly mocked on social media. Only once in the 44-year history of the race has an athlete won on debut, and never before had an athlete excelled at Olympic and Ironman racing at once. There was a linear progression that every athlete before him had followed, but he and his team had the data to know they could perform the same three disciplines for a much longer duration. It was just a matter of more testing and fine-tuning the pacing. Part of what baffles people about Blummenfelt is his build. At 5-foot-7 and 163 pounds, he’s often labeled as big for an elite triathlete. There are even fat jokes directed at him on Twitter. Frodeno, by comparison, is nearly 8 inches taller and only a pound or two heavier. Blummenfelt is putting an end to the long-held belief that long and lean is the only ideal body type for ultra-endurance sport. Both he and his coaches are quick to point out that the engine matters more than the exterior.

“I’m motivated by it,” he says. “I like getting messages on social media from people saying I helped them believe they could run faster as a big person. It’s funny. I’m coming from swimming, where I was always the small guy. And when I go to Kona, I’ll be looking way up at Frodeno.”

n the year since Tokyo, Blummenfelt has taken over the sport in a way that even Frodeno never could. He followed up the gold medal by winning his first World Triathlon Series title, making him the only athlete to win gold and a world championship in the same year. After the Ironman World Championship was moved to this spring, he decided to make his Ironman debut in Cozumel in November, covering 140.6 miles faster than anyone in history. But the swim in Cozumel was down-current, and the course is notoriously famous for missing a few hundred meters here and there. It’s part of why world records don’t mean much in triathlon. Course records do, and when it comes to Ironman, you’ve either done it in Kona or you haven’t. Never mind the fact that Blummenfelt’s 7:49 winning time in St. George was two minutes faster than Frodeno’s Kona course record—and that there’s double the elevation gain on both the bike and run in St. George. From a purely analytical standpoint, Blummenfelt’s performance in Utah is better than anything Frodeno has done in Hawaii. But it’s akin to shattering the course record in Pebble Beach without ever beating Tiger Woods at Augusta. To be the GOAT, you have to beat the GOAT—or at least put his name one column down in the record book. “I don’t believe too much about the mystique of Kona, or showing respect to the lava fields,” Blummenfelt says of Hawaii—a place he’s never been to and won’t visit until three weeks before race day. “Of course it’s warm and humid, and we know how to prepare for that. We know how to prepare for the distance. I do have respect for the challenge of winning that race. But I don’t think too much about things like people saying ‘you can’t win as a rookie’ or that kind of thing.” If it comes off as cocky, the kid from Bergen doesn’t mind. Winning Kona, and beating Frodeno—or Iden—is just something else to check off the list before it’s on to the next impossible task. He’s already talking about returning to shortdistance racing to defend his gold medal in 2024, something he admits will be harder than anything he’s already accomplished. Asked what it will take for him to surpass Frodeno and become the undisputed greatest triathlete of all time, he shrugs. He doesn’t think much about goats, unless he’s running by them. “If I win Kona, no one will be able to copy the year or two I’ve had,” he says. “I think people will be able to copy what he has done. I’m thinking more about what I can do in the future that no one else will be able to do.” 47

Life on the Edge

A new series from outdoor icon Jimmy Chin offers a front-row seat as some of the world’s top adventure athletes face the most consequential moments in their lives. Here Chin shares his intimate insight on how these elite talents take on their greatest challenges. Words PETER FLAX

Photography JIMMY CHIN

Justine Dupont Big-wave surfer

At the center of the episode on the groundbreaking French surfer is a horrific 2018 crash Dupont had at Jaws, the legendary and monstrous break on Maui’s North Shore. The episode explores how Dupont processes this setback—and how she centers herself for a hardfought comeback. “To do what Justine does you sometimes have to override the instinct for survival,” Chin says. “Justine is really cognizant that there are other young women looking up to her, and that has so much meaning for how she carries herself and what she does.”

“In the adventure sports realm, the line between transcendence and tragedy can be pretty thin.” So says Jimmy Chin, an elite outdoor athlete and content creator who has spent his career documenting the contours of that line. Chin and his wife, Chai Vasarhelyi—who together co-directed the Oscar-winning documentary Free Solo—have teamed up again, executive-producing a new 10-part series that provides an intimate study of world-class adventurers confronting and reacting to the most impactful moments in their lives. Each episode of Edge of the Unknown with Jimmy Chin takes a deep dive with one athlete—viscerally recounting an existential inflection point in his or her career and giving viewers remarkable insight into the athlete’s process and humanity. “Often when you watch the very best athletes, the ones who are true masters of their craft, it can be hard to access that they’re actually human and that they’re vulnerable,” Chin says. But here viewers have a front-row seat as these athletes confront legitimate life-or-death moments. You see a big-mountain snowboarder overtaken by an avalanche, a big-wave surfer battered and broken in violent waters, a polar explorer getting stalked by a polar bear, an elite climber having a heart attack high in the Himalaya. But this isn’t tragedy porn—it’s a thoughtful and intimate look at the process and mentality of these top athletes. “People love to watch athletes do incredible things— ride or ski the perfect line, surf the biggest wave, grab the biggest air—but that stuff doesn’t come without some serious sacrifice,” Chin says. “You must have such deep commitment and intention to do these things, and here’s a glimpse of what it really takes to get there. I don’t think people really understand what the level of commitment is.” Chin, who has climbed Everest and been on high-risk expeditions around the globe, wanted the series to wrestle with the tough questions these athletes have to ask themselves. “When the stakes are that high, you better be pretty clear on the intention in which you live your life,” he says. “The athletes we feature have the highs of transcendence but they also have the lows of failures and these highly consequential moments in which they have to think deeply about how they want to live their lives.” Here, in extended captions, Chin shares his insights on many of the athletes and adventurers featured in his new series and the life-or-death inflection points they faced.

Edge of the Unknown with Jimmy Chin debuts on National Geographic on September 5 and begins streaming on Disney+ two days later.

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Travis Rice Snowboarder

There is a moving and intimate scene in this episode where Rice climbs into a helicopter after somehow surviving a heavy avalanche in Alaska. You can feel the quiet agony of the moment. “If you are a professional mountain athlete, when you get caught in an avalanche, it is a very clear mark that you have made a miscalculation,” says Chin, who has been caught in an avalanche himself. “And professional athletes are not supposed to make mistakes. But we do.” The episode goes on to explore how Rice processes this consequential error— and ultimately comes back from it. Part of it is questioning his entire approach to riding. “Those self-reflective questions are important because when the stakes are that high you better be pretty clear on the intention in which you live your life,” says Chin.

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Sarah McNair-Landry Polar explorer

This tense episode follows the second-generation polar explorer—who, Chin says, is “redefining the image of the Arctic explorer” as she battles the most formidable elements in a wintertime crossing of the Northwest Passage. The crux of the perilous adventure comes when McNair-Landry is tracked by an aggressive polar bear. “For most people, bears are scary, but most bears are not out to eat you,” Chin says. “Polar bears are different. They hunt. They will actually stalk you.” In the end, with the bear breaching her campsite, McNair-Landry must weigh her survival against the life of a wild animal in its natural environment. “These are the moments I love to examine because you see the true nature of who people are,” the filmmaker says.

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Conrad Anker

Alpinist and climber

Anker is a mountaineering legend, but this episode takes a deep dive into a scary moment in his life: a 2016 expedition on an unclimbed face in the Himalaya, where Anker, then 54, had a heart attack at 20,000 feet. On his own, Anker downclimbed to get medical attention. “He’s so unbelievably tough, it’s mind-blowing,” says Chin of his longtime friend. “In that scene we don’t have to say how badass Conrad is, we just have to show a guy who has the wherewithal to selfrescue off a 22,000-foot Himalayan peak while having a heart attack and dragging himself back to base camp. That makes climbing Everest without supplemental oxygen seem casual.” Later in the episode, Anker talks openly about reframing the kinds of adventures he pursues. “This is stuff top athletes often don’t want to explore,” Chin says. “This is the hard shit.”

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Gerd Serrasolses Kayaker

In a breathtaking, critical scene in this episode, the Spanish kayaker is, by all accounts, dead. Going over a rugged 50-foot waterfall in Chiapas, Mexico, Serrasolses is knocked unconscious and pushed underwater and ultimately requires CPR from his expedition partners. That, says Chin, is a reminder of “how important it is to have the right partners on an expedition.” And in the aftermath, the kayaker, who has a wife and children, must reckon with some existential questions about his passion for the extreme sport. “Gerd faces a nearly impossible decision, between the passion that gives him life and his family obligations,” Chin says. “That decision is never as simple as it seems if you’re judging from afar.”

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Angel Collinson Big-mountain skier

“Mother nature—mountains, the ocean—can humble the greatest athletes,” says Chin, describing the episode centered on his “great friend” Angel Collinson. “At the level they are playing at, you can’t hide from yourself. You have to be really honest with yourself. And that kind of honesty is hard.” In the episode, the hugely talented skier has a catastrophic fall— tumbling 1,000 feet down a steep Alaskan mountain—setting off a process of reflection that changes her professional arc. “There are different kinds of bravery,” Chin observes. “Angel had that awareness to say, you know what—I’m going to take this moment and this inflection point in my career and life and do something different. That’s brave and courageous.”

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Will Gadd

Ice and rock climber

This episode documents Gadd’s audacious attempt to ascend Helmcken Falls, a frozen 430-foot waterfall in British Columbia. To put it lightly, the climb is an ordeal that tests his skill and fortitude. At one point, his life hangs in the balance of a carabiner that has become unclipped. “Will has been so prolific—the longevity of his career has been so incredible,” says Chin. “He’s an absolute master of the craft. He’s doing things that are not just physically unbelievably challenging— the logistics of what he’s trying to do requires a lifetime of experience.” Chin says this and other episodes provide a window into the process of the masters. “Even the great masters never feel like they perfect their craft. There’s always another level to go. And only the true masters can see that next level. Their horizon is so different. It’s kind of infinite.”

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BREAK OUT WEST

Since the dawn of breaking in the late 1970s, West Coast dancers have fueled the art form’s progression, and today, the followers of those early innovators are dreaming of the Olympics. Words JEFF WEISS

Photography FRANKIE PEREZ

B-Boy Nico Castro Aguilar performs in front of fellow breakers (left to right) Victor Montalvo, Asia Yu, Rody Pedraza, Soetan Osifeso and Soyemi Osifeso. The group was photographed for The Red Bulletin on June 20.

rom the floor of the Memorial Coliseum, firework explosions burst into the Los Angeles sky on a mid-August night in 1984. Burgundy and gold light colored the field. Rainbow balloons were unleashed into the heavens. Broadcasting the closing ceremony of the Games of the XXIIIrd Olympiad across the globe, aerial cameras captured the five interlaced rings in electric splendor. But the real action was down on the floor. Six thousand athletes marched to the tune of John Williams’ 1984 “Olympic Fanfare and Theme.” The Los Angeles Symphony played Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.” There were traditional folk dances and speeches, poems and military trumpet blasts. There was also a laser show. Upon the festivities’ conclusion, a 7-foot-tall “alien” floated above the cauldron to salute Los Angeles and the assembled nations for keeping the “ideals of the Olympics” alive. Then it was time for Lionel Richie. The sequin-clad former lead singer of the Commodores unveiled a full nineminute version of his smash, “All Night Long,” accompanied by an acrobatic ensemble of breaking crews. For most of the 90,000 mesmerized attendees and the estimated 2.4 billion watching around the world, this was their first introduction to breaking. More than a hundred white-suited B-Boys and B-Girls in berets stormed the stage to deliver dazzling moves. If you watch the live broadcast, you can hear the announcers dryly break down the various steps for the uninitiated: “The poppers are the ones doing the angular movements; there’s the breakers … and that’s a real windmill.” The cameras flash to a man shimmying in a Bhutan jacket. A few seconds later, they pan to a B-Boy spinning on his head. One of 60

the commentators wisecracks, “They don’t dance like that in Bhutan.” Nearly four decades later, they do, in fact, dance like that in Bhutan. You can even find Buddhist monks doing pyrotechnic power moves on YouTube. What was once a foundational tenet of hip-hop native to the South Bronx has become a global phenomenon. The onetime dance curio that Richie helped expose internationally will be an Olympic sport in 2024. But none of this could have happened without the contributions of West Coast dancers, who supplied the elemental techniques that allowed for its creation. And over the last 40 years, the subsequent breakthroughs of B-Boys in Los Angeles, the Bay, Seattle, San Diego, Fresno, Las Vegas, Denver and up and down the Western Seaboard have been vital to its evolution. The B-Boy turned rapper turned movie star turned CSI staple, Ice-T, said it best on his 1983 electro-funk single, “The Coldest Ever”: he East started breakin’ but the T West started poppin’ But what does it matter as long as it’s rockin’ A ghetto’s a ghetto, a street’s a street A hip is a hop and a beat is a beat In the beginning, there was locking. A full three years before DJ Kool Herc birthed hip-hop at a “Back to School Jam” in the South Bronx of 1973, the seeds of B-Boying were being sown in a community college cafeteria in South Los Angeles. That’s where an L.A. native by the name of Don Campbell blended two of the most popular dances of the era—the “funky chicken” and the “robot”—to invent “locking.” The genius of this new locomotion lay in its open-

source approach. As soon as Campbell appeared on the popular television show Soul Train in 1971, his interlocking joint freezes and fast, fluid movements inspired dancers across the nation. But L.A. and the five boroughs were only a part of the story. In the agricultural hub of Fresno, California, Sam Solomon, aka “Boogaloo Sam,” improvised upon the Bay Area’s funk dances to produce “popping,” a paroxysm of jerky arm, leg, chest and neck pops—as though the dancer was practically popping out of his skeleton. It caught fire throughout the nation, but especially in the West. By the late 1970s, the poppers from California’s Central Valley had teamed up with dancers from Long Beach to form the iconic pop and locking crew, the Electric Boogaloos. And when these moves were fused with the ground-level gymnastics of New York’s B-Boys, breaking truly took off. By the dawn of the 1980s, breaking was ubiquitous in South L.A. and on the city’s east side. Funk jams from Parliament-Funkadelic, the Bar-Kays, Zapp, Prince and Rick James ruled the West Coast, serving as the soundtrack for thousands of teenagers popping and locking, doing headspins and coin drops (the then-slang for windmills). In 1982, Ronnie Hudson dropped the era’s quintessential anthem, “West Coast Poplock,” which set caller request lines on L.A. radio station KDAY aflame and later served as a sample source for 2Pac’s “California Love.” This was the same year that Cesar Rivas, better known now as Lil’ Cesar of the seminal Air Force Crew, first saw breaking in the wild. Exactly four decades later, the specifics of the discovery remain vivid in his mind. In the center of the once THE RED BULLETIN

Brothers Soyemi, 24, and Soetan Osifeso, 28, and Rody Pedraza, 32, are all current members of Air Force Crew, the L.A.based group formed by their mentor, Lil’ Cesar, in the 1980s. Here they break outside the Gold Diggers bar in Hollywood.

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the West Coast B-Boy scene, such as Electric Boogaloo member Michael “Boogaloo Shrimp” Chambers (who had previously appeared in Richie’s “All Night Long” video). So when the 1984 Olympics arrived, just three months after Breakin’ hit theaters, all of young L.A. seemed to be popping, locking and downrocking. Inside the Coliseum, canonical B-Boys like Fresh (L.A. Breakers) and Baby Huey (Pony Express) performed windmills alongside Richie. Outside in Exposition Park, members of L.A.’s next generation, the Air Force Crew and the Radiotron Wizards, wowed the crowd by doing up to 20 consecutive high-speed headspins. These were the progeny of Radiotron, the youth community and arts center and breaking hub that succeeded Club Radio in 1983, after police officers from the Rampart District harassed the building’s owner for allegedly allowing drugs to be taken on the premises. In its next iteration, Radiotron became ground zero for 1980s West Coast B-Boying. Inspired by the legendary Shake City Rockers, the Air Force Crew coalesced. What we now consider modern power moves emerged from the ingenuity of Air Force’s Lil’ Cesar, Orko, Lil’ Lewis, Steve and Bobby Franco, Air Master, Oz Rock, B-Girl Yvan and Kid Tuff. From Mondays through Fridays, Radiotron was a practice spot. On the weekends, it featured immortal dance competitions between local crews, attended by everyone from Dr. Dre to Ice Cube, Vin Diesel to Toni Basil (“Hey Mickey”). The crowds and dancers reflected the diversity of the city. In

particular the Air Force Crew largely consisted of the children of Central American immigrants, a group often overlooked in the annals of hip-hop history. Yet these teenagers from the PAUL CHINN/HERALD EXAMINER COLLECTION/LOS ANGELES PUBLIC LIBRARY

notorious Pico-Union District, by a gas station on the corner of 7th and Union, Rivas saw a friend spinning on his head at a dizzying velocity. “I didn’t know people were capable of doing that with their own bodies,” the B-Boy legend recalls. A few blocks away, the first West Coast capital of hip-hop enjoyed a brief efflorescence. For roughly 18 months between 1982 and 1983, MacArthur Park’s Club Radio became the mecca of the fledgling cultural movement. With Ice-T on the mic and DJs like the Egyptian Lover, Afrika Islam and Chris “the Glove” Taylor behind the decks, the venue attracted luminaries like Madonna, Prince and Michael Jackson. It also drew the attention of Topper Carew, the future creator of the TV series Martin, who used Club Radio’s action as a primary set piece in the 1983 documentary Breakin’ n’ Enterin’. The 90-minute film featured all four elements of hip-hop (breaking, MCing DJing and graffiti) but fixed most of its attention on the psychedelic creativity of the L.A. B-Boys. Its underground success inspired a major motion picture, 1984’s surprise hit Breakin’, which grossed nearly $40 million and introduced millions to some of the linchpins of

Left: In 1985, a large group of young breakers gather outside of City Hall in Los Angeles to protest the closing of Radiotron, a nonprofit breakdance center in MacArthur Park. Right: Just months before the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, members of the crew L.A. Breakers perform in Century City.

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“We brought our own flavor, and did it with such control and perfection.” streets of Pico-Union supplied some of the most intricate combinations the B-Boy world had yet seen: double halos to flares to 1990 spins; double halos to flares, back to double halos. “We mastered power moves in our spinning and combos, and elevated it,” says Lil’ Cesar of the Air Force Crew. “Our feet never touched the ground. We brought our own flavor, and did it with such control and perfection that it seemed inhuman. Even today, there are only a handful of people on Earth who can do our moves as well as we did.” But by 1986, the phenomenon began to wane. Naysayers derided breaking as an ephemeral fad. With the emergence THE RED BULLETIN

Current members of L.A.’s Air Force Crew follow in the footsteps of their “sensei,” the legendary B-Boy Lil’ Cesar.

Since 1994, B-Girl Asia One has led B-Boy Summit, an international symposium for breakers.

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of N.W.A., gangsta rap replaced the electro and funk soundtracks that propelled B-Boy creativity. Ice-T threw on a pair of dark sunglasses and a menacing glare and rapped about pimping, shotgun shootings and police raids. People prematurely pronounced breaking dead. Hibernation was perhaps a more accurate description. Around 1992, the West Coast rave scene offered a technicolor positivity that meshed naturally with breaking’s flamboyant acrobatics. With gangsta rap still in ascendance, hip-hop traditionalists felt the need to return to the foundational components that many felt it had repudiated. One of those determined to keep the B-Boy torch alive was Denver native Nancy “Asia One” Yu. A member of the Rock Steady Crew, the B-Girl was inspired by the golden era of hip-hop and the activism of the Zulu Nation to create the B-Boy Summit in August 1994—which for nearly full two decades has served as an international symposium for B-Boys and B-Girls, fostering “friendship, global unity and peace, economic sustainability, and healthy competition and relationships.” Held in Yu’s new home of San Diego, the B-Boy Summits immediately earned raves in the hip-hop bible, The Source magazine. Videocassettes from the events became the stuff of lore, circulating among B-Boys like a holy grail. “We were faced with a challenge: People had moved on and said we were stuck in nostalgia, but we wanted to keep doing what we had been doing,” Yu remembers. “We felt ousted and knew that we needed to preserve this traditional hip-hop dance, as well as move it forward. You always see different nations climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and planting their flag there. I pictured it like that: something to elevate the culture so it could never be destroyed.” The year 1994 proved to be a seminal year in the rebirth of breaking. In this unlikely hip-hop hotbed of San Diego,

Multiple generations of the West Coast breaking scene gather on the stage at Gold Diggers bar in Hollywood. From San Diego to Seattle, they have helped shape breaking’s evolution.

local promoter Chris “Cros 1” Wright also built a bridge for the art form that allowed it to span generations. With the establishment of the Freestyle Sessions, West Coast B-Boys forged another crucible to test their mettle, refine their skills and spur the evolution of the dance. With the ascendance of underground, purist-minded hip-hop (Jurassic 5, the Invisibl Skratch Piklz, Dilated Peoples), more momentum was added to this four-elements renaissance. From the southern border up to Seattle, the second generation of West Coast B-Boy crews formed. Overseas, the popularity of breaking exploded. The Freestyle Sessions became more than a West Coast testing ground; through Cros 1’s influence, the event helped build a global community. VHS recordings of Freestyle Sessions’ dance battles circulated from continent to continent; over the next two decades, the event itself traveled to more than 40 countries. (There was also the

“We needed to preserve this traditional hip-hop dance and move it forward.” THE RED BULLETIN

new phenomenon of internet message boards, which helped connect B-Boys and Girls locally and across the world.) “We were hungry to see breaking again,” Cros 1 says. “Freestyle Sessions went from being a local thing to working its way up the West Coast and then to the East Coast. I went everywhere—Pro Ams, Scribble Jam, the Rock Steady Anniversary—and wherever I went, I showed them Freestyle Sessions videos.” Those early videos showed the B-Boys’ mastery of power moves, which had been a signature of West Coast breaking since the days of the Air Force Crew. Anyone who caught these tapes witnessed the introduction of an array of abstract movements and circus styles (tricks, contortions, etc.). What was once exclusively a dance began to become a sport, too. Like the NCAA’s March Madness, the Freestyle Sessions introduced tournament-style formats, with brackets to ensure that the best dancers battled each other in the finals. While other major competitions existed before Freestyle Sessions—most notably the Battle of the Year, founded in France 65

in 1990—Cros 1’s creation allowed Southern California to become a grassroots epicenter, the spiritual home of a 21st century renaissance. In the spring of 2001, the Lords of the Floor event in Seattle helped West Coast breaking continue to grow. Starring immortal crews like the L.A. Breakers, the Massive Monkees and the Style Elements, the LotF had Z-Trip as the house DJ and offered a $4,000 grand prize. Its success paved the way for the launch of the Red Bull BC One tourney in 2004, which rapidly became a Grand Slam level event for the B-Boy world. In the mainstream, the proliferation of hip-hop dance movies (You Got Served, 66

Stomp the Yard) and the success of the Jabbawockeez on America’s Best Dance Crew introduced a new generation to street dance and B-Boying. As West Coast breaking continued to morph, the scene absorbed and synthesized capoeira movements, house dancing and a grab bag of other dynamic wizardry. The Squadron helped to catalyze this evolution, a Southern California super crew somewhere between the Avengers and Wu-Tang. In the late 2000s, the late David “MexOne” Alvarado handpicked, named and assembled the Squadron from elite B-Boys across the country. His eye for talent was so strong that they won

11 straight battles between 2008 and 2011. In 2013 and 2014, the Squadron took home first place at the Freestyle Sessions—not to ignore their countless international victories. If the genesis of the Shake City Rockers and Air Force Crew traced back to intramural L.A. battles, the Squadron were the region’s answer to the age of globalization—a superpower from the land of palm trees. Omar “Roxrite” Delgado was one of the founding members of the Squadron. Born in Guadalajara, Delgado moved to the U.S. at the age of 6, began breaking at 12 and gravitated to the wild styles emanating from the late-’90s Bay Area hip-hop scene. To this day the stickTHE RED BULLETIN

Victor Montalvo, aka B-Boy Victor, is a member of the Southern California super crew the Squadron.

B-Boy and DJ Lean Rock, 33, is also a member of the worldchampion breaking crew the Squadron.

freeze master has over 106 first-place victories on his ledger. “The Squadron had all built a bond as individuals in the scene, and we respected each other. MexOne saw the vision and built the brand,” Roxrite says of the Squadron, who were among the first fully sponsored crews of their generation. “We were straight-up grassroots grinding: one of the first independent West Coast crews from the scene, for the scene and sustained by the scene.” “MexOne pushed me harder—he made me believe,” adds the Florida-raised Squadron member Victor Montalvo, aka B-Boy Victor. “Without MexOne, I don’t know if I would’ve become who I am.” THE RED BULLETIN

“We were straight-up grassroots grinding,” says Roxrite of the Squadron. 67

Nico Castro Aguilar, a member of the Killafornia Crew who hails from San Diego, embodies the modern era of B-Boying. On Instagram he has more than 60,000 followers.

Now based in Los Angeles, Montalvo has ranked among the best breakers in the country for the last decade-plus, winning too many trophies and rings to mention. But for anyone connected to the world of breaking, perhaps the notion of medals looms largest at the moment. With the 2024 Paris Olympics, breaking will finally become an Olympic event, a half-century after its creation— the rare art form that evolved into a competitive sport without losing the creative sensibilities that sparked its genesis. For most of the dancers, the connection with the music, specifically hip-hop and funk breakbeats, has not been severed. 68

“With me, if music isn’t the most important thing, it’s number two,” says 16-year-old Maddux Maya (aka Weapon X) a teen prodigy who makes up the Maya Boys alongside his older brother, Mace. “Music is my main source of energy. My style is based around that—flavor, finesse, steez. Anyone can do sick moves, but it doesn’t matter unless you’re moving with originality to the beat.” Long gone are the days of spinning on cardboard at gas stations or battling in the local park while a boombox bumps. There is the understanding that being elite doesn’t just mean being the best in your neighborhood or region;

there is an international scale that requires intense training and rigor to have a shot at greatness. A professionalism has set in. “We’re entering the sport phase of breaking,” says Nico Castro Aguilar, a member of the Killafornia Crew. Aguilar embodies this modern era of B-Boying. Chronicling both the highs and lows of his journey on social media, he’s amassed over 60,000 Instagram followers. He’s also a savvy entrepreneur who opened several brick-and-mortar businesses, including plant, coffee and exotic-snacks stores in San Diego. “There are families involved now and sponsored livestreams—you can’t just be waiting for the judges smoking in the parking lot anymore,” Aguilar continues. “We all want to be able to pay our bills and keep breaking. You can’t be a professional B-Boy and have that entitlement. We get to innovate a beautiful craft, but we have to be punctual, too.” Two examples of this next generation are the aforementioned Maya brothers, who have both dominated B-Boy battles and appeared on Ellen. The winner of the 2021 Red Bull BC One Los Angeles Cypher, 18-year-old Mace has his sights set on the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. He discovered breaking on YouTube at age 5 and understands all too well that raw athletic talent and superior rhythm on their own won’t be enough to get him to the Games. So there are 6 a.m wakeup calls for three-hour B-Boy training sessions, plus a steady regimen of weight lifting, stretching, massage, saunas and physical therapy. After all, with its official Olympic debut, breaking will have the most eyes on it since crews were doing windmills to “All Night Long” at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. For those who have made breaking their life, there is unparalleled excitement. Its rich history remains ingrained in its fabric, but there is a sense that a new realm of possibility has emerged. “I think the Olympics will shine a light on it to millions of people, who will learn that B-Boying isn’t what it was in the ’80s and ’90s,” Mace says. “This generation is hungry and we see the future of breaking. It’s going to be big. You’ll be able to live off this fulltime, which is what people dream of. We want the gold.” THE RED BULLETIN

“We are entering the sport phase of breaking,” says Nico Castro Aguilar.

“We all want to pay the bills and keep on breaking,” says Aguilar. “You can’t be a professional B-Boy and have that entitlement.”

Peak Obsession

Meet Ginge Fullen, the man who has climbed the highest peaks in more countries than anyone in history. You might question his sanity—but you won’t question his determination to reach the summit.

COURTESY OF GINGE FULLEN

Words MARK JENKINS

Fullen, who has climbed to the highest point in 174 countries—more than anyone in history—is a man of extremes. Here he celebrates atop Scotland’s Ben Nevis, the tallest mountain in the British Isles—in a historic diving suit.

Fullen poses with a land mine—just a minor obstacle en route to the summit of Mount Moco, the tallest peak in Angola. He also tangled with diamond smugglers and armed insurgents.

Surrounded by warm, emerald-blue seas, Montserrat is a 20-minute bush flight southwest from Antigua. One of Britain’s tiny territories left behind from its glory days of empire, Montserrat is the only Caribbean island with an active volcano. Fullen and I have come to this obscure island to climb this illegal peak. It’s on one of his to-do lists: Climb the highest point in all of Britain’s 14 territories. “I have to have a list of all my lists,” says Fullen. By trade, Ginge Fullen is a clearance diver. He removes UXO—unexploded ordnance—from ocean depths around the world. It is a dangerous, difficult, physically demanding, high-paying job. The Persian Gulf, the Mediterranean Sea, the Atlantic, the Pacific—our warring planet’s seven seas are littered with mines and explosives. Fullen joined the Royal Navy when he was 16, in 1984. Three years later, a passenger ship, the Herald of Free Enterprise, capsized in the English Channel. There were 459 passengers aboard and a crew of 80. A team of divers from the Royal Navy, including Fullen, was sent into the sinking ship to rescue trapped voyagers; 193 people would die. Fullen personally saved dozens of lives, for which he was awarded the Queen’s Gallantry Medal “for exemplary acts of bravery.” Fullen works underwater for half a year, then spends the other half hiking mountains. He has no sponsors; he pays for his expeditions with his hard-earned cash. There’s no Instagram, no website. He doesn’t even bring a phone on expeditions. Ginge Fullen is without doubt the world’s most unknown worldclass peak-bagger. According to Guinness World Records he is the first person to climb all the highest peaks in Europe, 47, and the fastest to climb all the highest peaks in Africa, 53 (with the division of Sudan, he’s going back for number 54), and has reached more country high points than any human ever. At present, Fullen has climbed the highest point in 174 countries. If you’re curious, there are 195 countries, total, on Earth. THE RED BULLETIN

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e sneak over the locked gate and into the forbidden zone. It is early morning but already the volcano before us is sliced in half by a vast white cloud, the summit swallowed. We haven’t been moving for more than five minutes when we spy a truck. We duck behind thornbushes and then creep along an embankment, trying to get a view. There are five men marching single file through the volcanic moonscape. They must be official—they had a key to get their truck through the gate. If we’re spotted, we will immediately be arrested. “We need to circle around,” whispers Eamon “Ginge” Fullen, who has many years of evasion experience. Ginge is bald, built like a boxer and has a heavy Yorkshire accent. He was born in Nigeria, grew up in England and has been around the world dozens of times. He’s the only person I’ve ever met who has been arrested in more countries than I have. We are inside the restricted zone on Montserrat, one of the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean, a speck of land only 11 miles long and 7 miles wide.

PAUL CALVER

“I have to have a list of all my lists,” says Fullen, who was photographed near his home in Scotland on June 17.

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of the island. The entire southern half, charred black from the eruption, is strictly controlled and closed to the public. Fullen and I hike swiftly along the beach for less than a mile before turning inland, passing up inside a wide, rubblefilled gully with 10-foot-high vertical walls. The gully was created by a lahar— a mudslide composed of pyroclastic materials, water and rocks—that poured off the erupting volcano. Lahars are immensely destructive, like rivers of concrete that crush everything in their path. Fullen knew about the lahar paths from his first reconnaissance of Montserrat three years earlier. “I discovered that the western side of the volcano, where Plymouth used to be, is heavily patrolled,” says Ginge. “When I casually asked about the possibilities of climbing the volcano, I was informed that simply entering the prohibited zone would result in ‘a $1,000 fine, indefinite detention and eventual deportation.’ ” That’s why we’re on the east side of the volcano, stealthily hiking up the lahar bed. Montserrat was “discovered” by Christopher Columbus on his second voyage in 1493, and he named it after

Fullen has no sponsors, no IG, no website. He doesn’t even bring a phone on expeditions.

COURTESY OF GINGE FULLEN(2), MARK JENKINS

nstead of heading straight toward the steaming flanks of the live volcano, as we had originally intended, Fullen veers hard left in the opposite direction, down to the beach, to avoid arrest. As he expected, the surf has pushed up a sandbank we can move along without being seen. I note that there is enough dry driftwood to make a fire if we are forced to bivouac. We’re only carrying water, snacks and rain jackets but are committed to taking as many hours, or days, that the mission requires. There was once an airport beneath our feet, but it was washed into the Atlantic when the Soufrière Hills, an active stratovolcano, exploded in 1995. The capital of Montserrat, Plymouth, on the western side of the island, was buried in mud and pyroclastic debris. At the time Montserrat had a population of 11,000, half of whom lived in Plymouth. The eruption destroyed two-thirds of the island, although Plymouth was successfully evacuated. (Remarkably, only 19 people died, all due to their insistence on not leaving their farms.) Today, Montserrat has around 4,000 residents, all of whom live on the northern, rainforest-covered end

Along the way, Fullen has summitted 53 high peaks in Africa and suffered a tragicomical list of medical issues. And yet he keeps going.

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Fullen takes a GPS reading near the top of the Soufrière Hills, an active volcano that is the highest peak on Montserrat.

a Spanish monastery. Although there is archaeological evidence that indigenous peoples had been living in the Caribbean islands for at least 5,000 years, the island was uninhabited by the time Columbus arrived. It became a British colony in 1632 and by 1678 there were 1,000 African slaves on the island, sweating and dying to grow sugarcane. By 1810 there were 7,000 slaves on the island. With the abolition of slavery in Britain in 1834 (30 years before the U.S. followed suit), the plantation system collapsed. Today, post-slavery, post-hurricanes, posteruption, Montserrat is a welfare state of the British government. A few English expats still live on the island, but the only industry is gravel mining (loaded onto ocean barges) and the occasional sunburned, scuba-diving tourists. Partway up the volcano, we stash half our food and water below the stone base of a sugarcane windmill, the only human structure to have survived the eruption. Fullen marks the spot on his GPS and we continue up the volcano, me prodding my climbing companion, naturally reticent, to share his story. In 1990 Fullen broke his neck playing rugby and was placed in a metal halo for THE RED BULLETIN

months. For an athlete, the downtime was more excruciating than the pain. He had grown up on tales of Tenzing Norgay and Sir Edmund Hillary, so he decided he would climb Mount Elbrus, 18,510 feet, the highest peak in Europe. Which he did in 1992. He followed this by climbing the highest peaks in the Eastern European countries, discovering that he was preternaturally capable at this kind of mountaineering. That’s when he called Guinness World Records with a question: Had anyone climbed all the peaks in Europe? “They said no,” says Fullen with a wide grin, “but thought it was a brilliant idea.” That was the beginning of a 30-year quest to climb the highest peak in every country on Earth. He climbed Kilimanjaro that Christmas, while “sick as a dog, nosebleeds, vomiting. I don’t adjust to altitude. It happens on every mountain.” He climbed Denali in Alaska that spring, “sick as could be.” In 1996 he attempted Everest and had a heart attack at 20,000 feet. “I always suffer at altitude, so at first I assumed it was AMS. But the chest pain became worse and worse. Soon it was almost impossible to breathe. It felt like a giant

hand was squeezing me torso. The pain was so bad I thought me sternum would break.” In correspondence, Fullen later wrote: “I have never mentioned this before but probably my biggest fear of dying is being unable to breathe. Now you might think the choice of a career as a diver is not a clever one in that case … but a fear can keep you alive if you learn to use it.” At Everest base camp Fullen was given several doses of morphine, put on 100 percent oxygen and choppered out to the hospital in Kathmandu. The year after his heart attack he proceeded to Shkhara, at 17,037 feet the highest mountain in Georgia, where he was immediately deported back to Moscow for no reason. On attempt No. 2, base camp was robbed by Chechen rebels. For attempt No. 3 he brought five days of food and summited after 11 days. Mount Ararat, 16,854 feet, the highest peak in Turkey, was off-limits, so he circled the mountain, bribed Kurdish rebels and summited. Unassuming but utterly undeterred, Fullen finished all of Europe’s high points in 1999, and then looked toward Africa. “Guess it does take a wee bit of perseverance,” he says. 75

PAUL CALVER

Peak-bagging is Fullen’s passion. But being a clearance diver—removing unexploded ordnance at sea—is his trade.

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On his globe-trotting climbing adventures, Fullen has tangled with elephants, angry guard dogs, poisonous insects and a variety of venomous snakes.

COURTESY OF GINGE FULLEN

e are stopped by a cul-de-sac of 20-foot-high spiked vegetation at the head of the lahar and must backtrack. We retrace our steps for half an hour, then hop over into an adjacent lahar and continue up the volcano. By noon we reach the narrow ridge that separates the east and west sides of the mountain. Unfortunately, we are now in full view of the observatory on the west side of the volcano. We move as swiftly as possible up a spine of crumbling lava, trying to hide behind teetering boulders of hardened lava. We are forced to pass through a bright yellow sulfuric gash on the northeast side of the stratovolcano. Gingerly stepping around the steaming suppurations, we test the bubbling surface with our trekking poles to make sure it is not hollow. After this delicate dance, we disappear beneath the lenticular cloud with relief, knowing we cannot be seen. The volcanic rubble is wet and unbelievably slippery. We slow our pace and Fullen continues his story. He discovered and then made the first ascent of the highest peak in Uzbekistan and the highest peak in Bangladesh, but says “Africa is where me adventure really began.” He moved to the continent in 2002 and spent the better part of the year traveling country to country. After days of negotiating to climb the highest peak in Gabon, he was stymied on the summit by a 20-foot-high boulder. “I tried hand jams, liebacking—nothing bloody worked.” So he went back down the

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mountain, carried up a dead tree and used it as a ladder to reach the tippy-top. After buses and taxis and a private jeep, Fullen reached the Aïr plateau in Niger and climbed Idoukal-n-Taghès with a Tuareg guide named Macmodon, but in his private journal he describes at greater length the poverty of the country, being constantly surrounded by begging children and at one point giving his soda to a young girl. Some older boys immediately tried to wrench the drink from her and Fullen stepped in. “I briefly turned away and when I looked back she was sharing the 2 inches of Coke with

“If a place is off-limits it’s not a problem. Just don't tell anyone.” several other smaller children, pouring it into their begging bowls. She saved the tiniest of mouthfuls for herself.” It took Fullen three expeditions to finally climb Angola’s Mount Moco, 8,596 feet. On every attempt he had to carefully navigate through land mines, insurgents, government forces and diamond smugglers. He was mugged in Kenya— strangled, barely survived and lost everything. Here’s how he sums up his approach to the mountains in Africa: “If a place is off-limits it’s not a problem. Just don’t tell anyone. If there are rebels, it’s not a problem—if you know them. The

For Fullen, his adventures—particularly in Africa—are as much about cultural discovery as the obsessive quest to reach all the summits on his lists.

Fullen has refused to let armed rebels, heart attacks, various diseases, government restrictions and other obstacles obstruct his quest to the top.

remoteness is not a problem if you’re prepared. And land mines? Well, land mines are not a problem if you’re lucky.” After a year of climbing in Africa, only the highest peak in Libya was left. But no one knew which desert mountain was actually the highest, and the region was swarming with rebels. It was so dangerous that one of his best mates, a fellow diver named Dean Simpson, tried to make a bet with a good friend that Fullen “would either fail again or die trying” in Libya. “I do not wish to sound morbid,” said Simpson, “but every time he goes on an expedition most of his saner friends think the same thing.” Simpson ends the letter to his friend with: “P.S. If he makes it to the top and dies on the way down, you still win!” It took three dangerous expeditions, but Ginge Fullen became the first person to discover and then climb the highest mountain in Libya, Bikku Bitti, in December of 2005. He almost died of thirst on that final attempt. In 2007 he was working on a ship in the Bight of Benin trying to pay off his African climbing expeditions when the ship was attacked by Nigerian pirates. A rifle was held at his neck and he was beaten with the dull edge of a machete. 78

One of the captains was murdered. But Fullen is philosophical: “The big oil companies are ruthless—they’ve really fucked over the Nigerians, so I understand their anger.”

s we near the summit of the Sofrière Hills volcano, the rocks are covered with moss and are dangerously slick. We are forced to chop out handholds and footholds in the volcanic mud. When we reach the crater rim, we can see nothing. We are engulfed in swirling mist, and the wind almost knocks us into the crater. “I’d say this be ’bout good enough,” says Fullen, who checks his GPS: 930 meters—15 meters higher than before the volcano erupted in 1995. The descent of the summit cone is stupidly treacherous. We have to use our trekking poles like ice axes to keep from sliding right off the mountain. When the steepness abates and we can begin to move diagonally, I ask Fullen if he has a rating scale for his kind of mountain climbing. He does, but it’s nothing like the simple numerical/alphabetical grading systems used for climbing in the U.S. and Europe. More of a conditional assessment, it consists of five questions:

1. Are there land mines on or around the mountain? 2. Are there rebels or conflict on or around the mountain? 3. Are there elephants, poisonous snakes or poisonous insects/diseases on the mountain? 4. Are there guard dogs on the mountain? 5. What is the distance—by foot, boat, mule, camel, canoe, etc.—to the mountain? As we descend out of the cloud, we are keenly aware that we are once again in full view of the observatory, so we slipslide as fast as we can down into one of the lahars. Sure enough, within minutes of dropping into the gully we hear choppers. We roll beneath an undercut and hide. As the sound of the helicopters gets closer and closer, we shove ourselves deeper and deeper beneath the cutbank. A chopper flies directly over us, only 20 feet above the gully, but sees nothing. Then another chopper. We stay hidden as the copter makes several passes directly overhead. We only roll out and stand up after the sound of the rotors has long disappeared. THE RED BULLETIN

COURTESY OF GINGE FULLEN, MARK JENKINS

“Let’s hope there’s no welcoming party at the gate,” says Fullen ruefully. We hustle down the lahar and pop out where we first saw the jeep. It is gone. There is a truck hidden in the shade when we step back over the gate, but no one is there. It turns out to be the vehicle of a 74-year-old Montserrat goat farmer named Sammie, who happily gives us a ride back north to St. John’s. The whole expedition took but a few hours. Standing in the back of the pickup, having just pulled off another summit, I feel extraordinarily lucky to have climbed a peak with the enigmatic Ginge Fullen. Unlike the vast majority of mountain climbers, Fullen is humble and unassuming. He has no use for fame. His mission is personal. He climbs mountains because he wants to experience unique landscapes. He climbs mountains because he wants to immerse himself in cultures most people have no idea even exist. He climbs mountains because he has the courage to make it happen, no matter the roadblocks or the suffering.

Bouncing around in the bed of the pickup, I ask Fullen one final question: “OK. Besides the heart attack, beatings, muggings, severe dehydration and being detained by rebels in dozens of countries, is there anything that really scared you, Ginge?” “Well, smelling my flesh rotting was one of the more uncomfortable positions I’ve found myself in. A parasite eating your flesh focuses the mind.” After summiting Pico de Neblina, 9,827 feet, in Brazil in 2018, Fullen returned to the U.K. with a strange skin infection. He saw two specialists, both of whom misdiagnosed the disease. “Concerned I might lose me leg—it was unbelievably painful and swollen to twice its normal size—I went to the Hospital of Tropical Diseases. A student nurse immediately identified my disease: leishmaniasis. You get it from the bite of a sand fly.” Fullen adds, with characteristic delight, that he had to spend 21 days on intravenous antibiotics to avoid having his leg amputated.

He has no use for fame. He climbs mountains because he has the courage to make it happen.

Fullen is not easily deterred. Here, with helicopters hovering overhead, he hides somewhere on the Soufrière Hills.

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GEICO.COM/CYCLE • 1-800-442-9253 • LOCAL OFFICE GREAT LOW RATES | MULTI-VEHICLE DISCOUNT | SPECIALIZED AGENTS Some discounts, coverages, payment plans, and features are not available in all states, in all GEICO companies, or in all situations. Boat and PWC coverages are underwritten by GEICO Marine Insurance Company. In the state of CA, program provided through Boat Association Insurance Services, license #0H87086. Motorcycle and ATV coverages are underwritten by GEICO Indemnity Company. Customer satisfaction based on an independent study conducted by Alan Newman Research, 2020. GEICO is a registered service mark of Government Employees Insurance Company, Washington, DC 20076; a Berkshire Hathaway Inc. subsidiary. © 2022 GEICO 21_731772673

guide

MICHAEL UNDERWOOD/VISIT GRAND JUNCTION

Get it. Do it. See it.

HIDDEN GEM Ditch the crowds and bike, paddle, climb or hike your way through the Western Slope’s well-kept secret: Grand Junction, Colorado. Words HEATHER BALOGH ROCHFORT

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High-desert oasis: Behold the natural beauty of the Colorado National Monument.

G U I D E

Do it GRAND JUNCTION IN 24 HOURS

Once upon a time, Grand Junction was a “flyover city” for adventurers traveling between Moab, Utah, and Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. But don’t let its scruffy perimeter fool you. This highdesert oasis is the perfect wine-and-hike destination thanks to world-class sandstone arches and trendy wineries. Dive straight in by pointing your tires toward the Colorado National Monument, where you can bike the 23-mile Rim Rock Drive, justifiably known as one of the grandest scenic routes in the American West. Dusky red canyons proudly stand in stark contrast to the snowcapped peaks of Colorado’s ski country. If water is more your thing, slap on some sunscreen, snag your swimsuit and head to Riverfront at Las Colonias Park. Centered in the heart of downtown, this 140-acre open-space park sits along the banks of the Colorado River and just upstream from the confluence with the Gunnison River. Locals bring inner tubes, SUPs or kayaks to paddle the lazy water channel and its two standing-wave features. If you don’t feel ready for the river action, don’t sweat it. The park also boasts three ponds—Butterfly Pond and Las Colonias Ponds—for beginners to practice their moves on calmer waters (no tubes allowed). Hiking is a popular option, too, and one often preferred by local Natalie Magee. As owner of Yogi Magee Adventures, Magee coordinates yoga adventure

Considered one of the most scenic routes in the American West, the 23-mile Rim Rock Drive is one way to take in the sites around Grand Junction on two wheels. Roughly 40,000 cyclists pedal the road every year.

retreats and often suggests Mica Mine for families. At roughly 2.6 miles round trip along Ladder Creek, the mileage is manageable and the terrain fairly mellow. The destination is where the hike shines—literally. The turnaround point is the nowdefunct Mica Mine, a historic quartz mine that dazzles everyone who makes the journey. A large undercut sits

Once considered a “flyover city,” today Grand Junction is a perfect wine-and-hike destination. 82

at the end of the trail, with bedazzled walls covered in sparkling quartz crystals that shimmer in the sunshine. Stay Tucked against the shores of the Colorado River in Las Colonias Park sits Camp Eddy, an adventure launchpad that just opened this summer. Here visitors cozy up inside tiny homes or sleek Airstreams. For the ultimate in quaint relaxation, head to the Castle Creek Manor Bed and Breakfast in central Grand Junction. Eat Start your day right with some fresh-baked eats at Kulina Lani Organic Sourdough Bakery, Magee’s

go-to for breakfast treats and baguettes. For juicy burgers, it’s Rockslide Restaurant & Brewery. Feeling fancier? Find your way to Bin 707 Foodbar for the bison ribeye and artichoke hushpuppies off the specialized rotating menu. Drink You’re in wine country, so the options are many. Start at Whitewater Hill Vineyards and enjoy a riesling or rosé while admiring the stunning views of the Palisade orchards to the east. For beer, visit downtown’s Ramblebine Brewing Company for a Habitual Sin IPA or Mamma Said Raspberry Stout.

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Grand Junction

won’t need to fuss with thousands of people or worry about timed entries. Instead, you’ll find only solitude and serenity as you traverse the collection of 35 arches. Be sure to scope the 76-foot-long Rainbow Arch—the longest in the park—and Rattlesnake Arch, a spiny 40-foot-wide arch soaring more than 120 feet up in the sky. Next, you can cool off by exploring the glimmering waterways on an SUP. Grab a rental at Grand Junction Adventures (they have two locations) and put in at the Escalante boat ramp, 40 minutes south of town. Paddle 14 meandering miles through idyllic orchards and the soaring canyons of Dominguez-Escalante National Conservation Area before exiting the river at the Dominguez boat ramp. Mountain bikers won’t want to leave without riding some of the best singletrack in the country. Experienced locals love Lunch Loops, a challenging trail system filled with big slick rock and technical drops. For beginners or visitors looking to improve their skills, the Lunch Loops

GETTY IMAGES, VISIT GRAND JUNCTION(2)

GRAND JUNCTION IN A LONG WEEKEND

“I love Grand Junction because of the access to all the outdoor activities,” Magee says. Start your weekend on the right foot by lacing up your hiking shoes and loading up a 4x4 vehicle. From downtown, head 30 minutes west to explore the underrated crown jewel of the Centennial State: Rattlesnake Canyon. Tucked away within the 123,000acre McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area, Rattlesnake Canyon is home to the world’s second-largest concentration of sandstone arches outside of Utah’s Arches National Park. But here you

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Bike Park at the trailhead boasts a number of jumps and features to hone your skills. Stay Step back in time at the Chateau at Two Rivers Winery, where elegant decor and hand-painted murals take their cues from a French country inn. The unique Hotel Maverick sits on the campus of Colorado Mesa University, oozing Western pride from every nook and cranny. The quaint Dancing Moon Bed and Breakfast in nearby Palisade offers a more personal experience. Eat Begin your morning with a savory breakfast frittata or sweet blueberry pancakes at

the Dream Café. The beloved 626 on Rood highlights local wines with beautifully plated seasonal fare. For something livelier, try Warehouse 2565 for classic American cuisine with a side of live music. Drink Two Rivers Winery is a family affair with a small yet mighty (six varietals) wine selection. Foam & Folly is Magee’s pick for a brewery, thanks to the large outdoor area where visitors can play cornhole. “Plus, the staff is so welcoming,” she adds. The speakeasy theme at Moody’s is a vibe, and the lounge boasts an impressively large selection of whiskey.

Kick off your boots and relax at Hotel Maverick.

Sip some vino at Two Rivers Winery.

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Do it More than 120 wild mustangs roam free at a U.S. reserve near Grand Junction.

GRAND JUNCTION FOR A WEEK

There is nothing more Americana than free-roaming mustangs, and Grand Junction has one of only three U.S. reserves set aside for them in the Little Book Cliffs Wild Horse Range. Finding the range’s 124 untamed mustangs takes some work, since the horses run in four to five smaller bands that roam 36,000 acres of land.

To visit, pack your hiking boots or saddle up a horse (Rim Rock Adventures has guided rides) before heading into the interior to scope picturesque plateaus and (hopefully!) an eyeful of palominos, paints and appaloosas roaming wild. Mygatt-Moore Quarry in nearby Rabbit Valley is the epicenter for budding paleontologists intrigued by Jurassic dinosaurs.

This active site still sees discoveries, yielding more than 4,000 dinosaur bones since the 1980s, including the largest Apatosaurus femur ever found, in 2014. For further exploration, wander the Trail Through Time, a 1.5-mile interpretive loop that features dinosaur fossils from 140 million years ago. To get the heart pumping, Magee suggests hiking to the summit of Mount Garfield, a 4-mile

round-trip trek that sees nearly 2,000 feet of vertical gain. “Best views in town,” she says of the 360-degree panorama you’ll find at the top. Back to the adrenaline: The greater Grand Junction area offers some of the best rock climbing in the continental United States. Nearby Unaweep Canyon (or the “Canyon with Two Mouths” in Ute) boasts 2,300 climbing routes,

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GETTY IMAGES, VISIT GRAND JUNCTION(2)

Grand Junction

including beginner-friendly bolted sport routes and more difficult multipitched trad routes. No ropes? No problem. You’ll find epic bouldering, too. For visitors who want to go down rather than up, the

Devil’s Kitchen Trail area in Colorado National Monument is filled with deep slot canyons prime with snug squeezes and heart-pumping rappels. If you’re inexperienced, head to Grand Junction Adventures and they’ll set you up with a guided climbing or canyoneering experience. Stay The swank and luxurious Gateway Canyons Resort is an hour outside of town, but the outdoor fireplaces and soaking pools more than make up for the commute. For a more intimate experience, consider the Grand Junction Bed and Breakfast. For rustic charm, cozy up inside your RV, tent or on-property cabins at the Palisade Basecamp RV Resort. Eat Head to TacoParty, a locally sourced, quickserve taco shop that promises appetizers, six tacos and softserve options that change weekly. Spoons bistro and bakery offers a Sunrise Menu packed with breakfast favorites made in-house. For an elegant sunset dinner, try Devil’s Kitchen inside Hotel Maverick. The rooftop views—and the food—will not disappoint. Drink Begin your wine crawl at Hermosa Vineyards, a welcoming winery that grows limited quantities of everything from syrah and chardonnay to malbec and merlot. Then hop over to Graystone Winery—the only port house in Colorado—to test out their unique white port called Lipizzan. Wrap up the week with the eclectic mixed-drink menu at Highlands Craft Distillery.

There is nothing more Americana than free-roaming mustangs, and Grand Junction has scores of them. THE RED BULLETIN

Finish your week with an eclectic drink menu at Highlands Craft Distillery.

Taste half a dozen locally sourced tacos at TacoParty.

G U I D E

Do it

Hanneman is willing to work on his weaknesses: “I want to get to a point where I can say my strengths are turns, barrels, airs—all of it.”

TRAIN LIKE A PRO

“YOU CAN’T LOSE YOUR STYLE” Surfer Eli Hanneman reveals how he trains to thread deep barrels and launch massive airs. Words JEN SEE

t 19, Eli Hanneman is already a standout at Pipeline, one of surfing’s toughest waves. In a clip from last winter, he paddles into a massive swell there, free-falls down the face, slices his heel-side rail into the water’s surface and flies through the barrel. After he exits, almost casually, Hanneman throws himself into the air, spins and lands smoothly. It’s the kind of ride that wins contest heats—and pro titles. But that’s for the future. “I still feel like I have a long way to go,” he says. “But that’s just part of the game, to keep improving.” Born in Maui,

Hanneman started skateboarding at age 4 and initially liked it better than surfing. But his dad, a dedicated surfer and board shaper, drew him toward surfing. “As I started surfing more, I developed the passion.” This year, he’s competing on the Challenger Series, a gateway to the Championship Tour. Hanneman believes his Hawaiian upbringing gives him an edge in powerful surf. His poise in the barrel and his consistent airs suggest he’s right. But he isn’t satisfied. His credo is scrawled in his garage: “Don’t focus on what you’re doing wrong, focus on what you can do better.”

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Fitness

WATE R TI M E

“I spend a ton of time on the North Shore” “During the summer, the waves here on Maui are a lot smaller than the rest of the year, but I still try to surf for two hours a day, even if the waves are terrible. Maui is a great place to grow up, but to grow as a surfer, I have to get out of that bubble. I’ve made a point to spend a ton of time on Oahu’s North Shore. When I’m there, I’ll surf four to six hours. And if I’m on a surf trip, it’s six hours easy. I guess it would be best if I could do the same amount each day, but the reality in surfing is that every day is different.”

RYAN MILLER/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, TREVOR MORAN/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

TA KEO FFS/ L AN D I N GS

D RY L AN D

“I’m starting to do more weights” “I train at a gym called Deep Relief Peak Performance, with Samantha Campbell, who also trains Ian Walsh and Izzi Gomez. I’ve worked with Samantha since I was 13. At first, it was a lot of stretching and body awareness—learning how to use my body correctly in workouts. I mainly did bodyweight exercises. Now, I’m getting older and I’m starting to do more weights. I also try to stretch as much as I can for injury prevention and to make everything easier on my body. There are people out there who are naturally limber. That’s not me.”

R EC OV E RY

“I’ve been working on my stance”

“It’s critical to eat after a workout”

“Doing airs is hard on your knees and ankles. My style is to surf with my back knee turned in; I can’t really change that. When I land, my knees used to go in. A big change has been to turn my knees out and use my leg muscles rather than my knee joints, which aren’t meant to hold my weight. It’s helped me to lift the arches in my feet. That spins my knees outward and gives me a sturdier stance. I don’t want to go out and look like I’m doing a squat every time I land an air. I can’t lose my style.”

“I’m trying to get better at recovery. It’s critical to eat after a workout, especially since I’m trying to get bigger, not lose weight. It’s pointless to do the workout if I don’t eat after it. I’m trying to get in the habit of having protein shakes after workouts. And I try to ride the spin bike after a hard workout to flush the lactic acid out of my body. Sometimes, I just want to sit there and rest, but I’m getting better about it. Even a year ago, I would probably have said, ‘Oh, I just sit down and do nothing.’”

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“I’VE HAD TO CUT A LOT OF FOODS OUT OF MY DIET” “I lacerated my pancreas in January, and my body is still really sensitive to certain foods. I lost 20 pounds in the hospital, which clearly wasn’t ideal. I had to cut a lot of foods out of my diet, which is hard when I’m trying to put on weight. I cut out dairy, red meat and spicy foods. My proteins are chicken and beans. I eat rice for carbs and lots of fruits and vegetables. I’m not going to be a vegan for the rest of my life, but I’m more aware of what I’m putting in my body.”

G U I D E

See it

Calendar

October

RED BULL BATALLA NATIONAL FINAL

15 October RED BULL RAMPAGE Last year’s Rampage was a must-see event, with Canada’s Brandon Semenuk making history after winning for a fourth time and landing a flat-drop tail whip for the first time in competition. For more than a decade, Semenuk has been leading the scene, but there’s also a new kid in town: Jaxson Riddle (pictured). For his rookie Rampage appearance, the 21-year-old phenom from Utah wowed judges with his creativity, ultimately nabbing an award for Best Style. Keep your eye on both riders this year. redbull.com

This year, the nationals for this Spanishspeaking freestyle competition will go down in Miami. As talent continues to rise in the U.S., could last year’s winner, Reverse, defend his title and go all the way at the world finals in Mexico? If he advances, the young Cuban MC from West Palm Beach will certainly have strong competition, especially from the host country, which has nabbed the world title for the past two years. No matter the outcome in the U.S. and in Mexico, it's gonna be lit. redbull.com

23 October

September RED BULL BC ONE U.S. FINALS After a series of regional cyphers, the best breakers in the country will gather in Los Angeles with the hope of being crowned the national champion—and a chance to head to New York for the world final in November. Could a brand-new talent come out of nowhere and take home the trophy? That was certainly the case at the Las Vegas cypher, where Jeyna Ponce (pictured) crushed her very first battle. Read more about Ponce on page 9. redbull.com

As F1 fervor continues to rise in the U.S., there’s no better time to jump on the bandwagon and catch the action in Austin at the Circuit of the Americas. With the season nearing the end, the points from this race can often have a major impact on who takes home the world title. (Pro tip: If you want to know more about the history, the fandom, and the technology of F1, our podcast Ready for the Big Time is an excellent primer. Tune in wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.) formula1.com

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BARTOSZ WOLINKSI/RED BULL CONTNET POOL, JOSEPH ARCEO/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

U.S. GRAND PRIX

VAN DER WAALS FERROMAGNETIC SPEAKER

Thanks to sound-sensitive ferromagnetic fluid, this wireless speaker puts the visual into audio-visual. Developed by NASA, ferrofluid stabilized rocket fuel in zero gravity. Now it moves to the beat, pushed and pulled by magnetic forces emanating from the speaker as LED lights pulse. The 360-degree sound comes from four speakers that deliver crisp notes and move the fluid. $399; kickstarter. com/projects/skuznetsoff/van-der-waals

SOUNDS PERFECT The advent of wireless streaming music has opened up how you listen to your music to a whole other level of tech and gear. Listen for yourself. Words GRANT DAVIS

The Van der Waals ferromagnetic speaker lets you see and feel your favorite tunes.

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H O M E

AUDIOENGINE A2+

Elevate the quality of Zoom meetings or your work-from-home ambiance with these speakers. These 6x4-inch micro-mites connect via USB or extended-range Bluetooth to your computer or mobile device. Their relatively deep bass comes by design, not any digital magic. The speakers connect to each other with an old-school analog wire, but otherwise can be placed anywhere on your desk, deck, bedroom, boardroom— wherever. $269; audioengine.com

ZUMA LUMISONIC

Zuma had a brilliant idea: combine the ubiquitous ceiling light with a wireless 75-watt speaker that can connect to your digital music via WiFi, Bluetooth, Alexa, AirPlay or Spotify Connect. Set up one in the kitchen, one in the living room, or wherever you’d like; turn on one room or all—Amazon Alexa or AirPlay let you move the music where you want. Zuma’s dimmable LED light lets you set the level to match the musical vibe. $443; zuma.ai

AU D I O

PLATIN AUDIO MONACO 5.1 WITH WISA SOUNDSEND

FENDER MUSTANG MICRO

FLIP RECORD DISPLAY SHELF

HYPERX CLOUD ALPHA HEADPHONES

Many surround-sound setups are designed with home theaters and a bigger-is-always-better mentality. Not so with this wireless setup. Rightsized for smaller apartments or rooms, it comes tuned by the movie-theater sound pros at THX. The WiSA SoundSend high-definition wireless transmitter lets you place the mini speakers anywhere you like around your TV without the mess of cables. $999; platinaudio.us

For all the renewed attention given to the album covers of vinyl records, it’s a shame they still spend most of their lives hidden in a crate or stacked on a shelf unseen. The brains at Deep Cut who created the Flip shelf want to change that with these wall-mounted arms made from 100 percent hardwood, either walnut or maple. Each set holds up to 20 records, face out, so you can display your favorite album art for you and all your friends to see. $70; deepcut.co

Unleash your electric guitar at whatever volume you desire—with help from Fender’s mini version of the popular Mustang amp. It packs 12 amp models and 12 effects, just like its big-box siblings. Plug it into the guitar’s amp jack, connect it to your wired headphones and go for it—without waking up the rest of the house. It has adjustable EQ and volume controls and offers four hours of run time on its USB-rechargeable battery. $120; fender.com

These wireless gaming headphones have been around for a while, but a battery upgrade has us talking about them now. The ’phones will go 300 hours on one charge—that’s a lot of gaming action. HyperX’s dual-chamber drivers and DTS spatial audio deliver 3D surround sound straight to your ears. Memory foam and breathable leatherette ear coverings keep things comfy for long sessions. $180; hyperx.com

Thanks to new battery tech, the HyperX Cloud Alpha headphones can go 300 hours on a charge. THE RED BULLETIN

G U I D E

M O B I L E

AU D I O

MARSHALL EMBERTON II BLUETOOTH SPEAKER

THE MONKEY FM RADIO/WIRELESS SPEAKER

SONY XPERIA 1 IV SMARTPHONE

JABRA ELITE 7 ACTIVE EARBUDS

Guitar heroes have been running their electric guitars through stacks of Marshall amps for decades. It makes sense, then, that the amp maker would bring its signature sound and look to a splashproof and shockproof wireless speaker with 360-degree true stereophonic sound. It pumps out music with more depth and power than you’d think possible from a speaker this small. $170; marshallheadphones.com

Cameras and screens dominate the smartphone arms race, but Sony paid close attention to sound with this new flagship phone. It features stereo speakers encased in a new design to improve low frequency and bass sounds. And for audiophiles still tethered to wired headphones, it has a 3.5 mm audio jack. The mic and cloudbased “Music Pro” recording software allows recorded tracks to be mixed and manipulated on the phone. $1,600; electronics.sony.com

Thank you to the creatives at Palomar for adding an FM radio to a portable waterproof Bluetooth speaker. Its strap, which lets you secure the Monkey to a fence, handlebar, wrist or other object, doubles as the FM radio’s antenna. Since sports and news broadcasts still live on radio, now you can listen to the game and your streaming music with one compact device. $69; palomarweb.com

BENQ GS50 OUTDOOR PROJECTOR/SPEAKER

Here’s the ultimate party in a box. It’s a 1080p HD projector with 2.1 channel Bluetooth audio blasted through separate high/mid-range drivers and a 10-watt woofer for deeper bass. Choose “Cinema” mode for vibrant contrast and hi-def detail for what you see and what you hear. The rechargeable battery will last 2.5 hours. Onboard Android TV lets you stream directly through the BenQ. $749; benq.com

Dutch techies Jabra rolled out the Elite 7 Active series wireless earbuds with their trademarked ShakeGrip silicone rubber coating, designed to hold the earbuds snug in your ears during vigorous sweat sessions (indoors or out) without needing to ram them deep into your noggin. They even upgrade your on-the-go phone calls with a four-microphone setup and active noisecanceling tech to tune out ambient sounds. $140; jabra.com

Now Marshall makes a compact, splashproof wireless speaker for guitar heroes on the go. 92

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DYSON ZONE

Think of these headphones as a dual-threat pollution-fighting machine. Dyson’s proprietary active noise-canceling tech mitigates modern life’s aural assault on your senses. And the visor in the front purifies the air you breathe. Two air filters hidden in the headphones filter out allergens, dust and other particulates along with ozone, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide gases. Fans push the scrubbed air into the area covering your nose and mouth. Price TBD; dyson.com

These Dyson headphones filter the air as they filter out noise.

A N ATO M Y O F G E A R An innovative audio product, deconstructed. Words GRANT DAVIS

he turntable that helped turn DJs into artists in the early 1970s turns 50 this year. This limited anniversary edition of the music icon keeps the legend alive.

CLASSIC FORM

DRIVETRAIN

FIND YOUR GROOVE

ARMED FOR SOUND

REVERSE GEAR

G O O D V I B R AT I O N S

The 50th Anniversary Edition comes in seven colors, all paired with a gold tonearm and unique serial number. It still has the robust and reliable performance in a slim package that made it easy to transport to house and block parties as hip-hop was born in the ’70s.

A high-brightness, long-life LED shoots a focused white beam on the stylus tip, enabling a DJ to place the needle into a record groove accurately even in lowlight environments.

Direct drive also helps make reverse play easier and faster and smoother—so it’s easier to find those hidden messages.

Technics made history in 1972 with a brand-new idea: a direct-drive motor to turn the platter instead of a belt drive. This made the rotation more consistent and accurate, with a unit that was more durable and got a record up to playing speed faster.

Technics’ signature tonearm is balanced yet tuned for high motion sensitivity. The result accurately tracks the record groove under extreme DJ use such as scratching.

The chassis is built from die-cast aluminum integrated with a rigid mixed polymer that offers vibration-damping performance. And the turntable’s feet, called insulators, contain a coil spring and rubber dampener. The design delivers high-quality sound without letting external vibrations (say a crowd jumping on a dance floor) affect playback.

TECHNICS SL-1200M7L $1,100; technics.com

THE RED BULLETIN

G U I D E

THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION COMES IN SEVEN COLORS, ALL PAIRED WITH A GOLD TONEARM. THE RED BULLETIN

GLOBAL TEAM

THE RED BULLETIN WORLDWIDE

The Red Bulletin is published in six countries. The cover of this month’s French edition features League of Legends player Saken, who at just 23 years old has become a mainstay in esports. For more stories beyond the ordinary, go to redbulletin.com.

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Structured Play Now this is what we call a major show of support. The flying buttresses of the imposing concrete breakwater at Puerto de Tazacorte on the Spanish island of La Palma give this image weight, composition and a palpable feeling of flight. The visually arresting interplay of skate and shade, starring local boarder Abraham Cedrés, earned Tenerifeborn photographer Jairo Díaz Dévora a semifinal spot in Red Bull Illume. redbullillume.com

The next issue of THE RED BULLETIN is out on October 11.

THE RED BULLETIN

JAIRO DÍAZ DÉVORA/RED BULL ILLUME

DAVYDD CHONG

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omegawatches.com

WO R L DT I M E R G MT Since 1848, OMEGA has timed historic events and human achievements around the world. The Worldtimer embodies that pioneering spirit with a dial that provides an accurate view of the world’s time zones with just a glance. Continuing that commitment, today’s Co-Axial Master Chronometer models are tested and certified at the highest level by the Swiss Federal Institute of Metrology (METAS). This guarantees more accuracy, reliability and supreme resistance to magnetism from electronic devices, such as phones and laptops, ensuring the Worldtimer is always adventure-ready.

The Red Bulletin US 09/22

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