10
MAGAZINE
As you’d expect from one of the costliest Olympics Games in history, the opening ceremony to the 2014 Winter Olympics was suitably spectacular. 40,000 spectators and athletes from 87 countries were in the Populousdesigned Fisht stadium where they were entertained by scenes from Russia’s history.
WELCOME
HELLO June 12th is when the world goes soccer mad. It’s on this day that the 32 best teams in the world, along with their most colourful fans, all descend upon Brazil for the FIFA World Cup. We at Populous can’t wait for the action to begin. Consequently our lead feature in this issue is on soccer’s mythical No.10 shirt – an emblem that has lit up so many World Cups in the past and is sure to do so again this time round. Just what is it about a simple article of clothing that can both bless and curse the players who wear it – sometimes at the same time? Just in case the big round ball doesn’t captivate you, we also have stories on marathon running where the top runners are now achingly close to breaking the two-hour barrier; and on the Asian Games where the sports of wushu, kabaddi and sepaktakraw are attempting to achieve global recognition. We look at snooker and the amazing psyche of potting genius Ronnie O’Sullivan, and we visit American handball – playing dirty in New York City’s Coney Island. We also examine how new sports are actually created. At what point can simple game playing be considered real sport? As part of our research, we looked at Harry Potter, the little wizard created by J.K. Rowling. Remember his favourite sport Quidditch? Well, it seems university students in the US and the UK are going mad for their own version of this fictitious game. There’s even a Quidditch world cup. Honestly, we’re not making this up. Who knows? Perhaps one day J.K. Rowling will be remembered as the originator of an Olympic sport. What an amazing concept sport is. Enjoy reading about it. Rod Sheard
Editor-in-chief: Rod Sheard Editorial team: Nick Reynolds Tom Jones Patricia Fernandez
Publisher: Tony Richardson tony@almamedia.co.uk Editor: Dominic Bliss dominic@almamedia.co.uk Art direction and design: Deep www.deep.co.uk
Images: Cover: Pele in 1957 Offside/ Brainpix. Inside: Getty Images; Corbis; Adidas; America’s Cup; ACEA / Photo Abner Kingman; Handball - Paul pdhw; FIA Formula E; Drayson Racing; Populous; Warner Bros / Harry Potter; International Quidditch Association.
MAGAZiNe
Tel: +44 (0) 20 8874 7666 Email: popmag@populous.com Web: www.populous.com
Populous magazine is published by: Alma Media International London, United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0) 20 8944 1155 Email: info@almamedia.co.uk Web: www.almamedia.co.uk
10
© Alma Media International Ltd 2014 All material is strictly copyright and all rights are reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without the written permission of Alma Media International is strictly forbidden. The greatest care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of information in this magazine at the time of going to press, but we accept no responsibility for omissions or errors. The views expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of Alma Media International or Populous.
01 Covers _Issue 10 paginated.indd 3
ISSUE ten
10/02/2014 16:26
Populous magazine is sent to our clients and friends around the sporting world.
PEFC/16-44-002
CONTENTS
ISSUE 10
BREAK SHOT
4
6
LEFT FIELD
10... THE MAGIC NUMBER
Great innovations in the design of sports products and equipment.
RECORD EARNINGS
16
HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT
Coney Island, New York City’s seaside resort, is the unlikely spiritual home of American handball.
18
22
GOING GLOBAL
MARATHON EFFORT
Top marathon runners are edging ever closer to that mythical sub-twohour mark. Could they ever break it?
UNCONVENTIONAL GENIUS
Three distinctly Asian sports – wushu, kabaddi and sepaktakraw – get their 15 minutes of fame at this year’s Asian Games. But they want much more.
24
BATTERIES INCLUDED This year sees the launch of the world’s first major electric motor racing series. Will fans embrace the new, greener form of the sport?
GET THE SNITCH
The strange story of McKayla Maroney, the American gymnast who became more famous for her podium smirk than for her Olympic medals.
14
The world’s top superstar DJs are some of the richest and most famous individuals in the music industry. How did they become so successful?
The bizarre story of how a fictitious sport – Harry Potter’s Quidditch – became reality.
IMPRESSIVE BUT NOT IMPRESSED
The history, traditions and superstitions of soccer’s most infamous shirt number.
12
30
10
Climb inside the head of snooker champion Ronnie O’Sullivan and you’ll unearth some very strange demons indeed.
28
SUPER GRASS
Meet the man who had the vision for the world’s only permanently covered grass stadium.
32
POP HISTORY
The memorial service for Nelson Mandela at the FNB Stadium in South Africa.
design in sport
LEFT FIELD THE DESIGN OF SPORTS PRODUCTS AND EQUIPMENT IS EVOLVING FASTER THAN EVER. HERE WE INTRODUCE YOU TO SOME OF THE MOST EXCITING INNOVATIONS.
Light on your feet Next year soccer players might forget they’re wearing anything at all. The new adidas team kit for 2015 weighs in at just 630g (22oz), including shirt, shorts, socks, shin pads and boots. The latter are so lightweight that one of them weighs less than the new iPhone 5. While adidas remain tight-lipped about the actual fabric they are using to manufacture this breezy new uniform, they have revealed the basic design: a vest-shaped top layer will cover a tightfitting base layer, while the shin pads will be integrated into compression socks. Of course, with such minimal weights involved, should the kit be adopted by professional teams, even the ink used to print the sponsor’s name will affect the overall weight. No problem for soccer clubs such as Manchester United with just a threeletter sponsor’s logo, or Bayern Munich with just one letter. But spare a thought for Liverpool players, with ‘Standard Chartered’ emblazoned across their chests. Should they wear adidas, that will end up a lot more than 630g.
04
Blown out of the water It’s been called “the greatest comeback in competitive sailing history”. At one point in last year’s America’s Cup – the world’s most famous sailing match – the Americans were 8-1 down and looking at a humiliating defeat but somehow they reeled off eight straight wins over rivals New Zealand to take overall victory. The boats used in the race were identical, and a world away from their historical counterparts. Often hitting speeds of 40 knots (44mph), the supercharged AC72 Class yachts featured high-tech wing rigs instead of traditional masts and sails. 40 metres tall, the solid wings are similar in design and function to aircraft wings, with power varied by changing the camber of the wing surface. Adjustable sections from top to bottom and front to back, along with aileron-style trailing edge flaps, can be
trimmed far more accurately and efficiently than conventional sails. Using two narrow hulls instead of one larger hull means reduced drag in the water. However, the secret of the AC72’s explosive performance actually lies in the foil design which uses curves and surfaces to create enough lift at speed to raise the entire catamaran clear of the water. Since only the surfaces of the foils remain submerged, extraordinary speeds can be reached. Moreover, reducing air drag and honing the aerodynamics of the hulls and superstructure has suddenly become an important part of the design process. Controlling an AC72 catamaran and keeping it stable while flying at high speed is very tricky, and the systems that control the angle of attack of the hydrofoil elements remain closely guarded design secrets.
05
Since only the surfaces of the foils remain submerged, extraordinary speeds can be reached.
Motor sport — Batteries included
Soccer It’s a great honour to wear the number 10 shirt but it’s also a weighty responsibility. Joe Boyle discovers the history, traditions and superstitions of soccer’s most infamous shirt number.
No other position earns such poetry. Yet there is a loosening of the connection between the number 10 and fantasista. Toni Kroos (of Bayern Munich and Germany) is considered by many to be the archetypal modern-day exponent of the role. For his club, he wears 39. For Germany, he wears 18. The classic one-to-eleven ordering of team sheets has long been abandoned. However, as long as there are voices like Marchisio’s, the aura will remain. There is, of course, nothing inherent in the tenth numeral that denotes a great playmaker. Indeed, it took a bureaucratic cock-up to establish the bond in the first place. When Brazil submitted their squad details to FIFA ahead of the 1958 World Cup, they had forgotten to assign shirt numbers to the players so FIFA allocated them at random. Number 10 ended up on the back of Pelé. Four matches, six goals and a World Cup title later, the mystique was firmly established. It is fitting that Lionel Messi, of Barcelona and Argentina, will be wearing the number 10 when the World Cup is held in Pelé’s home country this year. Even so, there are those who argue that Messi is not a classic number 10. He is, by dint of his brilliance, the focal point of his Barcelona side, but he is not the lynchpin. The Barcelona system in which Messi co-habits with the likes >
It’s an opportunity too great to turn down. It’s the ultimate endorsement of all you have worked for since strapping on your first pair of soccer boots: the chance to wear the number 10 shirt. Not for Claudio Marchisio, though. When the Juventus midfielder was offered the shirt ahead of the 2012 season, he actually turned it down. “I am not Platini, Baggio or Del Piero,” he said. “I’m not one who can decide a game, so I do not deserve ever to wear that shirt.” The great number 10s, past and present, do not fit a template. How does one start to compare a 1958 Pelé with a 1998 Zidane? They are cut from different fabrics. Yet, Marchisio was right. The number of the shirt denotes a particular quality. A player sporting the 10 must be a playmaker and in some way earn the title – in its most evocative Italian form – of fantasista. Defining who deserves that epithet is, of course, the stuff of barroom debate. Even the terminology is up for grabs. As with pasta, the Italians have numerous, lyrical terms for playmaker, depending on his role: fantasista, regista, trequartista, rifinitore. Argentinians refer to the enganche, or ‘hook’. The Brazilians, an eye always on goal, speak of the meia-attacante, or ‘attacking midfielder’.
At the 1958 World Cup, Brazil had forgotten to assign shirt numbers to the players so FIFA allocated them at random. Number 10 ended up on the back of Pelé.
07
soccer
So often we remember World Cups by their players. Will Messi bring his Barcelona magic with him? Will Neymar show why he has claimed Brazil’s number 10 shirt? Or must we look elsewhere? of Xavi and Iniesta does not allow for a lynchpin. There is no single playmaker. They are all playmakers. This may explain why Messi struggles to replicate his domestic form when he pulls on an Argentine shirt. Suddenly he’s expected to be the sun in the side’s solar system rather than the most dazzling of several orbiting planets. Critics of Messi (hard to believe, but there are some) have also suggested he lacks an element of devilry that marks out the great number 10s. A playmaker demands an ego that Messi seems unwilling to vaunt. The likes of Maradona, Platini and Zidane, say, knew of their own brilliance. They were good technically, yes. But they were best where it most counts: between the ears. Pelé once said of Platini that “he didn’t run a lot like Cruyff and didn’t depend on his physique, but I liked how he was the brain organising things on the pitch.” The pressure on Messi this summer will be enormous. Like all new Argentine number 10s, he must play in the shadow of Maradona. Ariel Ortega had the unenviable privilege of wearing the Argentine number
10 shirt for the 1998 World Cup following Maradona’s retirement. Nicknamed ‘the Little Donkey’ due to his stubbornness, Ortega was quashed by the level of expectation, though laziness and a penchant for alcohol didn’t help. In the end he came short of the most exacting standards. Argentina, perhaps above all other nations, reveres the number 10. “We are not,” said Argentinian sports writer Hugo Asch, “talking necessarily about a leader. No. Our man is a romantic hero, a poet, a misunderstood genius with the destiny of a myth.” Some might struggle to see Messi in that description, but Asch expresses a sense that the shirt encapsulates something about a country’s culture. Some nations get it, others don’t. How revealing that England’s most famous number 10, Geoff Hurst, scorer of a hat trick in the 1966 World Cup final, was a galumphing striker. He had many admirable qualities, and fantasy was not one of them. Another English player, Paul Scholes, should have earned more than his 66 international caps, but left the
08
soccer
scene when forced to play out of position to accommodate the ponderous, classically British, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard. “If he’d been Spanish, he might have been rated more highly,” said Spanish player Xavi of Scholes, “Players love him.” Scholes’s misfortune (at international level) was to be surrounded by mediocre teammates. No number 10 can survive without the other ten players. For example, Michel Platini’s reputation as France’s playmaking magician in the 1980s only came when he bent his will to the structure imposed by team coach Michel Hidalgo. As Jonathan Wilson points out in Inverting the Pyramid, his book on soccer tactics: “Hidalgo asked the playmaker to adjust to the demands of the system rather than building the side around him.” The 2014 World Cup will crown the world’s greatest team. But, so often, we remember World Cups by their players. Will Messi bring his Barcelona magic with him? Will Neymar show why he has claimed Brazil’s number 10 shirt? Or must we look elsewhere? Perhaps to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s number 10 Zvjezdan Misimovic, once described as “slow and perhaps a little rounder than most footballers” but a player steeped in the tradition of Balkan playmakers. A player ready to show that, even in a country still recovering from civil war, soccer can deliver a touch of fantasy.
Top 10s Any selection of iconic number 10s will suffer from the sins of omission. What? No Dennis Bergkamp? Where’s Del Piero? What about Pelé, Neymar, Hoddle, Gullit, Zico…? The following five, however, all demonstrate how the glory of the shirt comes with its burdens, that the triumph is often shadowed by infamy, controversy and disappointment. Gheorghe Hagi
Zinedine Zidane
Hagi, dubbed the “Maradona of the Carpathians”, reached his peak at the 1994 World Cup in the USA. Like the real Maradona, his diminutive stature concealed surprising strength which he allied to slick movement and passing. Like the real Maradona, he was a tempestuous character who marked his 125th and final international appearance with a red card. Spells at Real Madrid and Barcelona weren’t wholly successful and it wasn’t until he headed back east, to Galatasary in Turkey, that he enjoyed club success.
Zidane wasn’t simply a marvellous player, but also an influential one. When France lifted the World Cup in 1998, it was Zidane above all who rose to the occasion, scoring twice in the final against Brazil. Similarly, he saved one of his greatest games and goals for the 2001 Champions League final, as Real Madrid’s expensive Galacticos beat Bayer Leverkusen. “In France everybody realised that God exists,” his teammate Thierry Henry once said. “And that he is back in the French international team.”The devil, however, fought back in Zidane’s last ever game, the 2006 World Cup final, when he was sent off for head-butting an Italian opponent.
Maradona
The most infamous number 10 of them all. His two goals against England in the 1986 World Cup, through which he led Argentina to glory, summed him up entirely. His first goal, in which he employed “the hand of God”, was impudent and devilish. His second (“the goal of the century”) was about pace, control, strength, timing and joy. His off-field demons were legion but couldn’t erase his brilliance. Napoli, whom he inspired to Italian domestic success, retired the number 10 shirt in his honour.
Populous designed the Arena das Dunas in Brazil (for the World Cup) and other soccer venues such as Wembley Stadium in London and FNB Stadium in Johannesburg.
The pressure on Messi (RIGHT) will be enormous. Like all new Argentine number 10s, he must play in the shadow of Maradona (BELOW).
Roberto Baggio
In the 1990s and 2000s, Italy had a production line of greats who wore the number 10: Totti, Del Piero, Zola, Mancini and Baggio. Baggio’s successes were numerous, his best moments coming at the 1990 and 1994 World Cups. In the latter, having inspired Italy throughout with five goals, he played in the final despite injury. Hamstrung, it was he, Italy’s icon, who ballooned his penalty over the bar in the shoot-out. As with almost all the great number 10s, tragedy was never far removed from the glory. Jay Jay Okocha (BELOW)
In the 1990s, African soccer began to emerge from the fringes of the world game. Nigeria promised to be the nation that made the major breakthrough and in Jay Jay Okocha (“so good, they named him twice”), Africa appeared to have found its hero. His performance at the 1998 World Cup led to Michel Platini calling him one of the few pure number 10s remaining in world soccer. The promise, however, never completely materialised and Okocha saw out his final days playing for English club Hull City – an inglorious end for a rare talent.
09
Impressive but not impressed GYMNASTICS American gymnast McKayla Maroney (RIGHT) is more famous for her podium smirk than for her sporting prowess. It even helped her break the tradition that gymnasts have of slipping into post-Olympic obscurity. Gymnastics writer Dvora Meyers explains.
10
McKayla Maroney entered the 2012 Olympic Games as the best female vaulter in the world. She ran faster, flew higher and flipped further with better form than any other gymnast – man or woman. She was supposed to walk away from London with two gold medals: one for the team championship and one for her favourite event, the vault. But things didn’t go according to plan. She fell on her second vault in the final and ended up with the silver medal. Most memorably, on the medal podium she acted like the disappointed teenager she was, folding her arms and pursing his lips to the side. The expression would eventually become her trademark: the “McKayla’s not impressed” smirk.
The smirk quickly went viral on the internet, becoming a national meme imitated all across her native USA. Maroney gamely played along. For the rest of 2012 she embarked upon a nationwide smirking tour, pursing her lips on demand whenever requested to do so by TV hosts. The meme reached its zenith when Maroney and President Obama were photographed smirking together at the White House (right). It’s fair to say her facial expression has made her even more famous than winning gold would have. But fame in gymnastics, medal or meme-based, is often short-lived. There’s a small window of opportunity after the Olympics – perhaps a year – in which goldmedal-winners can rake in the endorsements and make media appearances before they slip into cultural irrelevance. This is part of the reason that winning gymnasts take a break after an Olympic Games. (The other reason: injuries, injuries, injuries.) Take all-around champion Gabby Douglas, for example, who starred in Nintendo adverts and the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards; and Aly Raisman who bargained her floor gold into a stint on the TV series Dancing with the Stars. Both have since asserted their intention to vie for a spot on the 2016 Olympic gymnastics team. Their media hiatuses will probably not harm their chances of a second Olympics because, in gymnastics, the post-Olympic year is one long pre-season.
Gymnastics operates on a four-year cycle with all efforts culminating at the Games, after which many of the older gymnasts retire, having achieved their ultimate goal. Even the more youthful athletes might take it easy in the post-Olympic year before resuming serious training. While time off is good for the athletes’ bodies and bank accounts, it may not be good for gymnastics. The sport is arguably at its most popular during the Olympics, and if it hopes to achieve mainstream popularity, it needs the stars that each Olympiad creates to stick around for the subsequent year to carry the momentum forward. Look how 2011 world champion Jordyn Wieber wasn’t at the 2013 world championships in Antwerp to defend her all-around title. Instead, it was an upstart from Texas, Simone Biles, who took home the top prize. The rules also change every four years, meaning that viewers introduced to the sport in 2012 will have a difficult time following it a year later. Sports that are popular year-round tend to have consistency and continuity. The rules of mainstream sports are rarely modified. Even if you watch just one soccer match a year, you can understand what’s going on. Not so with gymnastics. It seems, however, that no one told Maroney about the off-season rule. Despite fracturing her left tibia in an exhibition event, and undergoing three leg surgeries, she showed up at the 2013 world championships and defended the vault title she had won in 2011. Perhaps it was her post-Olympic fame that drove her to return to the gym so quickly. Regardless of the financial returns, no athlete of Maroney’s calibre wants to be remembered for coming second. So after she recovered from surgery, she quietly went back to the gym. At her first competitions back, she emphatically told reporters the reason for her swift return: “The second I fell on my butt at the Olympics, the first thought in my head was, ‘Well, I gotta go to the next one’.” She also told journalists, unwisely perhaps, that the password on her phone is 2016. It was with something to prove that she returned to competition during gymnastics’ off-season. She won with the same vault that failed her at the Olympics. At the 2013 world championships the now 18-year-old treated spectators to a better final than the one they saw in London. Post-Olympic off-season be damned.
In gymnastics there’s a small window of opportunity after the Olympics in which goldmedal-winners can rake in the endorsements before they slip into cultural irrelevance. 11
Just a gesture
It seems good looks and talent aren’t enough. Nowadays, any successful athlete needs a trademark gesture to keep the fans and media happy. Here are some of the more memorable ones.
Usain Bolt (Athletics) Playing on his speed and surname, the Jamaican sprinter’s trademark lightning action has become arguably the most famous athlete gesture on the planet.
Mo Farah
(Athletics) Coupled with his bright, toothy smile, the ‘Mobot’ gesture that this British long-distance runner makes on victory was originally inspired by the camp disco song YMCA.
Cam Newton
(American football) High scorers in many team sports have trademark celebrations. One of the most famous is the Supermanripping-his-shirt-off gesture of this NFL quarterback.
Bryan brothers
(Tennis) Had they been singles players, the victory chest-bumping action of these legendary doubles champions would be worldfamous. But then, had they been singles players, they wouldn’t have had a partner’s chest to bump.
Armin van Buuren performs in Chicago, December 2013.
12
phenomenon, a product of “social democracy, long, dark winters and advanced access to computer technology”. Although the founding fathers of DJ culture were black Americans, such as the New York hip hop star Grandmaster Flash and Detroit’s techno pioneer Derrick May, there are surprisingly few Americans in the Forbes list of top DJs. “This is partly because club culture never really took off in the States,” says Fatboy Slim. “In Europe, people would start clubbing at the age of about 16 and go out about twice a week. In America, most clubs were over-21s only and kids are routinely ID’d, which means that teenagers end up hanging out at shopping malls rather than going to clubs. But that’s slowly changing now.” Simon Reynolds is author of the dance music history Energy Flash. “American authorities would always clamp down just as dance music has often looked like breaking through in the US,” he says. “The word ‘rave’ became associated with drug-related deaths. What’s happened in recent years is that ‘techno’ has been rebranded as ‘EDM’, or electronic dance music, ‘raves’ have been rebranded as ‘festivals’, the drug ‘MDMA’ has been rebranded as ‘Molly’. Clubbing has been cleaned up for an American audience, and finally it’s broken through to the mainstream.” In America DJ culture has been used to lure younger punters to destinations like Las Vegas, which have traditionally attracted an aged demographic. Tiësto was one of the many big-star names lured to Vegas venue Hakkasan by casino mogul Steve Wynn, while Wet Republic employed Calvin Harris. On top of that come endorsement deals, merchandise sales, royalties, remixes and other business ventures. “People always want to dance,” says Fatboy Slim. “As long as there are enough people who want to hear the music you play, you’ll have DJs. And, daft though it may seem, as long as people want to hear their music, venues will pay them lots of money.”
MUSIC The world’s top superstar DJs are some of the richest and most famous individuals in the music industry. Music writer John Lewis analyses how they became so successful.
They play other people’s music in nightclubs. They rarely say a word to their audiences and they barely crack a smile. Yet the world’s superstar DJs, as they’re known, often earn more than the artists whose music they play. It’s all a far cry from their impoverished DJ cousins plying their trade on local radio stations or at parties, weddings and bar mitzvahs. Superstar DJs are far too cool for weddings. They inhabit a glamorous world of first-class aeroplane flights and uber-trendy nightclubs, earning four- or five-figure sums for just a few hours’ work. With expensive headphones wedged between ear and shoulder, they mix beats with one hand, raising the other skyward as an adoring crowd whoops, cheers, applauds and dances. Superstar DJing has become a global phenomenon. The economics of venerating the DJ is simple enough. A single DJ – even with a small crew – is always going to be cheaper and easier to manage than a band and its entourage. And they’re able to play much longer sets. But what are venues paying for, then? “They’re paying for your taste,” says Fatboy Slim. “It gives the event a focal point, a personality, a filter through which the music makes sense.” Fatboy Slim was – alongside the likes of Paul Oakenfold, Carl Cox and Pete Tong – part of the world’s first wave of superstar DJs who emerged in the UK in the 1990s. He believes his medium is stronger than ever. “People have been announcing the death of the superstar DJ for more than a decade now,” he says. “And it’s true that, in the UK, the clubbing scene has tailed off a little, with big clubs like the Hacienda and Club UK going under. But now the scene that transformed Britain in the 1990s has gone global.” Today’s big-name DJs are less likely to be playing raves in rural locations, as they were in the 1990s. Instead they’re earning big money in Jakarta and Hong Kong, Baku and Bahrain. And it’s no longer the preserve of British hipsters. The world’s highest-paid DJ is still from the UK – Scotland’s Calvin Harris grossed US$46 million last year – but the other names on the Forbes Top 20 DJ list hail from elsewhere. Many of them – Tiësto, Afrojack, Armin van Buuren, Chuckie, Hardwell, Dash Berlin and Nicky Romero – are from the pop wasteland of the Netherlands. Three more are from Sweden (Swedish House Mafia, Avicii, Laidback Luke), while there are big names from Japan (Steve Aoki) or Italy (Benny Benassi), all of whom are earning more than $5 million a year. The crowds dancing to them are as big as ever. In the early 2000s, Fatboy Slim once DJed at a British rave of a quarter of a million people. In 2008, at the Dortmund Love Parade, in Germany, Paul van Dyk, Carl Cox and Armin van Buuren got more than 1.6 million people dancing, while, in 2010, at the Art Of Love show, in Duisburg (also in Germany), Tiësto, Paul van Dyk, Carl Cox and Armin van Buuren had a crowd of 1.4 million. What’s notable about these superstar DJs is that they’re overwhelmingly European. American rock star David Byrne (of Talking Heads fame) has a theory that electronic dance music – or “blip hop”, as he calls it – is a distinctly Northern European
Populous has created permanent and temporary venues for concerts and festivals around the world including Big Day Out in Australia and The O2 arenas in London, Dublin and Berlin.
The world’s highest-paid DJ, Scotland’s Calvin Harris (BELOW), grossed US$46 million last year.
13
handball Coney Island, New York City’s seaside resort, is the unlikely spiritual home of American handball, as Peter Duffy discovers.
In New York City the top dozen or so practitioners of one-wall handball are all known by nicknames in the manner of pop divas or graffiti artists: the great John Wright, pushing 40, will always be ‘Rookie’, the name bestowed on him when he was a giddy teenager. No one would dare refer to Yuber Castro, a hulking guy hardly known for his sense of humour, as ‘Pee Wee’ if that wasn’t the only way to identify him. Then there’s ‘Gio’, ‘Tavo’, ‘Li’l Eddie’ and ‘Playstation’. The up-andcoming player once known as ‘Kid Justin’ has grown somewhat and is now called ‘Tall Justin’. One-wall handball is popular in many of the thousands of parks and school playgrounds of New York City’s five boroughs, but it’s on the 11 concrete courts next to the boardwalk in Coney Island that it finds its spiritual home. Here, in the roller-coaster-and-Ferris-wheel seaside resort for working-class New Yorkers, players enjoy the two versions of handball indigenous to the city, distinguished by the kind of ball each uses. ‘Small ball’ deploys a United States Handball Associationissued projectile slightly larger than a golf ball and nearly as hard. To the grumpy old-timers who follow the action from the courtside benches, this is the real game, the one perfected by the greatest of them
all, Vic Hershkowitz, the firefighter who dominated during the 1950s. But most people play ‘big ball’, the vernacular expression of the streets, which uses a racquetball that can be purchased at any corner shop for around US$1. Both versions follow similar rules – it’s basically tennis played against a wall. Players (in singles, doubles or occasionally threesomes) are allowed to let the ball bounce once before returning it. Either bare-handed or wearing light gloves, they score points only on the serve. The first side to reach 21 is the winner, although some parks allow games to 25 if both sides have reached 15. New York handball is the most democratic of games. Anyone can walk up to any match in progress and issue a challenge – immortalised in the phrase “I got next” – that must be honoured by the laws of custom and (so the story goes) the regulations of the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation. (If someone has already spoken up for next, your words become “I got last.”) But the quickest way to get on court with a player like ‘Rookie’ Wright, who has won national championships in both small and big ball, is to play for cash. Like many handball legends, Wright will play money games with self-imposed handicaps in order to make the competition fairer. He might restrict himself to the use of his left hand while carrying a beach chair
with his right, for example. And he’ll trash talk the whole time, ensuring that bikiniclad spectators on their way to the beach are intimately acquainted with the depth of his opponent’s humiliation. That’s not the style adopted by Tyree Bastidas, however, the 23-year-old reigning champion of the USHA (small ball) Nationals, Coney Island’s handball equivalent of tennis’s Wimbledon. “I just let my hands do the talking,” says the city’s most elite handballer. “I don’t want to do anything that will throw off my game.” Like Hershkowitz before him, Bastidas is a Brooklyn kid who has graduated to the non-New York iterations of the sport played in the hinterlands. In 2013 he won the singles title at the USHA Three-Wall Nationals in Toledo, Ohio, and the doubles title (with his partner Nikolai Nahorniak) at the Four-Wall Nationals in Des Moines, Iowa. The son of an Ecuadorian father and Puerto Rican mother, he also has the distinction of a sponsorship (the New York Athletic Club) and his own documentary film (a crew has been following him for six years). Yet for all his far-flung travel in his quest to become the world’s best, Bastidas admits that nothing compares to winning on Court No.1 in Coney Island. “You feel the crowd,” he says. “You feel the energy.”
The quickest way to get on court with a player like ‘Rookie’ Wright, who has won national championships, is to play for cash.
rules Players are allowed to let the ball bounce once before returning it. Either barehanded or wearing light gloves, they score points only on the serve. The first side to reach 21 is the winner.
15
marathon
EFFORT MARATHON Top marathon runners are edging ever closer to that mythical sub-two-hour mark. Dominic Bliss considers the mental, physiological and environmental factors needed for man to cover 26.2 miles in under 120 minutes.
A marathon in under two hours used to be unthinkable. But then so was the four-minute mile, and the 100 metres in under 10 seconds – both of which are now quite normal among professional runners. With the current world marathon record (held by Kenya’s Wilson Kipsang) at two hours, three minutes and 23 seconds, surely it’s only a matter of time before we see top runners regularly clocking in under 120 minutes. But how much time? And will freakish conditions need to be in place?
Crowd support A massive boost for any runner is an impassioned home crowd, keen to cheer on his every stride. Unfortunately the fastest marathon routes are staged in Europe, not East Africa, where the strongest runners hail from. Hang on, though. What about Mo Farah? At the 2014 London Marathon in April, this Somali-turned-Briton will be racing in his home town with the cheers of a million Londoners spurring him on.
Running surface The world’s fastest running surfaces are synthetic athletics tracks. Marathons, however, are staged on city streets where uneven surfaces such as concrete or pedestrian pavements can slow them down by valuable seconds. The smoother and more even the surface, the better.
Mental barrier Top runners aren’t nearly as intimidated by the two-hour barrier as they used to be. Ever since the half marathon was first run in under an hour (by Kenyan Moses Tanui, in Milan in 1993), they’ve known it’s not a physical impossibility. But as London Olympics chief and Olympic gold medallist Sebastian Coe says: “The arithmetic of a sub-two-hour marathon is both instructive and quite sobering. You’ve got to run four minutes, 35 seconds per mile over the course.”
In a sub-two-hour marathon you’ve got to run four minutes, 35 seconds per mile over the course. London Olympics chief and Olympic 1500m gold medallist Sebastian Coe.
16
Pacemakers
Race course
Prize money
Weather
They’re essential for any record to be broken. Just look how Kipsang was pulled along most of the way to his 2013 world record in Berlin by pacemakers Edwin Kiptoo and Philemon Rono.
Even though IAAF rules insist the gradient shouldn’t incline or decline by more than a metre with every passing kilometre, no marathon courses are all on a downhill slope. Nor are they dead straight, with most snaking through city streets. Near-sealevel venues, however, such as Rotterdam or London allow faster times than high-altitude ones such as Mexico City.
Arguably, the biggest incentive for any runner is prize money. Most of the world’s major marathons offer very healthy winnings, as well as bonuses for new records. In addition, the World Marathon Majors, a series of the six top world marathons – Boston, London, Berlin, Chicago, New York and Tokyo – currently offers a season-ending jackpot of US$500,000 to the male and female champions. Individual athletes’ sponsors dangle carrots too.
With anything but perfect weather, a sub-two hour marathon is unthinkable. That’s why most modern marathon records have been set in cool conditions that keep the muscles warm but don’t allow runners to overheat: Chicago in late October, Berlin in late September, London and Rotterdam in mid-April. “You’re going to need freak weather,” says Timothy Noakes, professor of exercise and sports science at the University of Cape Town. “Quite a pushing tailwind behind you, full cloud cover, very low humidity and cool temperatures.”
Shoes & clothing
Training
Over the course of 26 miles an athlete wearing a sprint suit might run a few seconds faster. However, without any bare skin, he would risk overheating. “Over long distances, your body would heat up and this would actually impede performance,” says Mike Antoniades, director of international coaching network The Running School.
To achieve greater speeds and avoid injuries, long-distance runners must be smarter in their training techniques. “The kind of anti-gravity treadmills that Mo Farah and [female marathon record-holder] Paula Radcliffe have pioneered in the past decade or so will become commonplace,” says Jason Henderson, editor of Athletics Weekly magazine. “We will realise it was lunacy when we look back on the days when worldclass runners risked their limbs by churning out endless junk miles on cement, tarmac or bumpy trails.”
Genetics “You’d need the world’s best male runner and the world’s best female runner to produce offspring,” says Timothy Noakes, professor of exercise and sports science at the University of Cape Town. That would mean Wilson Kipsang hooking up with Paula Radcliffe. An interesting combination made even more tricky by the fact that they’re both already married to other people.
faster & faster The world record for the marathon (over the now official race distance of 42.195 km) has been broken many times since it was first set in 1921.
2H 9M 01S 2h 3m 59S 2h 3m 38s 2h 3m 23s
Gerard Nijboer — april 1980 Haile Gebrselassie — September 2008 patrick makau — September 2011 wilson kipsang — september 2013
17
asian games Three distinctly Asian sports – wushu, kabaddi and sepaktakraw – get their 15 minutes of fame at this year’s Asian Games. But they are hungry to be far more popular than that, as Matt Cutler, from SportBusiness International magazine discovers.
Soccer has it easy. Played out on TV, in playgrounds and on computer games across the world, it never struggles for participation numbers or media interest. And its players are superstars and role models to hundreds of millions. Spare a thought for the world’s lesserknown sports, however. Take three of the sports featured in this year’s Asian Games – wushu, kabaddi and sepaktakraw – for example. They may be massively popular in their countries of origin, but ask anyone outside a handful of Asian territories to name the top stars or even the rules (see box) and you’ll receive a very blank look indeed. So when the 2014 Asian Games get underway in September at South Korea’s brand new Incheon Asiad main stadium, these three sports will need to shine very brightly indeed. The Games boast 20,000 participants, 437 events and 36 sports, 28 of which are Olympic. With 7,000 members of the media expected to be on-site covering the 16 days of competition, wushu, kabaddi and sepaktakraw will be given massive exposure on a continent home to approximately 60 per cent of the world’s population. TV coverage of the last Asian Games, held in the Chinese city of Guangzhou, in 2010, had a broadcast reach of 850 million homes in China alone. However, all three of these sports have their sights set even higher. They have ambitions for their uniquely Asian disciplines to be practised, and watched, everywhere in the world. For that they need Olympic status. Anthony Goh, vice-president of the International Wushu Federation, is one sports administrator who knows all too well about the opportunities of becoming a part of the Olympic programme, having spearheaded his sport’s ultimately unsuccessful bid for inclusion from 2020. >
Wushu has gone from being an exclusively Asian sport to having a global following since the early 1990s.
ASIAN GAMES
20
ASIAN GAMES
They have ambitions for their uniquely Asian disciplines to be practised, and watched, everywhere in the world.
Wushu
“Wushu has a long and well-known history in Asia,” he says. “It is very well known in the western world, but people in those regions refer to it as kung fu. It is also a very traditional sport, and part of the ancient art of war in Asian culture. In the last two decades we have been developing wushu into new varieties of competitions to try and reach new audiences. Wushu has gone from being an exclusively Asian sport to having a global following since the early 1990s.” Interestingly, wushu’s Olympic bid was a proposal only to include the artistic side of the sport – something of a unique offering for the Olympic Movement should the federation launch another inclusion bid further down the line. “The artistic nature of wushu helps us stand out from existing martial arts on the schedule such as judo and taekwondo, and even from karate,” Goh adds. [Karate was also bidding to be on the Olympics from 2020.] “Our proposal meant that the competition for wushu at the Olympics would be far more similar to what you currently see with gymnastics at the summer Games, or figure skating at the winter Olympics. It is very entertaining.” The next timeline for when a new sport will be added to the Olympic Games is yet to be announced by the International Olympic Committee, but sepaktakraw (a sort of kick volleyball) is understood to be joining wushu in the club of Olympic wannabes. Boonchai Lorhpipat, vice-president of the International Sepaktakraw Federation (ISTAF), says plans are already afoot to transform the sport as a TV spectacle ahead of a potential Olympic bid. “With slow-motion action available on the screen, the rest of the world can see how attractive the game is,” he says. “This is the essential part in promoting the sport, especially to the Europeans. Dato’ Abdul Halim Kader is secretary general of the ISTAF and will lead any sepaktakraw Olympic tilt. “Before we go to the IOC, we must make known that it is a cheaper, grassroots game that will not burden the host country,” he says. “Sepaktakraw must also be played by 75 countries throughout the world to have the sport to be considered in the Olympics. It is important to show how we can bring the sport from six countries to 30 or 50 countries worldwide and what the timeline is.” What about kabaddi? Having been a curious demonstration sport at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, this popular south Asian sport (a form of team wrestling) also now has ambitions to go global. “We want to take kabaddi into the Olympics,” says Ashok Das, vicepresident of the International Kabaddi Federation, who singles out his sport as one of the few as popular with women as it is with men. “We have done a lot of work to get people into the game. Wherever we play with the women’s team, there are thousands of people supporting us. In the past they have said the women are weaker, but people actually enjoy the women’s game more. Women give 100 per cent and show no mercy. They call the women the guerrilla fighters. It is guerrilla warfare when they are on the field.” Populous has designed the main stadium for the 2014 Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea. 21
Derived from traditional Chinese martial arts, it has both non-combat and full-contact disciplines. The former comprises jumps and martial movements, the latter takedowns, kicks and punches.
kabaddi
Of Indian origin, this wrestling sport is played by teams of seven on a court. Players attempt to tag or capture opponents and must hold their breath while running, repeating the word ‘kabaddi’ while doing so.
sepaktakraw
A sport native to the Malay Peninsula, this can be described simply as kick volleyball. Competitors may use only their feet, knees, chest and head to touch the ball.
Snooker Climb inside the head of snooker champion Ronnie O’Sullivan and you’ll unearth some very strange demons indeed, as Dominic Bliss discovers.
Psychiatrists will be writing research papers on Ronnie O’Sullivan for years to come. Born to Anglo-Sicilian parents who ran London sex shops and both spent stretches in prison (his father for murder, his mother for tax evasion), Ronnie was often left on his own as a youngster. He has since struggled with alcohol, drugs and depression but is considered by many the greatest snooker player of all time. “I’ve spent loads of my life running away from shit, and running to shit,” he writes in Running: The Autobiography. “Be it drink, drugs, bad people, good people, Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, running clubs, family, food, TV cameras, the snooker authorities, my own demons, you name it.” Here, the genius sportsman who has won the World Snooker Championship five times, including the most recent title, explains what makes him tick.
His loneliness as a youngster “I had a snooker room built for me at the end of the garden when I was 11. I’d spend 10 to 11 hours a day in there just hitting balls.” His father’s strictness “Dad was a tough disciplinarian, and when I’d done wrong I knew I was for it. He’d humiliate me in front of my mum, his dad, his friends – verbally more than anything.” His father’s lack of praise “My dad never gave me compliments. He never said well done to me. Occasionally I felt I was doing quite well and I was still getting criticised. ‘You’ve won a trophy, it’s history, put it behind you, and now win the next one’.” His party lifestyle “I looked at Dad, and thought, that’s something to aspire to. It seemed like the good life. Sod the snooker, I wanted to be out clubbing like Dad had been and I tried it for a couple of years and ended up in rehab.” His father’s arrest for murder “I was in shock, and burst out crying. When [Mum] told me, I just collapsed. I was gutted. Desperate.”
The effect of his father’s imprisonment “It was always a big motivator for me. That’s what’s getting him through; me and my snooker. Perhaps if he hadn’t been in prison I’d have lost my enthusiasm, or sense of purpose.” His split with the mother of his children “For those years you’re playing sport at the highest level, you can’t maintain a true balance between family and job, and something has to give.” His sports psychiatrist Dr Steve Peters explained to Ronnie how his mind was controlled by the contrasting powers of the chimp (“the emotional bit”) and the human (“all reason and logic”). His flirtations with religion “I’ve tried the lot in my time – Buddhism, Islam, Christianity. I thought, let’s go with Allah…I tried Christianity but that didn’t do the trick either. I’m destined never to be a member of the God squad.” The loneliness of professional snooker “Snooker’s a horrible life in some ways. You learn to become a recluse, an automaton. Look at a lot of snooker players: they shut down and walk around like zombies.” 22
The disturbing nature of snooker “Snooker messes with your head more than any sport. There is nothing worse than sitting in the chair, for eight or nine frames taking the punishment, not potting a ball, watching your opponent clock up the scores.” His depression and drug addiction “When I stopped taking drugs I got really depressed. I was struggling with life. I was depressed because I’d stopped drinking and taking drugs, but I only drank and took drugs in the first place because I was depressed.” His reliance on addiction support Ronnie has spent time at Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Food Anonymous, even Sex Anonymous. “I did all the As.” His addiction to running “Running is my religion, my belief system, my way of keeping calm. Running is painful and horribly physical, but it’s also probably the nearest I get to a spiritual high.” [All quotations are from Running: The Autobiography by Ronnie O’Sullivan (Orion, 2013)]
Psychoanalysis Chartered psychologist Dr Rick Norris (author of Think Yourself Happy) tries to analyse what makes Ronnie O’Sullivan tick. “Ronnie’s early life was very unstable. Left alone to fend for himself for hours on end and being humiliated by a father whose love and approval he constantly sought left him prone to anxiety and depression. However, it could be argued that these same factors helped shape the personality of a remarkable sportsman. The hours he spent alone playing snooker contributed to his personality as a maverick loner but undoubtedly gave him a huge edge with his technique. Couple this with the almost obsessional desire to want to make his father proud of him and you have a potent mix of talent and motivation. Ronnie is a great example of how close the line is between genius and madman.”
23
BATTERIES
INCLUDED motor sport This year sees the launch of the world’s first major electric motor racing series – the FIA Formula E Championship. But will fans embrace the new, greener form of the sport? Dominic Bliss finds out.
Petrolheads will be fuming. September this year sees the launch of the world’s first all-electric global motor racing championship – the FIA Formula E Championship. It’s very different to Formula One: no screaming V8 engines, no high-octane fuel filling your nostrils, and top speeds (140mph) will be around 60mph slower than those Sebastian Vettel and his peers are used to. The purists, who once dismissed this kind of motor racing as “the milk float challenge”, will no doubt take a while to embrace the new sport. What may win them – and lots of new fans – round, however, is the fact that, thanks to the quieter engines, all but one of the Formula E races will be staged on city-street circuits in some of the world’s best-known cities; much like Formula One’s Monte Carlo circuit. “Where possible we’ve tried to make sure there are iconic landmarks in the background,” says Formula E spokesman Tom Phillips. The opening race of the inaugural season is set for September 13th 2014 in the Chinese capital Beijing. Then follows Putrajaya (in Malaysia), Rio de Janeiro,
Punta del Este (in Uruguay), Buenos Aires, Los Angeles, Miami, Monte Carlo, Berlin and the season finale in London on June 27th 2015. As we went to press, none of the city courses had been finalised. Only Berlin’s circuit location – the pre-World War II Tempelhof Airport – had been revealed, along with the fact that most circuits will be between a mile and a half and two miles long. For the first season, all 10 race teams will use the same car – the Spark-Renault SRT_01E, with technology also from Formula One giants McLaren and Williams.
24
But in future championships it’s hoped teams will develop their own vehicles. Races will last for around an hour with two mandatory pit stops to change cars. (Even the most high-tech car batteries won’t last much more than 25 minutes when pushed right to the limit.) In race mode, engines will be limited to 180 brake horsepower but to help with overtaking, drivers will at certain times during races be allowed to boost the car’s power output to 270 brake horsepower, resulting in a top speed of around 140mph.
In an era of global warming, motor sport knows it must clean up its act, and that means appearing less wasteful of energy.
25
Ten teams have signed up for the inaugural championship, each with two drivers, and most of them subsidiaries of existing motor sport companies. Team investors include Hollywood actor Leonardo Dicaprio, Indian business magnate Anand Mahindra, ex-British government minister Lord Paul Drayson and ex-Formula One luminaries Alain Prost and Aguri Suzuki. As with any top-level motor sport, the costs will be enormous. But these bigwig investors aren’t stumping up the >
MOTOR SPORT
The big question is whether motor sport fans – used to the noise, smell and visceral thrill of Formula One – will ever get truly ignited by electric racing cars.
cash simply to watch electric cars tear up city streets. There’s a long-term investment at play. Many of the stakeholders hope the new race series will filter electric technology down into road cars. “That’s our objective,” says the CEO of Formula E, Alejandro Agag. “That we can be the test bench for electric technology that can then be applied to electric road cars.” Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin brand owns one of the race teams, agrees. “The need to create fast, dependable and durable race cars will help to accelerate the sector and showcase electric cars to a large global audience,” he says. There’s a PR charm offensive revving its engines, too. In an era of global warming, motor sport knows it must clean up its act somewhat. And that means appearing less wasteful of energy. In Formula One there are rumours that potential sponsors are
eschewing the gas-guzzling sport because it is so manifestly profligate with fossil fuels. The big question, of course, is whether motor sport fans – used to the noise, smell and visceral thrill of Formula One – will ever get truly ignited by electric racing cars. Boss of Drayson Racing, Lord Paul Drayson, reckons it will be the younger fans who first embrace the new series. “I believe the target market for electric racing are people aged 15 to 25,” he says. “Those are the people open to new ideas. They define what’s cool, what’s sexy, what’s going to be attractive.” Yet Drayson knows full well the new sport doesn’t stand a chance if it tries to threaten Formula One’s domination. Instead it must offer itself as a distinctive alternative. “It would be wrong to put an electric race car on the track with an internal combustion engine car,” he explains. “Or to
26
MOTOR SPORT
The inaugural Formula E Championship will see all ten teams racing the same Spark-Renault SRT_01E electric cars, built by French company Spark Racing Technology.
Maximum power 200kw, equivalent to 270bhp
Acceleration
0mph to 62mph in three seconds
Race power in Maximum speed power-saving mode 140mph 133kw, equivalent to 180bhp Gearbox Paddle shift sequential gearbox is supplied Tyres by Hewland 18-inch treaded tyres are supplied by Michelin
Electric powertrain and electronics Designed by McLaren Electronics Systems
Chassis
Carbon fibre and aluminium monocoque chassis is designed by Italian firm Dallara
Batteries
Supplied by Williams Advanced Engineering
Overall weight (including driver) 800kg minimum
FORMULA E CALENDAR Beijing, China Round 1: 13 September 2014
change the rules so that all cars are electric. Much more intelligent to bring new fans and sponsors to the sport by having a championship just for electric cars.” Even the purists are starting to realise that greener motor racing is inevitable. Henry Hope-Frost is a motor sports journalist and self-confessed petrolhead. While he admits that energyefficient engines are not everyone’s cup of tea, he believes it’s foolish to dismiss them as faddish. “These new technologies must be embraced. They are to be taken seriously. Whether cars are powered by electricity, water or Weetabix, the whole environmental drive is important. It’s on people’s radars. The problem is a lot of people don’t want to admit to it because it’s not sexy.” Ironically, one of the features of traditional motor racing that fans find so
sexy is the din of internal combustion engines at maximum revolution. Formula E knows this only too well and has ensured their Spark-Renaults are far from silent. The tyres, the aerodynamics and the electric drivetrain combine to produce a whooshing noise 10 decibels more than your average petrol road car. But it’s a mere whisper compared to the ear-splitting roar of a Formula One car in full flight. With that in mind, Formula E has been forced to turn up the volume when the electric cars enter the pit lane, so that mechanics and officials can hear the cars coming in for stops. Even green motor racing is clamouring to be heard.
PUTRAJAYA, MALAYSIA
Populous has designed the street circuit for London’s Formula E Championship as well as Silverstone, the home of Formula One’s British Grand Prix.
BERLIN, GERMANY
27
Round 2: 18 October 2014
Rio De Janeiro, Brazil Round 3: 15 November 2014
Punta Del Este, URUGUAY Round 4: 13 December 2014
BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA Round 5: 10 January 2015
LOS ANGELES, USA Round 6: 14 February 2015
MIAMI, USA Round 7: 14 March 2015
MONTE CARLO, MONACO Round 8: 9 May 2015
Round 9: 30 May 2015
LONDON, UK Round 10: 27 June 2015
pop star New Zealand has the world’s only permanently covered grass stadium – the Forsyth Barr Stadium in Dunedin. The man with the original vision behind the project explains how this AMAZING building came about.
Malcolm Farry will never forget the day he first saw grass sprouting up through fresh soil at the new Forsyth Barr Stadium. “Seeing that first flush of green and watching it miraculously grow was an exciting time,” says the man who oversaw the design and construction of this stunning New Zealand sports and entertainment venue. “And proving wrong all the naysayers who said it couldn’t happen; that the grass just wouldn’t grow. That was a good day for me. I sat there and just smiled for an hour or so.” When Farry and his colleagues at the Carisbrook Dunedin Stadium Trust initially mooted the idea of
building the world’s first indoor stadium with a natural turf pitch, there were inevitably many objectors. Some even went down legal avenues to prevent construction. Many remembered what had happened in Texas, in the 1960s, when grass inside the transparent-roofed Houston Astrodome had died from lack of sunlight. But now that the Forsyth Barr is successfully up and running, Farry says almost all those opponents have been won round. The result is that the New Zealand city of Dunedin now has a 31,000-square metre, 30,000-capacity venue with a transparent ETFE (ethylene tetrafluoroethylene) roof. It’s the most southerly professional stadium in the world. Given both the latitude and the need to grow grass indoors, the designers had to think well outside the box. The stands in the northern end are lower in profile so that the pitch benefits from maximum sunlight, while the facades at both ends are raised five metres above the ground to allow fresh-air ventilation to the grass. Such an ambitious project was never going to be an easy one. “Funding was the biggest obstacle,” says Farry who had to persuade various local and national government authorities to chip in towards the overall cost
Roof is made of transparent polymer that allows 95% of ultra-violet rays to penetrate
Roof can bear 400 times its own weight and stretch to three times its length
Malcolm Farry, the man who oversaw the design and construction of the Forsyth Barr Stadium.
The stadium has been carefully designed to allow as much sunlight and ventilation onto the field as possible
37m
99% lighter than glass
Proving wrong all the naysayers who said it couldn’t happen; that the grass just wouldn’t grow. That was a good day for me.
Super
grass 28
28
of around NZ$200 million. Dunedin is not a large city (population 126,000) but by proposing a multi-use venue for all-year-round sports, entertainment and cultural events, a hard sell was made easier. Farry and his team carried out rigorous testing of their grass-growing methods long before the project started. To be sure the final pitch would work, they built a temporary construction around 100 square metres in size with an ETFE roof and live grass beneath it. It turned out the best playing surface was a combination of real grass with occasional synthetic grass dotted in between. The construction of the final 20,500-square metre ETFE roof was a major challenge, too. “For some of the big trusses, we had to ship a crane in from Australia because of the weight,” Farry explains. The roof is supported by five arched trusses in all, each spanning 105 metres. Above the centre line of the pitch there’s a clearance of 37 metres which, according to the stadium owners, is over seven metres higher than the highest ever recorded rugby kick. The end result, Farry says, is a resounding success. After more than two years of construction the stadium
29
finally opened in August 2011, in time to host matches in the Rugby World Cup (which New Zealand won, incidentally). Stadium visitors are now able to watch events all year round without being at the mercy of the elements. “We have an unpredictable climate in Dunedin,” Farry adds. “Both winter and summer, we can have four seasons in one day.” So far, Farry’s stand-out event at Forsyth Barr was when it was first used for a major concert – Elton John’s November 2011 show. “People came from all over the country and from Australia as well,” he remembers. “We were able to showcase the city, showcase the stadium; the economic benefits were huge. It was a very significant thing for us. But, to be honest, had they been playing marbles on the grass, I’d still have been there.” This year there is one event he can’t wait to see: when New Zealand’s national rugby team the All Blacks take on England. “It’s one of rugby’s greatest international rivalries,” he says. “I can’t wait.” The Forsyth Barr Stadium was designed by Populous and Jasmax.
QUIDDITCH University students in the USA and the UK are going mad for a real-life version of Harry Potter’s favourite sport Quidditch. There’s even a world cup. John Lewis explains how a fictitious sport became reality.
Visit North America’s most prestigious universities and you’ll find grown men and women with high IQs running around muddy fields with brooms between their legs. They’ll be diving at each other and chasing after a baffling variety of balls, while a young man in a yellow leotard is prancing around between them. They’ll be watched by crowds of hundreds of fans, all cheering with a passion you’d expect to see at a rock concert or a boxing match. Welcome to the world of real-life Quidditch. The generation of ‘muggles’ who’ve grown up reading J.K. Rowling’s novels might never go to Hogwarts or wear an invisibility cloak. But they can play Quidditch – albeit with a few adjustments for health-and-safety legislation and, well, the basic laws of physics. Real-life Quidditch was developed in 2005 by Alex Benepe and Xander Manshell, freshmen at a liberal arts college in Vermont called Middlebury. After playing old-fashioned ball sports such as boules and bocce on Sunday mornings, they decided to try out Harry Potter’s favourite school game, eventually convincing 30 classmates to join in. Within a year it was being played all over the campus; by 2007 they were competing with other New England colleges in the first Quidditch World Cup. Benepe and Manshell later set up the International Quidditch Association (IQA) which now has more than 700 affiliated teams around the world. They started the IQA Rulebook, now a 118-page document in its seventh edition, with translations in Spanish, Mandarin and Italian. The rules for their new sport are similar to J.K. Rowling’s. Instead of flying in the air on broomsticks, the two teams run with a broomstick (“recommended length 42 inches”) between their legs. Teams of seven players are made up of keepers (goalkeepers), chasers (goalscorers), beaters and seekers. The quaffle – the ball used for scoring goals – is a deflated volleyball (“between 25.6 and 26.4 inches in circumference”), while the three bludgers (the balls used by beaters to attack opposing players) are dodgeballs with a diameter of 8.5 inches. The hooped goals are made by hand, using PVC. Most intriguing of all is the snitch. In Rowling’s books the Golden Snitch is a walnut-sized ball which sprouts wings and mischievously darts around the pitch. Capture of it immediately wins
the match. In real-life Quidditch the snitch is a neutral athlete who runs amongst the other players, trying to avoid being caught. “There were attempts to play Quidditch before we tried it,” says Benepe, “but they always had problems replicating the snitch. Usually it was a tennis ball, sometimes a remote-controlled helicopter. But the human snitch gives the game personality and chaos. If you watch a world cup match, people go wild when the snitch comes onto the pitch.” It’s tempting to dismiss competitive Quidditch as the preserve of socially awkward, un-athletic geeks. Nevertheless it’s a surprisingly dynamic and violent contact sport. “I’ve personally seen one major concussion, one broken collar bone and a few broken wrists,” says Karen Kumaki, international director of the IQA. “We always have medical staff on duty for events.” The Quidditch rules dictate that each team has to contain both men and women, and there are roles that suit different physical attributes. “Initially, it was popular with cross-country runners or soccer players,” says Kumaki, “because fast runners were necessary, especially if you’re going to be a seeker. But increasingly, we’ve seen a lot more rugby players, American football players or wrestlers – people who like the contact nature of it and who are prepared to give or stand a tackle.” Popularity is growing internationally. There are more than 600 competitive college teams in the US and Canada, and some nonacademic, city-based clubs – the Lost Boys in LA, the Boston Massacre and the NYDC Capitalists. Even Middlebury, which founded the sport, has been overtaken by the likes of University of Texas and UCLA. There are active Quidditch scenes in the UK, Ireland, Australia, Italy and France, and semi-active teams in Germany, Norway, Spain, Belgium, Russia, Japan, China, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Jordan and Uganda. So how does a sport spawned from children’s fiction attract so many spectators? “J.K. Rowling was on to something when she created a sport that has more than one ball,” says Benepe. “It means at least a quarter of the players are holding a ball at all times. Throw the snitch into the mix and it’s a regular circus. And then there’s the breadth of people. These are not, for the most part, the 40-year-old guys with ponytails who hang out at Star Trek conventions. Harry Potter fans are young, attractive and mostly female. Who wouldn’t want to be part of that?”
30
Stranger than fiction Films and fiction have featured some very quirky sports over the years. A few have been attempted in real life.
There are more than 600 competitive college teams in the US and Canada. There are active Quidditch scenes in the UK, Ireland, Australia, Italy and France.
Poohsticks As featured in A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh, this requires each player to drop a twig simultaneously on the upstream side of a bridge. The winner is the player whose twig first appears downstream of the bridge. Since 1984 there has been an annual World Poohsticks Championship on the UK’s River Thames, in Oxfordshire, attracting more than 1,500 visitors.
43-Man Squamish Mad Magazine’s 1965 parody of college sport quickly spawned a cult following and a rulebook. “Each team consists of one left and one right Inside Grouch, two Outside Grouch, four Deep Brooders, four Shallow Brooders, three Offensive Niblings…”, with 43 players in all. Nearly half a century later there are still Squamish tribute societies playing adapted versions of the sport in US universities.
BASEketball The daft 1998 film of the same name starred South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone as slackers who devise a sport where the physically unfit might excel. The result is a silly fusion of basketball and baseball which has actually been played by enthusiastic fans.
Rollerball The dystopian 1975 sci-fi film saw rollerskating athletes attempt to kill each other using a studded steel ball. Less fatal games have been played in real life using rubber balls.
31
populous in history Where? FNB STADIUM, JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA
10
When? 10th DECEMBER 2013
“It took a man like Madiba to free not just the prisoner but the jailer as well.” These were the words of US President Barack Obama during his speech at the memorial service of former South African leader Nelson Mandela, known in his home nation by his Xhosa name Madiba. Obama was just one of more than 90 heads of state who attended the service at the FNB stadium in Johannesburg, the site of the former South African leader’s last public appearance. Others included Brazilian
president Dilma Rousseff, Indian president Pranab Mukherjee, French president François Hollande, British prime minister David Cameron, Australian prime minister Tony Abbott, Afghan president Hamid Karzai and Cuban president Raul Castro. The service in the Populousdesigned soccer stadium – the largest stadium in Africa – lasted for four hours with thousands of public mourners singing and dancing in celebration of Mandela’s life, despite the heavy rain.
The service in the soccer stadium – the largest stadium in Africa – lasted four hours with thousands of public mourners singing and dancing in celebration of Mandela’s life. 32
Goran Ivanisevic
France National Team
Detroit Red Wings
Sugar Ray Robinson
Michael Jordan
Tennis
Soccer
Ice hockey
Boxing
Basketball
Every morning before a match, he would religiously watch children’s TV series Teletubbies.
On the way to matches, players always sat in the same seats on the team bus. In the changing room they repeatedly listened to Gloria Gaynor’s 1979 hit I Will Survive.
In 1952, two market traders threw a dead octopus onto the team’s home rink.
He drank beef blood before every fight.
He wore his old University of North Carolina shorts under his official kit for every game.
As a wildcard outsider, he won the 2001 Wimbledon Championships.
They won the 1998 World Cup.
The team were 1952 season champions; octopus throwing has given the team good luck ever since.
He enjoyed a 91-fight winning streak between 1943 and 1951.
He led the Chicago Bulls to six NBA championships.
London 14 Blades Court Deodar Rd London SW15 2NU United Kingdom
Kansas City 300 Wyandotte Kansas City MO 64105 USA
Brisbane Ground Floor 418 Adelaide Street Brisbane QLD 4000 Australia
Tel: +44 208 874 7666 Fax: +44 208 874 7470 Email: info@populous.com www.populous.com
Tel: +1 816 221 1500 Fax: +1 816 221 1578 Email: info@populous.com www.populous.com
Tel: +61 7 3838 7900 Fax: +61 7 3839 9188 Email: info@populous.com www.populous.com
Winning result
Superstition
Sport
Sportsman/Team
SPORTING RITUALS
Sportsmen tend to be more superstitious than black cats beneath ladders. Their irrational rituals range from the fairly innocuous (such as always showering in the same cubicle) to the darkest of the dark arts (look how juju witchcraft is common in Zimbabwean soccer). One of the most successful superstitions must be baseball team Boston Red Sox’s virtually team-wide decision not to shave for the entire 2013 season. Bushy with beards, they ended up winning the latest World Series. Here are some other unusual superstitions that have reaped great results.
POPULOUS // THE TEAM We are true individuals – innovative, fun and highly creative architects and designers who enjoy working together to give our clients unique design services. Whether it’s bespoke design, sports stadia, entertainment venues or convention centres, we are passionate about everything we do.
Alive