Sport stacking

For about a year now, my 10-year-old has been into table tennis, or Ping-Pong, as it is colloquially called in these parts. This summer, his coach suggested he take part in the AAU Junior Olympics, a grand-sounding but sadly hyperbolic event conjured up by its grand-sounding but sadly hyperbolic organisers, the Amateur Athletic Union. For when we arrived at the venue to register him, we were disappointed to discover not athletes from the four corners of the Earth, but rather young people from the four corners of the United States.

Megalomanic monickers aside, the list of sports in which medals were up for grabs at the Junior Olympics was equally strange. Sure, there were typical Olympic disciplines like track and field sports, swimming, several martial arts, gymnastics, hockey (the non-glacial kind), weightlifting, wrestling and, as I mentioned at the outset, table tennis. There were also more Americocentric sports like bowling, cheer-leading, rope-jumping and baton twirling which, although not necessarily featured at the Athenian Games, are, at least, energetic and athletic in nature. For some odd reason, cricket also made the line-up, though I can't for the life of me imagine that they managed to scrape together more than two teams because NOBODY plays cricket in the US. So I guess the winning team got gold, the losing one silver and ... hey, who cares about bronze anyway?

And then there was sport stacking.

Sport stacking could only exist in a country that proudly and enthusiastically holds annual Rotten Sneaker contests (to find America's smelliest shoes), a beer pong "world series" (bouncing table tennis balls off various objects and finally into disposable beer cups), suite-jumping (photographing yourself leaping strangely on hotel beds), and hot dog-eating tournaments. Indeed sport stacking is so undeniably sporting that it has to remind you thereof in its very name - in case you didn't realise.

So what exactly is this sport that the International Olympic Committee has so shamefully overlooked since probably the dawn of time? In a nutshell it's this: contestants are presented with three piles of plastic cups. But these are not mere beach party plasticware like the cheap stuff used for beer pong. Oh no, these are state-of-the-art rigid plastic cups with holes in the top as approved by the World Sports Stacking Association and supplied by the only authorized manufacturer and, coincidentally, the governing body's official sponsor: Speed Stacks Inc, a link to whose site is helpfully provided in the top right-hand corner of the WSSA Web site.

The rules are as follows: the cups in the three piles must be arranged into a pyramid - "up-stacked" - and then disassembled into their original piles - "down-stacked" - as quickly as possible.

And that's it.

Stack 'em up!

To be fair, that's not quite it because at the start and finish contestants have to hit a bar containing a stopwatch - the so-called "StackMat" - which, not surprisingly, is also sold by Speed Stacks. And sometimes there are nine cups, sometimes twelve, and contestants either stack against the clock, against other stackers, individually or as a team. But it's not exactly rocket science, and certainly comes nowhere near the complexity of the offside trap in football or the intricacies of who attacked whom first in fencing.

But that's precisely the point: the rules are simple, the victors obvious. Just like there cannot be a draw in baseball or American football games or a coalition in US government (and don't get me started on the "us" and "them" of international relations), the winner in sport stacking is the person who hits the timing mat first.

Not surprisingly, therefore, sport stacking is extremely popular. In fact, it dwarfed all other sports at the AAU Junior Olympics in sheer numbers of competitors - all of whom, naturally, had to pay the organisers to take part. But I'm always suspicious of monopolies, especially when money is involved. I therefore strongly suspect that the founder of Speed Stacks, a certain Bob Fox, is probably as rich as the inventors of other fads, like Silly Bandz and Beany Babies.

Open Letter

To the Cyclist in the Sauna,

Please note that a sauna is not a warmup, cool-down, stretching and newspaper-reading room. If you wish to use the sauna, ask yourself if you are wearing any (or in your case all) of the following items:

- A one-piece cycling outfit

- Socks

- Underwear

- Clip shoes

Should you upon close inspection discover that this does indeed apply to you, kindly disrobe and take a soapy shower rather than inflicting your disgusting stink on less perverse club-members.

Thank you.

Safety first

As some of you know, my wife and I are avid runners. In this capacity we often take part in races of various lengths. Travelling down to our most recent race, Mrs. Newbie pointed something out that I had completely overlooked: the difference between the precautions taken by race organisers in the United States and in our last port of call prior to expatriation: France.

In the "Hexagon", people who sign up for a race are required to supply a doctor's certificate confirming that they are at least physically fit enough to undertake a race of this kind. Those who run more regularly and are members of a club are automatically members of the French Athletics Federation, the FFA, and therefore just have to provide a photocopy of their "licence" to prove their aptitude for a race.

By contrast, in the US, where individual liberty is valued almost above anything else and where people are suspicious of any form of authority, race organisers do no require you to prove you won't have a heart attack and die while taking part in a sporting event. The general idea is that if you want to run a race, you shouldn't be prevented from doing so by some meddling medic. However, because America is also Tort Central, race organisers want to avoid being sued by litigious souls stupid enough to overexert themselves, but who have ready access to a lawyer keen to extract seven-figure compensation.

As a consequence, would-be participants in any race are made to sign extensive waivers designed to absolve organisers of any responsibility associated with racing. The following is an actual waiver that I signed and typical of the hand-washing that goes on:

"I realize that this course presents a number of potential dangers to me and I hereby  assume the risk arising from all of them. I realize that I will be running on a variety of surfaces, some of them far less than perfect. The roads are open  to motor vehicle traffic that has the right of way. I realize that the danger of injury and even death exists as well and I hereby assume all the risks that may be present on the course. I realize this race is a strenuous athletic event. I certify that I have no physical or medical condition which would interfere with my participation in the race and that I have trained adequately for this race. I realize that I have the sole and ultimate responsibility for my own safety during the race and that if I see a situation/condition which presents risk of injury to me, I will avoid the situation/condition or immediately withdraw from the race. I her e b y  waive for myself, my heirs, executors and all other successors of interest any  and all rights and claims which  I may now have or hereafter accrue against the organizers and sponsors of this event, against all other entities and people who may issue permits for or help with this event, and against all property owners of land which the course may pass. I make this waiver for all the rights and  claims that have been specific  ally referred above, and for all others which might not be specifically named. I agree and intend that the above recitations are contractually binding and if I or my successors assert a claim in contravention of this agreement, I or my successors shall be liable for the expenses (including all legal fees) incurred  by the other party in defending."

Last weekend, a 47-year-old runner had a heart attack and died a mile from the end of the New York City Half Marathon. In 2009, no fewer than three people died while running the Detroit Marathon. Although it is extremely rare for so many participants in a race to die, it only highlights the fact that if medically untrained individuals decide about their ability to run what is after all still an extremely long distance, their judgement is more likely to be biased and wrong than somebody with 6-10 years of medical training.

Changing-room etiquette

Based on my eye-opening and sometimes gut-wrenching experiences of American changing rooms, I would like to propose the following

Ten Commandments of Locker-Room & Spa Etiquette

 

1. Thou shalt not spray gym-provided deodorant on the top of thy head and arms, nor on thy feet or backside.

2. Thou shalt cure thine nappy rash before parading around in the nude.
3. Thou shalt not steal mine towel. I tooketh it into the shower for a reason.
4. Thou shalt not claim non-existent linguistic skills and confidently assert that Europeans are Australian.
5. Thou shalt not attempt to sell fellow sauna or hot-tub users on the alleged wonders of vacation cruises. Europeans don't cruise.
6. Thou shalt not pre-warm thy sportswear in the sauna. The same applieth to tennis racquets and gym shoes.
7. Thou shalt not dive into the whirlpool.
8. Thou shalt not sit fully clothed in the sauna. Thou only looketh like an idiot.
9. Thou shalt not blow-dry thy nether regions. Especially not with one foot on the sink.

And finally:

10.Thou shalt not prominently carry paperware betwixt thy buttocks.

Tailgating

As I've written before, Americans love watching primarily their national sports - basketball, (ice) hockey, (American) football and baseball - whether it's in front of the TV, at a bar or at the stadium itself. One of the stranger offshoots of this passion for sports is "tailgating", also known as the "tailgate party".

Essentially tailgating involves travelling to the relevant venue several hours before kick-off, and in some cases early in the morning, partly so that you can get good seats, partly so that you can have a pregame party in the car park.

The expression comes from the American word for the door of the boot of the car - the tailgate - which is folded down to reveal massive amounts of food and drink as well as cooking ranges and/or barbecue sets, TVs, games like cornhole and of course chairs and tables.

However, this being America, many people take tailgating to the logical extreme, completely foregoing the sporting experience of actually watching the game, preferring instead to remain surrounded by parked cars all day drinking light beer and barbecuing with friends.

A friend of mine, whose customised car number plate is "TAILG8R" and who faithfully buys a season ticket to the local university American football team year after year, spends hours every Friday night preparing food, and then starts drinking Bloody Marys in the car park at 8:30 in the morning.

He once proudly told me, "I haven't seen a game the last two seasons!"

College Sports

In the film Forrest Gump, Tom Hanks says, "After just three years of playing football, I got a college degree."

Americans love watching sport, especially college (i.e. university) sport, both live and on television. That makes it an extremely lucrative business, and gives universities a huge incentive to attract the best players. So it's hardly surprising that they offer gifted athletes scholarships that (in some cases more than) pay their tuition fees.

However, the best players are not always the brightest students. What's more, to get - and keep - at their best, these athletes need to train hard and long. And that in turn means that their academic obligations tend to get in the way of their sporting endeavours. And here's where the problems arise.

Because educational establishments are justifiably starting to insist that students at least get a minimum of education, college teachers regularly give their "jocks" (athlete-students) the answers to tests in advance or even write papers on their behalf!

This of course makes a complete mockery of the concept of tertiary education, but when winning is all that counts, most universities just turn a blind eye.

Sauna à l'Américaine

Although they have become fewer and farther between as I have got(ten) used to the American Way of Life, I had a rare WTF, shakes-head-in-amazement, must-write-that-up moment this morning.

After almost two years in the New World, I hardly bat an eyelid at the neo-puritanical obligation to swim in knee-length shorts that would be banned in Europe as patently dangerous. I no longer try to kiss even close acquaintances, and automatically confine myself to loose, no-frontal-contact back-slapping hugs. I even oblige my children to close their curtains when undressing lest the sight of naked prepubescent flesh sends a neighbor rushing to call the cops. But I think what I witnessed today pushes the boat out way further:

Coming out of the shower in the men's changing room at my local gym, I glanced back towards the sauna to see a man sitting inside wearing - and I kid you not - a T-shirt, shorts, an elbow support, socks and trainers!

I'm too flabbergasted to even attempt to analyse this further, though I might start wrapping my towel around my waist again when I next visit the sauna - or invest in some Wonder Sauna Hot Pants:

Adverts

Advertisements are the bane of our American life - or at least our televisual one. It seems that whenever you start getting into a TV programme, wham! here comes another set of adverts. 

The impression of constant marketing bombardment is not far from the truth. The rule of thumb is that there is an advertising break every seven minutes. But even this astonishing frequency doesn't begin to describe the omnipresence of advertising.

In Britain, a typical TV programme fills up approximately 27 minutes of every half-hour slot, the remaining three going to advertising, usually once in the middle and again at the end. By contrast, BBC America, which rebroadcasts - some would say regurgitates - "Auntie"-made TV for US consumption, has to schedule 40 minutes for each of its UK-format television programmes simply so that it can fit in the requisite advertising.

The Superbowl, the highlight of the American football calendar, a kind of cup final à l'américaine, clearly shows how much time is given over to advertising here in the US. The game itself consists of four 15-minute periods. OK, so there are lots of breaks because the players are forever being substituted on or off, but there are also deliberate pauses and time-outs built in purely to satisfy the "sponsors". As a result, although it has been estimated that there are only 11 minutes of actual play in an American football game, the Superbowl transmission (excluding pre- and post-game analyses, but including the halftime show) lasts well over three hours.

Advertising is also a huge money-spinner for the sport's governing body, the NFL, with 30-second slots (especially the coveted halftime ones) currently costing just under $3 million each. So if, as this year, you have a captive audience of 106 million representing more than two-thirds of the households in the US, why not take extra breaks for "a word from our sponsors"?

The Winter Olympics - exclusive coverage of which was bought by NBC for almost $900m - are another good if annoying example. Our evening viewing was recently interrupted so often that we found ourselves timing not only the length of "viewing time" between advertising breaks but also the length of the breaks themselves. And lo and behold, we found that there is, on average, a break every 7.5 minutes - after which you are treated to an average of 2.5 minutes of advertising.

In other words, you end up watching a minute of adverts for every three minutes of the actual programme!

But most odd of all, albeit only for non-American audiences, is something that happens during my favourite TV programme, The Daily Show (though undoubtedly elsewhere): coming out of the third advertising break in the space of half an hour, the host says, "That's our show. We'll be back tomorrow night. Goodnight!"

Cue closing credits ... followed by more advertising.

Sports Clubs

I've already mentioned my brush with the authorities at my local sports club, but I've just realised that I have so far completely neglected to mention another unusual (for an old worlder, that is) aspect of American sports/fitness clubs, namely the changing rooms.

Although I have been to only two such clubs, and cannot therefore claim to have sampled the full gamut of US sport and leisure facilities, I did notice something that appears to be a common feature: apart from the usual lockers, benches, showers and toilets, the standard furnishings seem to include one or more huge flatscreen TVs (not necesssarily set to sports channels) and large leather sofas/armchairs, seats that are invariably taken by elderly men dressed not in sports gear but in their everyday clothes, men who spend hours simply chatting to fellow loafers in what is, after all, a horribly testosterone- and sweat-infused atmosphere, clearly with no intention of engaging in any sporting activity.

One nice touch for those like me who inevitably forget their toiletries is that sports clubs provide ample supplies of towels, shaving foam (though no razors), shower gel, hand cream and the like. Having said that, I have twice caught one old man taking one of these complimentary aerosol cans and liberally spraying the top of his head, the upper sides of both arms, his feet and his backside with what looked like deodorant, but may have been after-shave.

And these guys treat me like I'm the weird one!

See No Evil, Speak No Evil

I nearly provoked a major international incident yesterday.

My children and I belong to a local sports club. After we had all engaged in our various sporting activities, and for lack of a family changing room, I innocently took my six-year-old and eight-year-old - one of whom is undoubtedly of the female persuasion - with me into the men's locker room, where they changed out of their gym trousers and t-shirts, and put their shoes and socks back on.

At this point in my tale I should point out that the aforementioned sports club has no fewer than four changing rooms: one for boys, one for girls, one for men and one for women. The door of the boys' changing room bears a large sign proclaiming that girls over the age of four may not enter. The girls' changing room door bears a similarly-sized edict relating to boys. Unbeknownst to me, the "men's locker room" and presumably its female counterpart are out of bounds to anyone under the age of 14.

Given that I had thus unwittingly contravened not one but several rules of this fine suburban establishment, how do you think its fee-paying patrons reacted to this scurrilous assault on their sexuality, this blatant affront to the carefully-nurtured puritan mores of an entire continent?* Did they come up to me and say, "Look here, old chap: I'm afraid this is the gents' changing room, and children are not permitted"? Did any of these upstanding members of male society tap me on the shoulder and say, "Excuse me, sir, but kids ain't allowed in the men's locker room"?

They did not.

Clearly intimidated by my British accent and aghast at my European pre-teens' wanton disregard for their hosts' sensibilities, one or more of them did what any man in their position would do: they "took the Fifth"**, crept out of the locker room and reported me to management.

______

* People in the US insist that the land-mass referred to as "America" is not one, but two continents, the northernmost of which they grudgingly share with the Canadians.

** Exercised their right to remain silent rather than incriminate themselves, as granted under the 5th Amendment of the American Constitution.

Sports Presenters

America has a black president and has had a black foreign minister (Colin Powell). It has black senators and congressmen, and there are blacks at every level of society in both the private and the public sector.

It is therefore rather strange that in basketball, a sport in which about 98% of the best players are black (everyone knows that White Boys Can't Jump), all the TV presenters are white, while blacks are merely invited expert guests or commentators.

It is not as if blacks weren't good presenters. There are plenty of excellent black talk show hosts and news anchors. So why, I wonder, is there this glaring anomaly in sport?

Fitness

Once again, America has the last laugh.

I may have scoffed at the idea of treadmills and the associated almost Buddhist notion of running yet not advancing, but I am now having to eat some very humble pie.

Faced with the twin onslaught of eating too much (pie or otherwise), which has more than made up the kilos I lost so easily over the summer, and the fact that it's simply too cold (-8°C on a good day) and dangerous to go running outside (sharing slushy roads with oversized cars is no fun), I am going to have to throw in the towel - or rather wrap it round my neck - and head down to the gym for what is literally an exercise in futility.

American Sports

My son Tom is determined to try all the sports that the New World has to offer - though not necessarily the obvious ones.

Having taken a crash course in lacrosse, a game clearly invented by native Americans as a way to club European settlers without getting shot in response, he is now signed up for an introduction to pillow polo, a sport which has nothing to do with polo nor uses pillows.

As you can see in the image above, pillow polo is a lot like hockey, but with softer sticks and a sponge ball. Nevertheless it is undoubtedly designed to get children used to hitting each other with sticks in preparation for a career in ice hockey's "world league", the NHL.

Incidentally, I was amazed to hear on the radio the other day that a recent attempt to ban fighting from ice hockey failed when nearly all the NHL's coaches and owners rejected it because the move would change the nature of the sport! Take these quotes from two general managers:

• "I think it's become integral in terms of how the game is played. I think it acts as a bit of a thermostat (...) and I believe that most of our fans enjoy that aspect of the game."
• "Any discussion about the elimination or abolition of fighting will be a very brief one. I don't think there's any support for that whatsoever."

Earlier this month, a 21-year-old player died from injuries he sustained in a fight. Last week (see video below), another player suffered seizures following the pummeling he received just seconds into a game.

(Notice how the referee just stands by and watches the fight, making no attempt to intervene?)

Meanwhile, my daughter Anna has chosen a far more global sport to pursue: gymnastics. Though this too could point her to another great American "sport": cheer leading.

Great American Inventions

Given the rapid onset of winter round here, it's hardly surprising that many people do their jogging on fitness centre running machines. At a local centre, all the treadmills face outwards towards the street, so as you pass by you are momentarily confronted by what appears to be 30 to 50 people running, rowing and Nordic skiing towards you - though like all the best nightmares, they never actually get anywhere.

Fitness fanatic and budding inventer Alex Astilean clearly thought it was boring running on the spot in a sweat-filled room (I must admit he has a point), so he dreamt up a mobile treadmill that you could use outdoors.

The SPEEDFIT Treadmobil combines two classic American passions: fitness and automotive propulsion. It's a "men-powered" (his words, not mine) treadmill on four wheels with a rudimentary handlebar, as the following video shows:

There's only one thing that puzzles me: why would anyone pay hundreds if not thousands of dollars on a Treadmobil when they could just go running?

Alex also has another invention: the "all-green, non-motorize" SPEEDFIT SpeedBoard, and an even more attractive video to sell it with:

Unfortunately, Alex was so keen to market the Speedboard that he didn't wait for Anke to actually lose those 100 pounds (on top of what she spent on the Speedboard itself) before releasing his video. So now we'll never know if she ever achieved her American dream.

I wish both of them success.