The Red Bulletin_0610_ROI

www.redbulletin.com

an almost independent monthly magazine / JUne 2010

The man who invented mountain biking How Gary Fisher created a global phenomenon

The Majesty of Messi

Arctic junkie

The first Arab woman to reach the North Pole

time and talent are on his side, but can the best player on earth win the world cup for argentina?

Experience

Print 2.0

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BullHorn

A world of sport Something rather big is coming our way. Something big, round and wonderfully (or dreadfully, depending on your point of view) inescapable. That ‘thing’, of course, is the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa™ to give the tournament its full title and we’re not immune to World Cup fever here at The Red Bulletin.

Our cover, as you will doubtless have noticed, features the magical Lionel Messi, upon whose shoulders rest the hopes not only of a nation, but of impartial football fans (if such a thing exists) everywhere. Widely revered as the most talented and thrilling soccer star on the planet, this ‘new Maradona’ has yet, experts maintain, to conjure the magic for his Argentinian national team that he flaunts for his club side, Barcelona.

Maybe this year, on a new and exciting world stage (this year’s World Cup is the first to be held in Africa), he’ll write an unforgettable legend, as Maradona did before him, in 1986.

We’ll know more in a few weeks, and as we anticipate the host nation’s opener against Mexico, we also look back this month to the first match played by the South African national team, post-Apartheid – against Cameroon on July 7 1992. Country and team have travelled a remarkable journey since then.

The Bulletin hasn’t gone completely football-crazy this month, however. We have a terrific interview with the deadly beautiful Sylwia Gruchała, one of the world’s best fencers; we chat to Gary Fisher, the godfather of mountain-biking and we pay a visit to the Italian base of Red Bull’s junior Formula One squad: Scuderia Toro Rosso.

On which subject, this month’s magazine can’t pass without mention of the continued mighty achievements of the Red Bull Racing Formula One team. As this magazine went to press, Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel had taken five pole positions and two wins from the first five races and they look set to battle it out for the world titles for the rest of the year.

As Webber pithily noted following his Barcelona win: “Ripper, mate.”

If it looks a bit ‘little and large’ it’s only because Björn Dunkerbeck (the big guy) is a man mountain.

When big Björn, a multiple windsurf world champion, met up with Red Bull Racing Formula One ace Sebastian Vettel, the pair found they had plenty in common – as you can read on page 78

COVeR phOTOGRAphy: AdIdAS. ThIS pAGe: phILIpp hORACk

Your editorial team

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Your Red Bulletin can do more than you think Movies, sounds, animation Print 2.0 – the extra dimension in your Red Bulletin. In this issue you’ll find it with the following stories:

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Print 2.0

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Wherever you see the bull’s eye!

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illustration: dietmar kainrath

K a i n r at h

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MOTO X MEETS STEEPLECHASING Red Bull SteepleX is what happens when cross-country motocross collides with the sport of Steeplechase. The first ever Steeplechase took place in County Cork in 1752 between Doneraile Church & St Leger Church Doneraile.

It was the result of a wager between two local businessmen & created a

new sport, which today is enjoyed by millions of people around the globe.

Red Bull SteepleX will take place over the same hallowed course, with one major difference. This time the sound of galloping horses will be replaced by the grunt of motorbike engines!

SATURDAY 19TH & SUNDAY 20TH JUNE BUTTEVANT, CO. CORK FOR MORE, VISIT WWW.REDBULL.IE

Contents

welcome to tHe world of red Bull Inside your fast-moving Red Bulletin this month…

Bullevard

12 pictures of the month 18 now and next Where to be and what to see in the worlds of culture and sport 21 where’s your head at?

If you’re superstar guitarist Slash, it’s under one of the most easily recognised hats in the world of rock 22 kit bag There’s been a steep improvement in climbing gear since the homemade carabiners and leaky boots of the ’30s 25 me and my body Spanish Sex and the City 2 siren Penélope Cruz on bloody knees, ballet and burgers 26 winning formula A scientific squint at the world of swimming reveals different techniques, togs and ’tudes separate the small fry from the fish when it comes to the water 28 lucky numbers Wingspan of 7.5m? Forces of up to 12G? Viewing numbers in the millions? It has to be the Red Bull Air Race

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Heroes

32 elham al-qasimi This one-time investment manager from Dubai decided to swap her desk for a sled to become the first Arab woman to reach the North Pole 36 carl craig Detroit’s king of reinvention is a DJ, producer, and cultural ambassador who has taken electronic music to places it has never been before. Next stop, London’s Royal Festival Hall 40 lionel messi The little footballer with a massive talent for scoring is about to take to the world’s greatest sporting stage 44 gary fisher He’s the hippy entrepreneur-turned-cycling legend responsible for introducing the world to the mountain bike. He also attracted an unlikely fan in George ‘Dubya’ Bush 08

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Contents

Action

50 gaelic football Will anyone break Kerry and Tyrone’s stranglehold on the Sam Maguire Cup? 54 senad grosic On the road to Mecca with Austria’s BMX ace 58 south african football How the country’s game kicked off 64 sylvia gruchaŁa Polish fencer set on Olympic glory 70 scuderia toro rosso They aren’t the biggest or richest, but this F1 team have plenty of passion

more Body & mind

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PHOTOGRAPHy: NzAR MuzAIN, DAN VOJTECH, JIRI KRENEK, POLAR EXPLORERS, ADIDAS, EMILy SHuR

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78 bjÖrn dunkerbeck The windsurfing legend at Hangar-7 80 get the gear As Felix Baumgartner prepares to jump to Earth from space, the right kit is essential 82 british fashion special Rising stars with designs on Vienna 84 cave diving Required: fearlessness to enjoy one of Europe’s last undiscovered adventures 86 listings Worldwide, day and night, our guide to the ultimate month-long weekend 90 nightlife We sample Stockholm; Hercules and Love Affair in Vienna; Frightened Rabbit sing and DJ Kenzhero represents Jo’burg 96 short story The art of deception is a serious matter 98 denis hickie On the vital ingredient for rugby success

the red Bulletin Print 2.0 Movies, sounds and animation wherever you see this sign in your Red Bulletin 1

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en.redbulletin.com/ print2.0 In your browser window you’ll see the magazine cover. Just click at ‘Start Bull’s Eye’

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Switch on your webcam If a webcam activation window opens, just click ‘activate’

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Hold your Red Bulletin up to the webcam You’ll see all the multimedia content in this month’s mag – movies, sound and animation

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Print 2.0

en.redbulletin.com/print2.0 Join kitesurfing champion Aaron Hadlow on an amazing adventure in New Caladonia

Le Morne, Mauritius

on the edge

credit

If only Simone Vannucci could see the beauty beneath his feet as he keeps his eyes firmly fixed on his foil and the sky above. In the lagoon shallows at Le Morne, flat sand blends into coral and, at the perfect moment, the crest of a wave and the carve of a board separate the two, as if by design. Only the gulls overhead and a lucky few helicopter pilots are usually party to this coincident beauty, but here Alberto Guglielmi’s picture frames perfectly the Italian kitesurfer in a watercolour worthy of an old master.

Get more wind in your sails by searching for kitesurfing at www.redbull.com

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Foto d e s M o n at s (2)

headline_02

Bullevard

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Verortung Who’s making waves in sport and culture Termin around the globe

photography: alberto guglielmi/red bull illume

Weblink

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photography: ursula sprecher & andi cortellini

BaseL, switzerLand

unplugged A lack of the obvious wasn’t enough to stop these hardcore members of Basel’s Dintefisch [Squid] Diving Club enjoying themselves in the city’s Eglisee pool. Not for this mob the aquatic thrills of plunging off the starboard deck into the brine below. They’ve also taken the plunge at such unpromising locations as the car park diving tower in Dreispitz, near Zürich, and another Basel wet-spot, the Joggeli open-air pool in downtown St Jakob: water be damned. For guys and girls like these, who enjoy dressing up in rubber, it seems nothing else will do when the mood takes them.

Phoenix, usa

half-pipe dreams The dry dustbowl of the Arizona desert gave life through its rivers to the city of Phoenix in 1868. Now the fifth largest city in the USA, home to 1.5 million inhabitants, Phoenix has to regulate its precious water supply, with broad concrete irrigation canals. But when they do occasionally run dry, they serve a wonderful dual function as ad hoc half-pipes for the city’s thriving skate scene. And if you’re really lucky, like pro skater Kevin ‘Spanky’ Long here, you may even be able to catch your reflection while you’re getting air.

News, photos and skating spectacles at www.redbullskateboarding.com

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photography: Fred Mortagne/Red Bull Illume

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photography: tim mcKenna/red bull illume

credit

Foto d e s M o n at s (2)

headline_02 Igna ad modipsumsan venisl delit ulput autatin estie magnim dolore dolortionsed diat aute feum nonsequis nullamet nulla alit lorem nit alis esto eros dolum adio eui bla adiam, sequisit nulput praessit adip et, quat. Ut in exer sendipi smodole sequisim zzriliqui euiscillaore eum nos esequis dunt laorperate et vulla feugiat.

Ibh erit ilisi tem zzrilisit lutat. To dolorer at augiam doloborper se modolobore dolestrud min utpat, sumsandre ex exercilis nibh esto et utpatet, qui blan vulputa tionum volorem augiame tueraesed te delit ulput atuero do eu feugue min henis nostis do coreetuer inim adio enit wisi.

Verortung Termin Weblink

teahuPo’o, French PoLynesia

fish-eye view

Surf freaks know the globe’s best surf spots by the colour of the water. Teahupo’o is no exception: this village in Tahiti gives its name to a wave that enjoys true cult status among big-wave surfers. A coral reef just below the surface of the water makes the swell hugely powerful, with waves breaking at a shallow depth. It also makes Teahupo’o the perfect place for surf photographers – there’s always something going on here. Those same shallows allowed Tim McKenna to shoot his surf buddy Manoa Drollet paddling along above, a view normally reserved only for our fishy friends.

Find surfing news www.aspworldtour.com

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b u l l e va r d

The big race Run, ride, swim, soar, pedal, paddle, drive and more: 14 events in the ultimate relay In January 1931, Othmar Gurtner and Fritz Erb, officers of the Swiss Army mountain troops and keen alpinists, had the notion of a relay race across their homeland, to include skiers, cyclists, pilots, runners, bikers and racing drivers. Six months later, on June 21, the first Jungfrau-Stafette was held and it grew over its eight-year life – a period when competitive sports became central to public life in Europe – to achieve legendary status, which only a world war would curtail.

Gurtner and Fritz’s brainchild was revived 68 years later in 2007, with many facets of the original competition intact, not least the format and the ambition and drive of the participants. This month, 600 athletes make up the 38 Swiss, two Austrian, one British and one Italian teams out to win Jungfrau-Stafette 2010.

The race begins at the Rhine Falls with a 32-mile cycle ride, the first of 14 stages over a 334-mile course requiring 13 disciplines (see right). Teams fly over the Jungfraujoch pass between the Mönch and Jungfau mountains, then head through Valais and central Switzerland and on to Zurich.

New stages this year include a 1-mile swim across Lake Zug and a 12-mile uphill cross-country bike ride, the penultimate stage. Exhausted pedallers then hand the baton to the cross-country runners for the last leg, a 7-mile run to the finish, at the base of Mt Uetliberg near Zurich. The winning team should cross the line after about 12 hours, where soon after, draped in ‘tinfoil’ blankets, they will lift the Silver Eagle Trophy.

Across Switzerland: on vintage motorbikes, by car or plane, on water or on land, up hill and down dale

Interactive course map and videos at www.redbulljungfraustafette.com

PICTURES OF THE MONTH

every shot on target Email your pics with a Red Bull flavour to letters@redbulletin.com. Every one we print wins a pair of Sennheiser PMX 80 Sport II headphones.

These sleek, sporty and rugged stereo ’phones feature an ergonomic neckband and vertical transducer system for optimum fit and comfort.

Their sweat- and water-resistant construction also makes them ideal for all music-loving sports enthusiasts. www.sennheiser.co.uk letters@redbulletin.com

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new Delhi Stuntrider Chris Pfeiffer shows he can do tricks on anything with wheels Sundeep Gajjar

b u l l e va r d

The course The Tour de Suisse in 14 stages 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Cycling Aviation (vintage planes) Skiing Glacier running Alpine running Paragliding Downhill mountain-biking Motorcycle racing (vintage bikes) 9 Kayaking 10 Car racing (vintage cars) 11 Aviation (vintage planes) 12 Swimming 13 Cross-country cycling 14 Cross-country running

salzburg

Does FC Red Bull Salzburg have a new fan? Filmstar-turned-musician Kevin Costner at ServusTV Peter Franke

neuschwanstein

The best view of a hang-gliding championship in Schwangau Jörg Mitter

WORdS: ULRIch cORAZZA, pAUL WILSON. ILLUSTRATION: hERI IRAWAN. phOTOGRAphy: ALEx BUSchOR/REd BULL phOTOFILES, STEFAN hUNZIkER, VITEk LUdVIk/REd UdVI d k/REd BULL phOTOFILES dVI phOTOFILES, hANSUELI SpITZNAGEL/REd BULL phOTOFILES, BERNhARd SpOETTEL/REd BULL phOTOFILES, MARcEL LAEMMERhIRT/REd BULL phOTOFILES

Freerunners’ World Parkour’s best flip out for Art Of Motion Like the urban acrobats who practise it, the sport of freerunning is coming on in leaps and bounds, and Art Of Motion is a key event at its vanguard.

Since 2007, organised tournaments have evolved and multiplied to become a hidden staple of the action-sports circuit. The latest Art Of Motion, now in its fourth year, drew a crowd of over 3000 fans to the Vienna Arena in May, to watch 21 competitors from four continents doing their stuff on a bespoke course of walls, ramps, bars and cars. This is a world away from four hoodies doing cartwheels off a park bench.

Each of the entrants had 90 seconds to impress the judges, including Victor ‘Showtime’ Lopez, the American who finished second at the world championships in London last year.

The top eight then went through to a final. Luci Romberg of the USA, professional stuntwoman and member of LA’s Team Tempest freerunning crew, planted a flag for women’s freerunning by qualifying for the final and finishing eighth.

But it was Germany’s Jason Paul who secured first place, above Yoann Leroux of France and Pavel Petkuns of Latvia in third.

Watch highlight videos at www.redbull.com

graz Designers gather around the ‘JRX’ they made for the international Formula Student contest FH Joanneum

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extreme screen

t PaFIr VE

the Future OF FOOtbaLL War Is Over

Fever pitch: Rival fans happily sit side-byside in South Africa

Next up, in our series for World Cup year: fans are no longer among the thugs It’s a bitter struggle, but, for a change, the good guys seem to be winning.

Thanks to advanced security measures in increasingly modern stadiums, and psychologically fine-tuned work with fans by forward-thinking clubs, going to a football match in many countries is now a risk-free event for the whole family.

One nation demonstrating how safe and welcoming it is to be a football fan is, naturally, this year’s World Cup host, South Africa. Ten years ago, United Nations figures put the country in the world’s top 10 in terms of serious and violent crime, and today the crime rates remain high. But, as Tumi Makgabo, former host of Inside Africa for CNN

cusco

Filip Polc is offered an alpaca for his mountain bike in Peru Sergio Urday

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International, points out, in football grounds, “hooliganism is an alien concept. The nice thing about matches here is that people mix happily: rival fans sit side-by-side.”

Even so, World Cup organisers can’t rely solely on the power of the vuvuzela (that long, honking horn so beloved of Bafana Bafana fans) to bring people together. The package of security measures to be implemented during the tournament is designed to protect the planet’s football fans outside South Africa’s stadiums, and to stop them doing stupid things inside them, too.

Three documentaries receiving their television premiere get inside the minds of very different athletes as they scour the globe in search of adventure and adrenalin.

20 Seconds Of Joy follows BASE-jumper Karina Hollekim as she pushes the limits of her sport and herself. But with risk comes tragedy, and the ultimate test of her passion.

In Tai Fu: Typhoon Surfing In Japan, a veteran group of big-wave surfers head literally into the eye of the storm. When a typhoon batters the Japanese coast, and with locals fleeing inland, the crew embrace the chaos to ride the waves of their lives.

For a few weeks a year, where the Amazon meets the Atlantic, an incredible tidal bore rips back upriver, providing one of surfing’s great challenges: Pororoca (below), named after the wave, details four men’s attempts to conquer it.

All three films will be shown on Current TV (Sky channel 183, Virgin Media channel 155) between June 21 and July 3.

Exact showtimes at www.current.com

The countdown to June 11 begins at www.fifa.com/worldcup

melbourne Sebastian Vettel fits in a treat in Australia with his surf-dude haircut James Quinlan

Lake tekapo Finding New Zealand’s best spots of natural beauty can be thirsty work Douglas Wright

WOrdS: ANdrEAS JArOS, rUTh MOrgAN. PhOTOgrAPhy: gETTy IMAgES (3)

The action-film festival coming to a TV near you

b u l l e va r d

Where’s Your head at?

slash

Under the top the hat of the second-best-guitarist-of-all-time: BMX, bourbon and Black Dog via the Black Eyed Peas Made By design

e-on-Trent, England, Saul Hudson was born in Stok family. His mother, in 1965, into a show business id Bowie and Dav for es Ola, designed costum designed record ony, Anth er, fath his ; non Len John hell. Teenage Mitc i Jon and ng sleeves for Neil You ily friend Seymour Saul was named Slash by fam always was kid the Cassel, who saw that . still sit t ldn’ cou and hustling

axe Falls On Racing Aged 11, Slash moved to LA with his mother, and developed two passions: guitar and BMX. He was good enough to have ridden pro, but the fingerboard displaced the handlebars. “My music teacher had a Gibson Les Paul and played riffs from Led Zeppelin and Cream songs. I knew I wanted to do the same thing,” he said.

OVeR tO the RainBOw Elvis fans have Graceland and followers of Guns N’ Roses have the Rainbow Bar & Grill on Sunset Strip. It features in GNR’s November Rain and Estranged videos; and Slash has his own regulars’ spot, watched over by his Les Paul guitar and signed photographs.

The owner says he still drops by, but then he would, wouldn’t he?

worDs: florian oBkircher. illustration: lie-ins anD tigers

BaBy snakes

thern Burmese pythons, sou condas: ana s, boa ar Madagasc has had er -lov Slash the reptile as pets more than 80 snakes n led him in his time. This pas sio of Reptiles er cov the to feature on isten chr and magazine in 1995, sh’s Snakepit.

Sla d ban o sol t firs his 20 02 when But he gave it all up in in his d ive arr a new addition , named entourage: his first son called , son ond sec A .

London 04.

Cash, followed in 20

sweet style O’ Mine

The guitarist snapped up his first top hat at the Retail Slut fashion store in Melrose, LA, and fashioned a hat cord from a piece of a silver belt.

There’s hardly been a photo of him sans chapeau since he appeared wearing one on the back cover of GNR’s debut album, Appetite For Destruction.

lenny wOz ’eRe

Slash went to the same school as one Leonard Albert Kravitz; both boys were writing songs and liked the same bands, but hardly knew each other. According to Kravitz: “[I] just knew him as this kid who used to hang out in the hallway.

Pretty much looked then the way he does now.”

All grown up, Slash played guitar on Kravitz’s 1991 hit ‘Always On The Run’.

BOOze the BOss

“I discovered alcohol when I was 12,” Slash said in 1988, “and I love drinking. I drink a bottle of Jack Daniel’s a day at least.”

Two years later, US TV audiences saw proof – about 40 per cent proof – when a tired and emotional Slash gave rather spirited acceptance speeches at the American Music Awards. The AMAs have been broadcast with a delay ever since.

aFFROnt Men

It’s 1992 and Guns N’ Roses are the biggest rock band on earth. Over 70 million albums sold, a 28-month world tour and Axl Rose and Slash are rock ’n’ roll gods. But the high wouldn’t last for long: in 1996, Slash left the band and the two haven’t spoken to each other since. In an interview last year, Rose called his former guitarist a cancer. Slash’s response? “Whatever, dude.”

gOngs n’ ROses

As of last August, it’s official: Slash is the second best guitarist of all time, after Jimi Hendrix (according to Time magazine). Other accolades include cement handprints in the Rockwalk on Sunset Boulevard and a signature model of his trademark Gibson Les Paul guitar. But he will stand alone on August 26 this year, for the mayor of West Hollywood has decreed it will be Slash Day.

slash in

the Van He’s currently on a world tour, showca sing his new, eponymou s solo album from Melbourne to Milan , and at the Glasto nbury, Summersonic and Rock Am Ring festiv als.

Among the many gu ests featuring on the record (Iggy Pop, Chris Cornell, Kid Rock, Ozzy Osbourne an d more) is Black Ey ed Peas’ Fergie. “She sang ‘Black Dog’ by Led Zeppelin when we were at a jamming session tog ether,” says Slash. “And I was blown away.”

Slash live: Download Festival, June 13, Donington Park, Castle Donington, Leicestershire; Glastonbury, June 27, Worthy Farm, Pilton, Somerset

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Kit Evolution

high times

Once as hindering as it was helpful, mountaineering kit now hits the heights we demand of cutting-edge sporting equipment

A canvas rucksack, rope made of hemp, all-leather shoes with nails in the soles, a regular pickaxe with a heavy wooden handle, wooden nuts, a carabiner (often homemade), a gas lamp and a felt hat.

The equipment with which our forebears climbed may seem basic to the point of dangerous, but it also imbues those who 22

used it with a real sense of adventure: those guys were getting up the mountain, however they could and with whatever they had. In bad weather, some of this gear actually made things harder: wet hemp ropes could freeze to wet clothing, saturated shoes had little grip on the rock and food saved for an ascent could

turn to mush at the bottom of a snow-andrain sodden rucksack. That said, the first eight-thousander, Annapurna in Nepal, was first summitted in 1950, with kit much like this. That was about three decades before Robert Gore and his father Bill developed something called Gore-Tex. See old boots at the Alpineum: www.alpineum.at

words: robert sperl

Uphill StrUggle c. 1930

photography: Kurt Keinrath

top performance 2010 State-of-the-art mountaineering equipment now includes a nylon rucksack with an integrated aluminium frame (weighing just 2.46kg), Teflon-coated ropes, an ice-pick with a light metal handle and special steel points, nuts, carabiner and figure-eight descender all made from light metal alloys, an LED lamp

that can last for up to 450 hours and an ultra-light plastic helmet. The MamookGTX climbing boots by Mammut are perhaps the best example of how, over time, equipment has evolved not just in terms of lighter, stronger materials, but such that there’s far greater benefits to the user. So with a rigid outer fixed

to a soft inner, the boots are both comfortable and strong; there’s some Gore-Tex in there, naturally. And its asymmetrical three-zone lacing system helps prevent blisters and allows for more extensive use of the toes.

Best foot forward in every sense.

Find new shoes at www.mammut.ch

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Hard & fast Top performers and winning ways from across the globe

Although only 23, Maya Gabeira is the undisputed queen of big-wave surfing: proof came with her fourth consecutive win of the Girls Best Performance title at the Billabong XXL Awards in Anaheim, California.

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to-back victories in ntre) secured backEugene Laverty (ce nship. The wins pio am Ch ort rsp rld Supe firsts in the motorcycling’s Wo ee thr an hm gave the Iris e contender. at Assen and Monza titl g on str es, making him a year’s first five rac

South Africa almost won a global football competition on home soil this year, but it was Anders Solum of Norway who triumphed at the Red Bull Street Style freestyle soccer tournament in Cape Town. Local hero Kamal Ranchod was pipped

by Solum in the final.

Words: Paul Wilson, ruth Morgan. illustration: dietMar Kainrath. PhotograPhy: getty iMages, action iMages, dean treMl/red Bull Photofiles, Brian BielMann/red Bull Photofiles

The New York Red Bulls have made a fine start to the Major League Soccer season, winning five of their opening seven matches to top the Eastern Conference. Juan Pablo Angel scored four times during that run.

B u l l e va r d

Me And My Body

PenéloPe Cruz

The Spanish actress, currently stoking the jealous fires in sex and the city 2, swears by the three Bs: beach cycling, bloody knees and burgers

nOrmal Hair day

“I don’t think of myself as beautiful,” says Cruz, putting herself at odds with millions of right-minded people. She is also unwilling to give beauty tips. “You’re asking the wrong person. In private I never wear make-up.

I also like tousled hair, jeans and baggy T-shirts. I’d go barefoot every day if I could.” Nor does she care much for her characters’ appearance. “It’s not important for me to look good. I do what I have to do to play the character as she’s meant to be played.”

pin-up girl

but she doesn’t do Cruz often acts sexy, de an exception, in her ma nude scenes. She showed on, Jámon, when she first film, 1992’s Jám ul thf you all of it, in fact. A a lot of skin – almost ’s ter rac cha her on d centre folly, but the film was for it,” dy rea s wa I nk thi n’t sexual energy. “I do myself. ages to watch the film she said. “It took me ich wh s, cer holed by produ After that I was pigeon be to nt wa n’t did I nt to be.

I absolutely didn’t wa to be an actress.” a pin-up girl, I wanted

Beauty sleep

h Of course, good genes and growing up with the Spanis Cruz the to bute contri diet n rranea sun and a Medite look, but her two crucial factors are: sleep and water.

She gets nine hours a night of the former and a litre and a half a day of the latter: “A trainer drummed it into me [to drink water]. You’re less hungr y and you have more energy throughout the day.”

Of Human BOndage

When filming her number ‘A Call From The Vatican’ for the musical Nine, Ms Cruz had to swing and writhe on ropes for so long that she was left with bloody grazes. But she says, “I didn’t want the marks to go away, because they were like my little medals… after three months of training, I didn’t even feel physical pain anymore. I loved it.”

a-One and a-twO

“My parents sent me to ballet school when I was a kid because I had so much energy. After I’d sweated it out there for a couple of hours, they found me easier to handle.” Cruz would go on to study dance for several years in her hometown of Madrid, where she took lessons from some of the country’s best teachers.

Words: Uschi Korda. photography: rEUtErs/thE WEinstEin co

sea legs

When it comes to sport, PC likes sports she can do in company. “I love cycling along the beach with friends. Pedalling on you r own is boring.

But if I can talk and exchange stories with friends at the same time, that is a good day’s sport.” Like any good Spaniar d, she loves the sea and indulges her passion by kayaking.

eigHt eigHt tHree

On Cruz’s right ankle is a tattoo of the number 883. A tribute to the Harley Davidson 883? Her PIN number? The lady herself has said eight and three are her lucky numbers, and double eight is for extra luck. Other reports suggest it has Buddhist significance, from when she went out with Nacho Cano, the Spanish musician and a noted Buddhist.

Burger Queen

en VOgue Earlier this year, Cruz became el diablo wearing Prada when she guest-edited an edition of French Vogue. The magazine was published with three covers: Cruz with Bono; with Meryl ‘Devil-wears-Prada’ Streep; and with Streep, Kate Winslet, Julianne Moore, Naomi Watts and Gwyneth Paltrow.

In one, she does the am-I-topless, bareshoulder pose. Wonder which will sell best?

Hollywood actresses say things like, “I’d shut down teen magazines which encourage girls to diet.” That’s Cruz talk – but this lady walks the walk too. To steady her nerves before the Academy Awards 2009, at which she won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, she had a burger from In-N-Out, the West Coast fast-food favourite. “I do it, once a week or every two weeks.

It’s a little treat for myself.”

See the trailer for SATC2 at www.sexandthecitymovie.com

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b u l l e va r d

Making a splash: Notice the way the water flows over the special suit worn by world-class triathlete and 2008 Olympic Champion Jan Frodeno of Germany

winning formula

Stroke of geniuS

A racing suit may shave time (in tandem with an all-over body shave) but it’s a swimmer’s mental strength that lets him win in the water

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Down by the pool “Size does matter,” says Chris Nesbit, England’s head swimming coach for the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi this October and the man who steered Katy Sexton of Great Britain to gold in the 200m backstroke at the 2003 World Championships.

“Look at the world-record holders. Michael Phelps is 6ft 4in, and going back to the 1980s Michael Gross was 6ft 7in. You need heart and lung endurance, and shoulder and thigh strength to make it. A swimmer like Ian Thorpe, for example: he was a big guy who could really cut through the pool too. His kinesthetic feel of the water [the repeated tactile learning of a successful stroke] eliminated excess drag. But the biggest decider on whether you succeed in swimming is your attitude and desire to win.

“By the time someone gets to the starting block, to a large extent both mentally and physically, the job is done. If it’s a 50m sprint race, good swimmers will have rehearsed it in their heads countless times, because they’ve only got 20-22 seconds of racing. We’ll go to Delhi as a team and support each other, but at the end of the day, swimming is an individual’s sport.

“It’s tough mentally, but the surprising thing about swimming is that I believe it does far less damage to your body than other

WOrDS: TOM HALL, PrOfESSOr THOMAS SCHrEfL. PHOTOGrAPHY: BErNHArD SPöTTEL ILLuSTrATION: MANDY fISCHEr

athletic pursuits. runners will end up with sore ankles, sore hips and sore knees because of the impact of their feet hitting the ground. With swimming, the fact that you’re exercising in water means you don’t have that constant damage to the body. And I’ve never seen chlorine turn hair green.” back at the lab “If you walk or run, you make use of the friction with the ground to push you forward,” says Professor Thomas Schrefl of the university of Sheffield and the university of Applied Sciences in St Polten, Austria, “and at low speed air resistance is negligible.

A swimmer generates propulsion through interaction with the moving water, while using buoyancy and drag to pull forward.

“The sum of the lift force, L, and the drag force, D, gives the propulsive force, F . During a pull stroke, swimmers continuously change the velocity and the angle of the hand to direct the propulsive force forward. Drag is required to generate propulsion, but drag also slows down the forward motion. from Newton’s first Law we know that at constant swimming velocity propulsion is in balance with drag. The drag force is proportional to the drag coefficient, C, the

density of water, , the cross-sectional area of the swimmer, A, and the swimmer’s velocity squared, v².

“Some swim coaches suggest that a suit can improve performance by two per cent. Most of this is attributed to the sharkskin-like surface of the suit. In order to understand how a swimsuit can reduce drag we have to take a close look at how the water flows over an object, such as the swimmer’s body. We assume that the object is at rest and take a look at the velocity of the water particles. Water particles close to the body are slowed down owing to friction. Particles further away have a higher speed and thus tend to move straight instead of following the contour of the body. At a certain point the flow separates.

Behind the separation point the particles close to the body reverse direction. As a result, there is a moment difference between the front and the rear of the swimmer, and this causes drag.

“The special surface of a swimsuit, which consists of V-shaped ridges and tiny vortex generators, mixes fastmoving water particles further away from the body with the slow-moving particles close to the body. Thus flow separation is suppressed, and the drag is reduced.”

Dive into all things swim at www.fina.org

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B u l l e va r d

Lucky Numbers

Swooping down over the Hudson River in New York on June 20, this most spectacular of contests showcases both the world’s great cities and its most fearless and skilful pilots

The most successful pilot to date is Paul Bonhomme, with 11 race wins.

But the Englishman, who has raced since 2005, had to wait for his first championship. In 2007, he lost to American Mike Mangold. With identical points and place-finishes, only a countback to a qualifyinground result – where Bonhomme trailed by 0.43 seconds – gave the American victory. Despite winning four of the eight races in 2008, Bonhomme was runner-up to the Austrian Hannes Arch. A year later, after again winning half the races, he finally secured the coveted title.

12 Pilots can reach up to 12G when racing – anything beyond that and they risk disqualification. At that level of G-force, an 80kg man effectively weighs about a tonne. Even half of these extreme forces could cause visual impairment or blackouts to those not trained to withstand them.

But it’s no problem for the 15 Air Race pilots, all of whom have significant flying experience. One of this year’s rookies, Brazilian Adilson Kindlemann, has 11,000 hours of airline flying experience and 1200 in aerobatics.

99

As in other sports, Red Bull Air Race pilots attach significance to their start number.

American Michael Goulian’s plane sports 99 in honour of ice hockey great Wayne Gretzky (the National Hockey League retired that number for all clubs).

Australian Matt Hall’s number is chosen by his son, a fan of the racing car Lightning McQueen (95) from the film Cars. Spain’s Alejandro Maclean added his two sons’ birthdates to give him 36.

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265

Of all the skills a pilot must have in his locker, precision is the most essential. A Red Bull Air Race plane can reach 265mph (426kph), and to fly one, with a wingspan of about 7.5m, between the two pylons of an Air Gate only 10–13m apart, leaves little room for manoeuvre. Each pylon is made from 220m2 of a material similar to that used for spinnakers on sailing boats, and requires 70m3 of air to inflate. If a pylon is damaged, a team of ‘airgators’ on a nearby boat can fix or replace it in 2–3 minutes.

2

At April’s 31st Annual Sports Emmy Awards, the Oscars for sport on TV, the Red Bull Air Race World Championship broadcasts won the top prize in the Outstanding Technical Team Remote category for the second year running.

The award recognises the team’s skills in capturing the excitement of the sport.

Their 2009 efforts were watched by 270 million TV viewers in 183 countries.

400 A Red Bull Air Race is a huge logistical exercise, and a 400-strong team is required to ensure that everything runs smoothly and to plan. The infrastructure required for each race begins 14 days before the weekend proper. The race tower, all the electronic equipment, Air Gates and, of course, the 15 aircraft weigh 400 tonnes and fill 71 containers, which are either shipped by sea or flown on two chartered Boeing 747 cargo planes.

Watch videos and be a pilot at www.redbullairrace.com

Words: Ulrich corazza; photography: getty images (3), markUs kUcera (2), Joerg mitter

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Red Bull AiR RAce

kunde

EYEWEAR + ACCESSORIES . SAN FRANCISCO www.sutrovision.com

Credit photography: emily shur

Heroes

The men and women riding high on their way into the history books 32 Elham al-qasimi 36 carl craig 40 lionEl mEssi 44 gary fishEr

Mountain king: Gary Fisher redefined the concept of off-road biking so much that calling it ‘cycling’ sounds a bit silly now

Heroes

Elham al-Qasimi For any of us, a trip to the North Pole might seem like an impossible journey. Imagine the scale of the challenge, then, for the first Arab woman ever to make the attempt Words: Ruth Morgan Portrait: Thomas Butler

Name Elham Al-Qasimi Born July 22,1982, Dubai, UAE Lives London, England Loves Reindeer salami Record Breaker Became the first Arab woman to reach the North Pole unassisted Most Missed Dreamed of frangipani bubble bath while in the Arctic. And it was the first thing she used when she reached civilisation

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A makeshift bridge is the only thing that separates Elham Al-Qasimi from the icy black Arctic Ocean as she crawls on her hands and knees, slowly, precisely, face turned from the biting wind to keep frostbite at bay. The hot desert sands of her Dubai home couldn’t be further from this new reality, battling to keep warm at -30oC, feeling her way over the floating sleds that will take her across to snow and ice to continue her journey. Until a few months ago, the 27-year-old was most at home behind an office desk, but beneath her windbreaker Elham manages a smile. She is on an expedition to the geographic North Pole, a goal that has dominated her thoughts for so many months, and which will make her the first Arab woman ever to set foot on the northernmost tip of the world. Every tentative step is taking her closer to where she wants to be.

In autumn 2009, Elham seemingly had it all; a successful career, a nice flat, good friends… yet it was precisely then that she quit her high-flying job as an Investment Manager in London to trek to the barren expanse of the Arctic. The move – predictably – shocked her friends and family, but for Elham it made perfect sense: this potentially lethal adventure signified survival. “I was so driven for years, working such long hours,” she says. “I was giving everything to my job. I had to bring my soul to the surface again. I knew it would take an almost impossible challenge.

“When I was young I read about someone skiing to the North Pole, and always thought that was the ultimate extreme journey, a voyage to the top of the world, so far from anything I’d ever experienced.

I thought, ‘If you want to know who you are, you have to get out of your comfort zone.’”

When Elham found she would be the first Arab woman to reach the North Pole, her plan took on even bigger meaning. As an unmarried Arab woman living in London, she had already felt the very real pressure put on women from the United Arab

Emirates to follow a prescriptive path of becoming a good wife and mother. “When I was young I really didn’t have any strong female role models from the UAE,” she says. “Many people there still can’t fathom what a woman would be doing in the Arctic, so that record became so important. I come from a very traditional family – I’m sure they would prefer that I sit at home and knit, but I managed to get them on board. They love me and they’re proud of me. Through my actions I am basically saying these cultural ideals of what a woman should be are only as real as you make them.”

With her resignation handed in, Elham decided to embark on an unassisted mission, meaning she would have to drag all the supplies she would need for the journey behind her on a sled weighing almost as much as she did. There were only five months before the next weather window at the North Pole and she began a race against time to prepare herself. Far from being daunted, Elham was in her element. “It was great,” she says, “it was like starting your own business.” Preparation became her full-time job. She put her skills to good use, drawing up proposals and presenting to companies. Within months she had the backing she needed to fund her mission and booked the trip with a professional polar adventure company.

Out went the high heels, late nights and social life as she entered into a tough fitness regime with a team of trainers, putting in up to five hours per day of physical activity specifically designed to prepare every muscle, tendon and ligament for the rigours of her journey. She used roller skis to perfect her propulsion technique, a high-altitude chamber to increase her general fitness, and she became a regular sight around the streets of west London, dragging a Land Rover tyre behind her (flat, on its side) as she jogged to get herself used to the weight of the sled. She also added more than a stone in muscle and fat to her slender frame thanks to a vigilant nutritionist who ensured she consumed

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en.redbulletin.com/print2.0 Join Elham’s polar expedition

Freeze frame: Elham trained rigorously for the trip, but still she found the cold “incredibly painful” as the team trekked across the ice

Heroes

Cold comfort: Each team member had a sled packed with all their supplies for the trip which they dragged behind them as they traversed the ice

no less than 3024 calories every day. “I kept a food diary of everything I ingested, right down to the last peanut,” says Elham. She also attended two ‘shakedowns’ – preparatory camping trips to freezing locations, firstly in Minnesota, USA, and then in the Alps, to give her a taste of what lay ahead. In five short months she could do no more.

On April 16, Elham flew with her team from Norway to the Russian ice station Borneo. She began the trek at 89 degrees latitude that day, with the five men who would become her closest allies: experienced Arctic guides Rick Sweitzer and Keith Heger, an Italian surgeon, a British amateur mountaineer and Rick’s 15-year-old son Taylor.

“It was incredible to finally be there after months of imagining it,” she says. “Seeing the Arctic for the first time was a lot more magical than I’d imagined.

At times, it looked like a desert, with snow and ice forming shapes that look completely unnatural. The way the sun revolves around you rather than going over you adds such a surreal touch, you couldn’t help but be awestruck.” With a maximum of 11 days allowed to cover the 100 nautical miles to the pole, Elham and the team would ski for more than eight hours a day, and sub-zero temperatures limited breaks to two or three minutes at a time.

“You quickly understand the Arctic is not to be underestimated,” says Elham. “Then it’s a question of whether you want to fight it or give in.” It’s a question she would have to answer on the first day of trekking in the freezing wind, when she hit her first mental low. “I thought the biggest mental challenge would be carrying on with aching muscles,” she says. “But it was managing the cold. There’s no way I could have imagined that before I left. It’s incredibly painful. It consumes the mind when you’re at -30oC.” To reach her supplies, Elham needed to remove the outer layer of her gloves so, when her hands began to freeze up, she stopped eating and drinking.

“I didn’t realise what I was doing wrong, and went into a negative downward spiral,” she says, “like 34

‘I can’t do this, I didn’t know how hard this was going to be, why am I here?’ I made it to camp and my guide told me I’d only eaten two energy bars in six hours so I’d hit a low. It made sense when I was warm again. It was a steep learning curve.”

After that first-day reality check, things improved and Elham found her strong will returning. “The next day I just decided I would smile through it and have a good day. We had fantastic weather and I sailed through the eight hours,” she says. “Then I realised that my dream might be possible.”

Her days began at 6am with a big bowl of oatmeal, before the group would set off in single file, a guide at the front scouting the route with a GPS navigator. The constantly shifting ice meant the camp would drift overnight, so ground was gained or lost while they slept, and each day the route north would be interrupted by pressure ridges (formed when two ice caps collide), huge mounds of broken ice and Arctic ocean, all of which needed to be crossed or skied around. Some days the team would cover 12 nautical miles, but only six miles north, making all progress unpredictable.

“Before I got there, I knew the ice moved,” says Elham. “But it changes so fast that it feels alive in a way you’d never expect from such a barren place.

There were times when we’d be on thin ice and we’d hear these groans, as if a huge ship was coming at us.

I was like ‘What is that?’ My guide said, ‘That’s the ice moving underneath you, I suggest you move fast!’”

Hot meals were cooked on a stove in the small tents hurriedly erected at the end of each day.

Each member of the group had to take on between 4000 and 6000 calories to get through the physical exertion of skiing while towing a 42kg sled. The high-calorie meals consisted of oatmeal, bagels deep-fried in butter, rehydrated beef chilli with macaroni, seafood chowder or Elham’s invention of Polar Pizza made with tortillas, cheese and reindeer salami. “Our hot meals tasted like the food of kings!” she says. “It was terrible food but it tasted so good. There was so much love for

Heroes

ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY: POLAR ExPLORERS (4)

Success story: There was no time to linger at the North Pole – Elham reached her final goal just in time as the team had warning of an impending storm

whoever was cooking that night.” Evenings also gave Elham a chance to reflect, to look at the messages of motivation she had written in permanent marker under her shoelaces and on her water bottle – ‘Persistence!’, ‘Remember your goal!’ – and read messages from friends and family spurring her on, helping her cope with the mental challenge every new day brought with it.

Then, clad in her Arctic uniform of a merinowool base layer, a fleece vest, fur-lined windbreaker, gloves under large waterproof mitts and heavy black boots over three layers of socks, Elham would begin again in the perpetual daylight of her new white home. She felt strong, thanks to her hours of training, and refused help when it was offered, crawling over open water on bridges made from their floating sleds, hopping across floating shards of ice, hauling her heavy gear up ice walls. “Me being the stubborn only girl, I always said ‘no it’s fine’ to offers of help, I wanted to get it myself.

Rick would get so excited when he saw me cross an obstacle without falling, without help, and I’d turn around and do the gnarly sign to him like ‘yeah I made it!’ I could hear him from the other side saying, ‘Did you see that? She’s like Wonder Woman!’ It became like a sport, with team-mates.”

But in the Arctic, the smallest mistake is a reminder of how unforgiving the environment really is. Having found herself near the back of the group each day, Elham started skiing faster to keep pace and, an hour before the end of that day, found she had been sweating, soaking her base layer which had then frozen in the icy wind. “In my eagerness to keep up I hadn’t noticed how warm I was,” she says.

“You should never let yourself sweat. It felt like no matter how hard I worked, my chest felt cold, my hands were like blocks of ice. When we stopped at camp I opened my anorak and looked down and my base layer was white, frozen against my skin. Then my guide spotted frostbite on my nose. That last mile that I skied I was not happy because I was cold, so when the neck gator that was covering my nose

slipped down I didn’t want to stop to fix it. It had only been 15 minutes, but that was enough. It’s so easy to do something stupid like that, which could potentially stop the expedition. Luckily we caught it quickly. The guide healed it with body heat and within 30 minutes I was smiling again.”

Thanks to good weather, on the seventh day of her journey Elham learned the group were now only six miles from the North Pole. They were two days ahead of schedule and would make an attempt the next day. Shortly afterwards they received a message from the Borneo ice station informing them that a storm was coming in and that the station was being dismantled. If they couldn’t reach the pole by 1pm they would need to be picked up and the attempt aborted. The group were up at 5am and set off by 7am, battling against a southerly drift. “We had to ski much faster than usual,” says Elham. “It was not good. We were all sweating, so I wasn’t happy. But suddenly I thought, ‘This is it, I’ll be in a bath tonight!’

And my mindset changed. I began to realise what I’d managed, the mistakes I’d made and how I’d learned from them, how I’d laughed even when my knees hurt so much I could barely bend them. I also thought how powerful it is for the UAE that I did this. I slowed down to take it in and it was absolutely beautiful.”

When Elham reached the North Pole at exactly 1pm she raised a UAE flag and made history. “I was freezing cold,” she says. “My face was swollen with water retention, I had wind burn and a rash all across my cheeks, but it was such a happy moment.”

Then, before calling her anxious parents, she scattered a vial of Dubai desert sand that she had carried with her, representing the beginning and the end of her adventure, and the victory of her journey between the two. “Throughout my trip a TS Eliot quote really helped me,” she says. ‘Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.’ I had managed what I thought was the impossible. I had passed my test.”

The diary of a polar expedition at en.redbulletin.com/print2.0 Follow Elham’s journey on www.elhamalqasimi.com

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Heroes

Carl Craig

He’s been making the music of the future for 20 years. He’s reinvigorated jazz, recreated drum ’n’ bass and brought the bass drum into concert halls. Now he and his Detroit colleagues celebrate techno’s 25th birthday Words: Florian Obkircher Portrait: Dorothy Hong

Name Carl Craig Born May 22, 1969 Westside, Detroit, USA Family Married to Hagi Craig, two children Occupation Musician, DJ, remixer, label operator, festival curator, cultural ambassador for Detroit Current album Carl Craig & Moritz von Oswald – Recomposed Vol 3 (2008) Web planet-e.net

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There’s whispering, restrained coughing, a clearing of throats. All eyes are directed to the front. It’s dark, but the stage is bathed in a faint blue light.

The silence that descends on the Royal Festival Hall in London on an evening last February has something spiritual about it, reminiscent of a church service, or that short pause in the cinema between the trailers and the main feature. Every single place in the sloping rows of seats is taken. Everyone sits and waits, spellbound and expectant.

And then, a few seconds later, there is applause from the 2900 concertgoers as three men walk onto the stage. Francesco Tristano, in his late 20s, with brown, curly hair and a white shirt hanging out over his black jeans, sits at the piano. The other two – Moritz von Oswald and Carl Craig – are a little older. One is in a black suit, the other in a grey jacket. They take up their positions behind two consoles decked out with laptop and synthesisers.

Not exactly the typical set of instruments played here on the banks of the Thames. Although used for the odd pop concert, the Royal Festival Hall is usually home to the London Philharmonic Orchestra, which plays there 40 times a season.

Craig and Oswald send synth soundscapes floating around the concert hall while Francesco Tristano plays gentle chords on the piano. The waves of sound gradually become less frequent. Tristano plays more quietly and comes to a stop; the light on the stage gets slightly dimmer. In a club, you’d call this a break, that moment two-thirds of the way through a techno record. The calm before the storm.

Suddenly, drums thunder. The screen flashes into life. The audience makes noise. Craig grins.

“It was a wonderful concert,” the Detroit techno pioneer gushes afterwards. “When you’re deejaying in a club, you know exactly how the crowd is going to react. You take out the bass drum, then bring it back in and the crowd is going to go wild. But it’s different in concert halls like the Royal Festival Hall, or where we played our last concert,

in Bologna, a place where only orchestras had played before. It’s uncharted territory. So you’re even happier when the crowd goes wild if they’re sitting in an auditorium.”

Carl Craig has always been on the hunt for new horizons, whether working as a sound researcher or, like now, as a middleman between high culture and subculture. He’s the ambassador – the pioneer who gets techno out of clubs and into concert halls.

It all makes sense when you consider the body of work of a musician worshipped on the electro scene. Twenty years after his first record, the 41-year-old still reinvents himself almost every year. From the beginning, he had more pseudonyms than many other producers had releases. And he has gone down in the annals of electronic music history with almost all of them.

Producing as 69, he created electronic, futuristic jazz tracks in 1991. The following year, as Innerzone Orchestra, he invented drum ’n’ bass with Bug In The Bassbin. In 1994, as Paperclip People, he wrote the anthem Throw, a 10-minute epic located somewhere between disco and house, which finally catapulted him to the heights of techno stardom and would prove groundbreaking for subsequent Detroit names such as Moodymann and Theo Parrish.

He has been nominated for a Grammy for his remixes and classical record label Deutsche Grammophon asked him to interpret Maurice Ravel’s Boléro. “That’s what it’s all about with electronic music: inventing something new and promoting techno as a blueprint for futuristic music,” he says.

Craig was born in Detroit in May 1969, the son of a post-office employee and a teacher. Though his mother tried to get him to listen to Alvin And The Chipmunks, he preferred the music collection of his brother – his elder by nine years – from Led Zeppelin to Parliament and Funkadelic.

In 1985, Juan Atkins, a friend of his cousin Doug, set up the Metroplex record label. He released the single ‘No UFOs’ under the name

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en.redbulletin.com/print2.0 Listen to Carl Craig’s concert at the Royal Festival Hall at the South Bank Centre, London

Music man: Carl Craig near his sound studios in Detroit. He works on new tracks there four days a week

Techno meets high culture Francesco Tristano, David Brutti, Carl Craig and Moritz von Oswald (from left to right) in concert at the Royal Festival Hall in London as part of the 2010 Red Bull Music Academy

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Model 500. It had a drum machine, synthesisers and voice distortion. If Kraftwerk gave robots a voice, Atkins taught them how to dance. It was electronic music without the fuss, dance music that sounded as if it came straight from the future.

A new genre had been invented which, under the name ‘techno’, would go on to conquer the world.

“Berry Gordy built the Motown sound on the same principles as the conveyor belt at Ford’s,” Atkins explained in an interview at the time.

“Today they use robots and computers to make their cars and I’m more interested in Ford’s robots than Gordy’s music.” His words proved a prophetic swansong for his hometown’s musical tradition, as soul gave way to a tech-heavy future.

Craig was 15 at the time. “I flunked out of high school that year, I remember that much,” he says with a laugh. “Basically, I never used to go in. I just sat at home and played on the computer all day.”

It was when drive-by shootings began happening in Detroit. “My parents were extremely worried because I was at an age when you have a magical ability to attract trouble. So they always wanted to know where I was. Which drove me completely nuts, of course.”

The one advantage of hanging around at home all the time was that Craig listened to a lot of radio. He started imbibing the radio programmes by the legendary Detroit DJ, The Electrifying Mojo – the first person not to give a damn about style boundaries. He would mix ‘New Wave’ by The B-52s with Kraftwerk, Prince with earlier Detroit music.

One such track would change Craig’s life. “When I first heard ‘Nude Photo’ by Rhythm Is Rhythm, I thought, ‘What the fuck!’ I’d never heard anything so crazy. Pure science fiction. So futuristic. Plus, it was funky and had a great tune.”

So he called his cousin, Doug, who’d already released a techno record. “And he took me with him to our uncle Hugo’s house. He was the technology freak in the family,” Craig remembers. “He had a good stereo. Doug took along a synthesiser that Juan Atkins had lent him and we got started. We were really lousy to start with. The big hit at the

time was ‘Axel F’ by Harold Faltermeyer, from the Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack. We played it over and over again. We must have driven our uncle completely crazy. But I was hooked.”

After that, things began to happen very quickly.

In 1988, Craig met techno pioneer Derrick May. A year later, his first record, ‘Crackdown’, was released and his mentor May took him to London, where rave music was in the process of heralding a second Summer of Love. And where everyone was taking ecstasy. Craig was 20.

“We played in the Country Club (on the London-Essex border). We’d already understood that our music was going down well in Europe, but we hadn’t grasped just how well. All of a sudden, we were playing in front of 4000 people. It was really huge!” he says with a nostalgic laugh.

Carl Craig talks of that time now, with a hint of wistfulness in his voice. And that’s in spite of the fact that he must have been interviewed about the creation myth of the Detroit sound hundreds of times. But techno is more than just a music genre, and Detroit is more than just another struggling post-industrial city with the reputation that comes along with that label: derelict, destitute, dying.

Craig and most of his colleagues still live there, and they wouldn’t dream of moving away. Why is that? Just because. “There’s a new documentary film called A Requiem For Detroit,” says Craig. “It goes on about the city’s decline, shows the empty buildings and presents Detroit as if it was some desolate war-zone. Sure, the city’s been through a lot in recent decades, but that’s why we dreamed of a new, futuristic Detroit when I was young. And we’re still trying to bring that dream to life with what we have. If we can’t build any new houses, we can at least make our environment a better place through music.”

And that’s exactly what Craig is busy doing.

And not merely as a producer and label-operator.

The Detroit Electronic Music Festival, which he helped found exactly 10 years ago, has become the biggest dance festival in the US. As Detroit’s cultural ambassador, he’s always committed to encouraging new talent.

Craig has now brought in Detroit’s greatest sons together to celebrate techno’s 25th birthday, a project called D-25. Veterans such as Kevin Saunderson and Stacey Pullen are there, along with newcomers like Monty Luke. And, naturally, Juan Atkins is scheduled to make an appearance.

This year they are on tour celebrating the sound of the Motor City, at clubs in Europe, Asia and Australia. All through the night. And on towards the future.

The Festival Hall performance: en.redbulletin.com/print2.0 D-25 tour dates: detroitpremiereartists.com Tracks and thoughts: redbullmusicacademyradio.com

ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY: RICHIE HOPSON/RED BULL MUSIC ACADEMY

Heroes

DEFYING LOGIC

Reg. charity 267444 Photo: © Rodrigo Baleia.

Cattle ranchers in Paraguay want to cut down vast tracts of uncontacted Indians’ rainforest and still portray themselves as environmentally responsible.

How? Simple. Just call the islands of forests that are left ‘nature reserves’. Help restore logic. www.restorelogic.org/paraguay

Heroes

lionel messi

He’s the little man with the biggest possible reputation.

His monstrous talent is beyond question, but will it flourish on the world’s greatest sporting stage, in South Africa?

Words: Simon Kuper

Born June 24, 1987, Rosario, Argentina Started Playing Aged five Height 5ft 7in (1.7m) Football Club Barcelona Position Striker Professional Debut 2004-05 season Career Highlights Signed to Barcelona aged 13 after scoring five goals in 30 minutes in front of scouts Named top scorer in FIFA World Youth Championship 2005 with six goals, winning the competition with Argentina Won gold in the 2008 Olympic Games with his national side Favourite Food Milanesa Napolitana (a breaded steak with ham, melted cheese and tomato sauce) Family Ties Two of his cousins, Maxi and Emanuel Biancucchi, also play professional football

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Opinions differ as to who first put Leo Messi on a football field. His dad says the boy’s grandma forced Don Salvador Ricardo Aparicio, a coach at small club Grandoli in the Argentinian city of Rosario, to let the tiny five-year-old play with his older brothers.

Aparicio’s version was that he only had 10 players and, spotting the titch kicking a ball against a wall, asked Messi’s mum: “Will you lend him to me?”

Opinions converge on what happened next.

Messi’s mum dressed him in the team’s kit. The first ball came to his right foot, but nothing happened.

Then a ball fell to his left. “He came out dribbling as if he’d played all his life,” ‘Apa’ later recalled.

A foreigner witnessing the moment in the fading river town of Rosario, birthplace of Che Guevara – a town that time forgot – might have gasped.

Argentinians didn’t. They recognised Messi at once: he was the pibe, the ‘boy’ they’d been waiting for.

Usually, the main suspense before a World Cup concerns who will win it. This year, people are just as eager to know whether we will see the full Messi in action in South Africa.

If he can match some of the moments he has given us with Barcelona, but in football’s ultimate setting – well, the game doesn’t get better than that.

This World Cup is, in large part, about Messi. But to understand him, you have to understand his Argentinian footballing ancestry.

It was the sociologist Eduardo Archetti who explained the pibe to me, one day in Buenos Aires in 2000. He is a figure, Archetti said, who Argentinian football fans have had in their heads at least since the 1920s. He learns his football on the potrero, a bumpy, sloping surface, where only those who can dribble can keep the ball. He plays the creative game that Argentinians call la nuestra or “ours” – a style that they say comes from a child’s imagination.

In 1928, the journalist Borocotó proposed in the great Buenos Aires football magazine El Grafico that Argentina build a monument in “any walkway” to the inventor of dribbling. The statue, Borocotó

wrote, would depict: “a pibe with a dirty face, a mane of hair rebelling against the comb; with intelligent, roving, trickster and persuasive eyes and a sparkling gaze that seem to hint at a picaresque laugh not quite managing to form on his mouth... a mouth full of small teeth that might be worn down through eating ‘yesterday’s bread’.”

You might recognise the description. Indeed, when Maradona came along years later, Argentinian football fans had been expecting him. A tango, El Sueño Del Pibe (Dream Of The Boy) had been written about him in 1943. In the song, which Maradona has sung before in public, a young pibe likens himself to former legends: Dearest Mamita, I will earn money, I will be a Baldonedo, A Martino, a Boyé And the song ends with the pibe’s dream: He took the ball, serene in his action Ran past everybody to the keeper And with a firm shot he became the scorer The song anticipates not just Maradona’s great goal against England in 1986, but England’s revenge by little 18-year-old Michael Owen in 1998 (Argentinians nodded sadly and said, “the English have found a pibe”), as well as many of Messi’s goals.

The point is that, to their compatriots, Maradona and Messi are quintessentially Argentinian. A football fan Archetti interviewed in the late 1990s told him: “Now our problem is that we have had Maradona, and we will always expect to get another one.” The fan himself knew the expectation was absurd, but nevertheless, he had it.

Roberto ‘El Negro’ Fontanarrosa, the legendary Argentinian cartoonist, novelist and Rosario football fan, believed something similar. “Maradona

pHOTOGRApHY: ADIDAS

Name Lionel Andrés Messi

Boy wonder: The youngest-ever footballer to play a La Liga game, and also the youngest to score a league goal, can Leo hit the heights in the 2010 World Cup?

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could never have come from Belgium,” he insisted to me. Archetti, incidentally, said that Argentinian heroes are expected to die young, and sadly, that’s just what happened to both him and Fontanarrosa.

Archetti died of cancer in Norway in June 2005, four weeks before Messi won Argentina the Youth World Cup in Holland. poor Fontanarrosa went in 2007.

At least he lived long enough to see Messi. He must have recognised the pibe at once.

Messi may be quintessentially Argentinian, but crucially, he left Argentina in adolescence. It was all because he had an extreme version of the pibe physique: at 13, he was only 4ft 6in (1.4m). To reach a normal height, he would need hormone treatments costing about £500 a month. His impecunious steelworker father begged help from the club Messi had joined, Newell’s Old Boys, but ‘the Lepers’, traditionally run by incompetents, decided not to spend shrinking resources on the tiny kid.

Messi’s career was saved by his family’s origins in Catalonia. A cousin there persuaded Barça to look at him. In a trial match, Messi scored five goals. The club agreed to pay for his treatments.

The family left Rosario, crying, on what was Messi’s first plane journey, and landed in a European city they knew so little about that they were surprised to find it was by the sea. Every night in Barcelona, the pibe injected hormones into his feet. So short initially that when he sat on the team bench his feet didn’t touch the ground, he grew to 5ft 7in (1.7m), just big enough to be a footballer.

I first saw him at that Youth World Cup of 2005.

In the final, Argentina beat Nigeria 2-1, with two penalties from Messi. My main memory is his second penalty. Some penalty-takers wait for the keeper to dive before choosing the other corner. But Messi just needed the keeper to shift his balance fractionally onto his right leg, before choosing the other corner.

My neighbour in the stands was the world’s leading expert on youth football, the Dutchman piet de Visser, a scout for Chelsea, and late in the game he inevitably exclaimed: “Maradona!”

The same thought had struck Maradona. “I’ve seen the guy who is going to inherit my place in Argentinian football,” he announced on his TV talk show La Noche del Diez. “Messi seems to have an extra gear, a sixth speed. The ball remains on the upper part of his foot, like it’s glued to it. He feels the ball: that’s what makes him different.”

But the overwhelming sensation when you watch Messi is still: he’s a child. The nerd with the flowerpot hairdo looks like a kid who has won a competition to spend a day with Barça. His physique seems to mock all the man-monsters and fitness rooms and “food supplements” of modern sport.

When Messi receives a ball and doesn’t bother touching it, but just sets off running and lets it trot alongside him, he looks like a boy out with his pet dog. He dribbles with steps three-quarters the length of a normal step, allowing him to change direction faster than any opponent. And, being a child, he has superior balance to the men around him. That explains a characteristic Messi trait: 42

how often he wins the “second ball”. Often he’ll get tackled, the ball will spin loose, the tacklers will be off-balance, and Messi, who has instantly regained his full height, picks up the ball. That’s how he scored two of his four goals against Arsenal in April. put simply, he’s a pibe from the potrero. “He expresses very well the collective dream of Argentinian football,” says Jorge Valdano, the Argentinian footballer-turned-technical director of Real Madrid, and poet of football.

Yet Messi is more than a pibe. Thanks to his growth problem, the most gifted footballer on earth entered the best football academy on earth, Barcelona’s Masía. The Masía saved him from becoming a second Maradona. Like many players of his era, Maradona lived like a rock star. But Barcelona learned from Maradona, and later from Ronaldinho. Both had joined Barça as the world’s best youngster. Both had fallen for temptation: Maradona for cocaine, Ronaldinho for drink.

Temptation found Messi, too. After he broke into Barcelona’s first team, Ronaldinho began taking him out on the town. Finally, Josep Guardiola, then coach of Barça’s second team, told him: “Either you keep on partying, and you’ll be out of here in days, or you start eating properly, quit the alcohol, go to bed early and come to practice on time. Only then might you become the best in the world.”

Barça models itself on a family, and it made sure that Messi became an obedient son. Albert Capellas, youth co-ordinator at the Masía, which is housed in an ancient farmhouse next to the Nou Camp, says:

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pHOTOGRApHY: GETTY IMAGES (4), pIkO GABRIEL/ACTION pRESS (1), IMAGO SpORTFOTO (1), REFLEx MEDIA (1)

CREDITS

Left: in action for Argentina against Nigeria in the 2005 Youth World Cup, which Argentina won (below and below left); centre left: with Maradona; centre right: young Leo in the middle of three budding players; bottom left: playing against Real Madrid; bottom right: celebrating winning the 2009 UEFA Champions League final with team-mate Iniesta

“Messi and [Andres] Iniesta don’t live here any more, but this is their home. They come to eat, and if they have a problem, they come to us, as they would to their mother and father. For us they are not stars. It’s Leo, it’s Bojan, it’s Andres. We say, ‘you are a good man, don’t lose your values’.”

On the field, too, Barcelona moulded the pibe into a good boy. Frank Rijkaard, the Barcelona coach who gave Messi his debut, told me in 2008: “I’ve seen games where, for 90 minutes, it looked as if he was playing one against 11, and he kept getting kicked, but we only won 1-0, or it was 0-0, or we lost 1-0. He’s a fantastic dribbler, but he was making leaps forward by seeking variation in his game: one time you dribble, another time you give the ball back and go deep. He was becoming more effective by doing less.”

Maradona could dribble, pass and score, but thanks largely to Barcelona, Messi also mastered football’s other main craft: tackling. He is now the complete player.

You might say the pibe became a European. It was an education Maradona never had. At 22, Messi’s age today, Maradona was still playing in Argentina.

Besides, Messi’s personality is more conducive to a long and consistent career than Maradona’s was.

A man with little to say, he lacks Maradona’s wild poetry. “I don’t go out much. I enjoy being at home,” he says in two sentences never spoken by Maradona.

Messi may not have all Maradona’s good qualities, but he lacks the bad ones.

And yet, Argentinians ask, why doesn’t he play well for Argentina? When he’s with Barça, the only man who can stop him is Inter Milan’s pibecrushing coach José Mourinho. When he’s with Argentina, just pulling on the blue-and-white shirt seems to do the trick, though. perhaps Argentina suffers from a plethora of pibes. At times the team almost resembles Snow White and the seven dwarves. Messi doesn’t combine well with Carlos Tévez (5ft 6in or 1.67m on a good day), Sergio Agüero (nearly 5ft 8in or 1.73m) or pablo Aimar (5ft 5in or 1.65m), certainly not when coached by the Napoleonic Maradona (barely 5ft 5in, 1.65m).

Some Argentinians believe that the émigré doesn’t love his country enough. This enrages Messi who, as a teenager, refused to play for Spain’s youth teams (if he had, and was going to this World Cup with La Roja, FIFA might as well have handed Spain the trophy at the opening ceremony). Messi says, “Nothing upsets me more than for you to tell me I’m not Argentinian. What do you know about my feelings?” His Swedish team-mate Zlatan Ibrahimovic has commented dryly that if the Argentinians don’t want Messi, they can give him to Sweden.

Messi’s fellow pibe Maradona will probably try to resolve the matter by setting the boy free in South Africa. Like Maradona at the 1986 World Cup, Messi could then roam the pitch like a happy child. Then, if all goes well, the Argentinians will be able to rewrite that famous 1943 tango.

Follow the World Cup at www.fifa.com/worldcup

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Pioneer

gary fisher

With its roots in hippy California’s counterculture to its gradual absorption into the mainstream, the mountain bike has evolved into a sophisticated machine. And one man has been there all the way Words: Paul Fearnley Portrait: Emily Shur

Name Gary Fisher Born 1950 Lives San Francisco, California, USA Big Daddy Inducted into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame in 1988; Smithsonian magazine honoured him as the Founding Father of Mountain Bikes in 1994 Bad Hair Day He was kicked out of the Cycling Federation in 1968 for having long hair, but was reinstated soon after Web fisherbikes.com

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The genesis is blurry. The French have claims. As do the British. It would be beyond churlish, however, to deny ’70s Marin County’s cradling of the worldwide rush that is mountain biking. There was something in the air up there: the osmosis of a genius idea.

But even the bike bums of northern California, credited as being the founding fathers of off-road cycling – and there are quite a few – admit to a tangled web of local influences. First, there was American sociology professor John Finley Scott, off-roading his modded bikes as early as the ’50s.

Then came the downhill stoners of the Larkspur Canyon Gang, followed by the wraithlike ‘Pale Riders’ of the Morrow Dirt Club. All played their roles, but they’re walk-ons compared to Gary Fisher.

A rebellious road racer, Fisher held the baby, nursed it, guided it through its growing pains, and today, more than 30 years later, remains its most fervent proponent and wisest counsel. Not once has his love for it waned, and though that’s true of most of his paternalistas, he is the daddy of the founding fathers.

“I thought it would get big in the bike world,” he says, “but I never thought it would go beyond that.

I never thought my name would be in textbooks.

That’s crazy. I just wanted to make a bike and have a good time on it. It was that head-down mentality – ‘Let’s see where it takes us’ – that really worked for us.

“There were pockets of people who had bikes similar to ours doing things similar to what we were doing. But those things died out. The seed never took hold. We propagated a tree. We had it together enough to come up with this thing called the mountain bike. And we made enough of them to make a dent in the world.”

‘We’ was a group of like-minded cyclists at the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge. Fisher was a ‘punk kid’ whose promising junior road-racing and cyclo-cross career was cut short in 1968 because his hair wasn’t. Having spent four years providing light shows for San Fran’s influential music scene,

including the Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company, he returned to competition and helped found Vélo-Club Tamalpais, more denim and T-shirt than suit and stuffed shirt. Named after a nearby mountain, its riders were quick but quirky.

Marc Vendetti and Joe Breeze would cruise to its meetings on salvaged-for-$5 fat-tyred single-speed Schwinn ‘paper boy’ bikes of the 1940s. They called them ballooners, beaters, bombers, klunkers…

Whatever, the idea caught on – Fisher’s first was an old Shelby Traveler – and it wasn’t long before hippy-dippy fun gained cultish overtones.

“In America during the ’50s and ’60s, the whole notion of society was to get away from the outdoors, become more urban,” says Fisher. “The authorities didn’t want hippies living out there – which they were – and so they put locks on all the gates. That’s when bikes became the magic key.

The authorities didn’t know about us. You could be out there all day and not see a soul. We had a private party going on in the woods.

“It was an antidote. I’d go out on a long road ride, train hard, come back and go out on a ‘klunk’ in the afternoon. It was hilarious, but it helped my road racing. All this crazy stuff a natural rollercoaster can give you… I was ready for anything. I became a real good bike-handler. No one else was doing it and that gave me an advantage.”

Ah, the competitive instinct. Not even Marin County, aka ‘Haight-Ashbury North’, was immune.

‘My klunker is faster than yours!’ soon bubbled to the surface. “And everything changes when you put a clock on it,” laughs Fisher.

The heft of their junkshop/yard sale bikes (42lb/19kg) meant downhill was a klunker racer’s only option. So the precipitous and twisting Cascade Canyon gravel fire road, which plunges 1400ft (426m) in a fraction over two miles (3km), was selected as the showdown venue. The cascade canyon race, in October 1976, was won by Alan Bonds, roomie to Fisher and race promoter Charlie Kelly at the

Pedal power: Fisher, at his home in San Francisco, still designs, rides and races bikes

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Making tracks: Repack downhill races in Fairfax, Marin County, were an inspiration to the early mountain-bikers

‘Klunker Kamelot’: 32 Humboldt Avenue, San Anselmo. He was in truth the only competitor not to take a tumble.

This result was supposed to have been definitive, but a rematch was demanded and the races – now known as Repack because you had repack your pedal-back brake with grease after it had fried dry on the descent – came steep and fast for three years thereafter, as did the technical innovations fostered by its competition.

Fisher, an avid and capable tinkerer – welding, soldering, brazing, lathe and milling machine – was the first Marin-eer to equip his klunker, a 1938 Schwinn, with derailleur gears. A purist at heart, he wanted to ride up as well as down mountains. He wanted to stop too, so fitted drum brakes front and rear, the latter salvaged from a decrepit tandem, and motorcycle levers and cables.

Probably he had been influenced by the mysterious Morrow Dirt Club riders. In December 1974 they arrived unheralded from Cupertino, 75 miles (120km) south, to tackle a cyclo-cross in Marin County’s Mill Valley – and promptly disappeared for the next 20 years. Fisher says he had his racing head on that day and paid little attention to the strangers and their advanced mongrel klunkers. But a photo of the start shows him perched on his racer and taking a sneaky peek. (He was too smart not to notice.)

This was the cross-pollination that made the area such a fecund breeding ground. Repack was its hothouse. Its local renown grew quickly. Nobody asked Fisher, by now a Category One road racer, about his out-of-county exploits, but everybody wanted to know if he’d be at the next Repack, if he thought he could beat its gathering wave of out-oftowners. In December 1977, he risked it all and set a record – 4 minutes 22 seconds – that still stands.

“First prize was various bike parts, not, as everyone thinks, a bag of pot. That would have been a little too hot. Charlie [Kelly] had enough on the line just putting the race on: no insurance, no permits, nothing. True outlaw racing.

“If you take people there today, they think, ‘Hey, this thing is steep.’ It was good to ride, but part of 46

Work-in-progress: Fisher’s Klunker with modifications which added weight but increased the overall speed of the bike

Paper trail: The Fat Tire Flyer newsletter was started in 1980 and was a revelation for mountain-bike enthusiasts. The final issue was in 1987

winning was definitely not crashing. Every now and then a dozen or so try to break the record in an unofficial, bandit-type way. The closest they’ve got is about six seconds. The record is decent because we did it all the time, knew every bump and jump, and the conditions were perfect that day. But it would be beaten by 20-30 seconds if you held a UCI Mountain Bike World Cup Downhill there.”

Klunker donors were in short supply by 1977 and the few that remained were incapable of withstanding the strain of flat-out rough-road racing. So Kelly commissioned a custom-built lightweight frame. The first he wasn’t happy with; the second, designed and built in eight months by Breeze, was much more to his liking. Its maker had one too, and won with it first time out at Repack in October 1977. The klunkers’ number was up.

Fisher missed out on the first batch of 10 Breezers. Keen to incorporate his own ideas in any case, in early 1979 he made contact with Tom Ritchey of Redwood City, 50 miles (80km) south.

A star junior road-racer, Ritchey was a superlative frame-builder too, accurate and fast. His proficiency set Fisher thinking. Already he had a wider view of the new market that was forming. He was that bit slicker – in a good way – than his fellow Repackers.

In 1978, while his Marin mates trucked their bikes a thousand miles to Colorado to join mining town Crested Butte’s boozers-with-klunkers on their annual crossing of the 12,800ft (3901m) Pearl Pass mule track, Fisher, by now writing regularly for Bicycling magazine, jetted in from New York. He was with them absolutely in body and spirit. His mind, though, was perhaps elsewhere.

When his coach informed him he wasn’t ever going to be number one on the roads, Fisher, with Kelly as a partner, took an ill-prepared plunge into business in 1979. Theirs wasn’t the first company to mass-produce mountain bikes – ex-motorcycle racer Mert Lawwill just beat them to it – but it was the first to specialise. And it was called MountainBikes (sic). Fisher gave the sport, the phenomenon, its hook.

“The first bike cost $1320. That was everything custom-made, everything nice. That was the basic

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ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY: WENDE CRAGG (1), STOCKFILE (1)

“I feel good about selling bikes to people” Fisher is evangelical about cycling

standard: nice. You could buy a full-on custom road bike for $900. But we used to say, ‘Hey, you don’t buy a cheap parachute.’ The first year we sold 160.

The second we sold close to a thousand.”

Suddenly, everything was moving apace. A local TV station had syndicated its January 1979 news article about Repack via its CBS affiliates, and mountain bikes went national.

Fisher’s ’80s were understandably helter-skelter, with bumps and divergent single-tracks. Kelly had no love for the permits and legalese required by sanctioned sport and big business; hands-on innovator Ritchey wanted to remain (and has) at the high end of the market; Fisher wanted to drive down prices and generate mass appeal.

“I feel good about selling bikes to people,” says Fisher. “I don’t think that can hurt. Any time you’re out riding and meet somebody on a bike, it’s a better way to meet.” Hippy meets entrepreneur was,

In a spin: Fisher rounding Repack’s Camera Corner on a 1941 Schwinn Excelsior

however, a tricky balance. “When you start out with a bunch of people and a couple of them become really successful, invariably one or two of the others will say, ‘Well, you know, I woulda been there too – but he did some really bad things and I don’t wanna be like him.’ That’s human nature. I like to be able to answer any critic, evaluate what I’m doing – but then there’s the impetuous side of me: I just go ahead and do stuff. I’ve done that a lot. Too much.”

Fisher wobbled but didn’t crash. He bought out Kelly, and the original company, in debt, was wound up in 1983, to be replaced by Gary Fisher Bicycles.

By which time Specialized of San Jose, California had, with Japanese input, produced its iconic (and heavily Ritchey-influenced) Stumpjumper, the original massively mass-produced mountain bike.

By 1991, according to Fisher, after the first peak of mountain bikes, his company was “too big to be small, too small to be big” and was sold to Anlen of Taiwan. It was an unhappy time, Fisher no more than a puppet president. Fortunately, the more understanding and flexible Trek of Wisconsin came to his rescue in 1993, acquiring the company and allowing Fisher free rein to fast-track his innovations. Since then, he’s been happy (literally) in the saddle of Gary Fisher bicycles: racing hard or riding gently, on the road and off, mountain or urban; listening intently, talking engagingly – he does an excellent, but I’m guessing unknowing, line in Bill Hicks-type sarcasm and delivery – innovating constantly. Trek’s in charge in the background, but Fisher’s the man upfront. It’s an arrangement that suits and works.

Approaching 60, Fisher has fewer options on the hair front but still cuts the honed figure of a hardcore cyclist. (Think Hulk Hogan’s triathlon-ing brother.) He’s a ‘punk’ statesman now. He knows that America’s love affair with the automobile is unbreakable but contends it is not unshakeable.

He is evangelical about the spread of high-school mountain-bike leagues and the fanning network of single-track trails that has fuelled America’s second mountain-biking boom. He even has San Francisco politicians grabbing centre-line action on electricassist bicycles as they scratch through traffic to be first to the next sound bite/photo opportunity.

Hell, even George ‘Dubya’ loved his mountain bike. (Fisher laughs at the irony.) His successor in The White House has yet to be convinced, but if anybody can persuade Obama to swing his leg over a klunker, a cruiser – but not a bomber – it’s Gary Fisher, the hippy entrepreneur.

For more about Gary Fisher, pedal over to fisherbikes.com

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PhotograPhy: getty images

Action

Get up to speed with the latest sporting exploits around the globe 50 Gaelic football 54 senad Grosic 58 how football kicked off in south africa 64 fencinG star sylwia GruchaĹ a 70 at home with scuderia toro rosso

Making progress: Spanish Toro Rosso driver Jaime Alguersuari had a good run at the his home Grand Prix in Barcelona scoring a point. For more on the team see page 70

Action

Why the Sam Maguire’s two-horse race becomes three once you put a Cork in it Kerry and Tyrone’s joint custody of Gaelic Football’s most important trophy looks endangered this summer

t

he football championship is like a whodunnit, where it turns out that the most obvious suspect has been guilty all along. It’s been like that for the past seven years as Kerry and tyrone have combined for an almost unequalled period of dominance. this year they’ll be trying to equal the record of Kerry and Dublin, who shared eight all-Irelands between them from 1974 to 1981. and, while everyone has been focusing on Kilkenny’s monopoly of the hurling championship, the football hasn’t been any more democratic of late. to see just how abnormal the sharing out of honours by the dynamic duo has been from 2003 to 2009, it’s worth looking at how things panned out during similar periods of time. From 1993 to 1999, six different counties brought the Sam Maguire home for the winter. From 1983 to 1989, there were four different champions, from 1963 to 1969, five. It’s enough to turn anyone into an aBKot (anyone But Kerry or tyrone.)

So predictable has the championship become that Kerry could this year become the first team ever to reach seven all-Ireland finals on the trot. and it’s more than a decade, 1999 to be precise, since we had a last four without the Kingdom. Kerry and tyrone victories have come to seem as inevitable as death, taxes and Brian Cowen looking at his shoes when he’s making a speech in the Dail. the hopes of

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the aBKots rest almost entirely with Cork. the KerryDublin eight in a row was finally brought to an end by an offaly team who beat Kerry after previously losing a final and semi-final to them. Cork go into this year’s championship on the back of two losing finals and a semi-final. an old adage says that you have to win one to lose one. then again, to paraphrase oscar Wilde, to lose one all-Ireland final may be regarded as a misfortune, to lose two looks like carelessness. this year we’ll finally find out if Cork’s recent Croke park disappointments were painful but necessary learning experiences or merely evidence that the team is not quite good enough.

Cork are the most interesting team in the championship because they look like the only one that can break the power of the Kerry-tyrone cartel. Mayo are the best of the rest, but their defensive inadequacies were cruelly exposed in the league final. Dublin’s quarter-final drubbings in the last two championships suggest that the team peaked in 2007, and after that you’re into counties whose only hope of being at Croke park on final day is if they get a good deal on a corporate box. the rebels are different. they have come on in leaps and bounds over the past couple of years, they are immensely fit, physically imposing and possess an experienced back-line, a solid midfield and, above all, plenty of attacking firepower. at

photography: INpho/Cathal NooNaN

Words: Eamonn Sweeney

Perfect match: Kerry againt Tyrone again? Not this year

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this point, sceptics are entitled to observe that, for all the talk about their firepower, Cork will be fielding more or less the same forward line that managed a measly 1-9 in last year’s all-Ireland final. So why should they do any better this time?

Well, for one thing, the likes of Daniel goulding, paul Kerrigan and Colm o’Neill will be a year older. For all their talent, the first two were still under-21s three years ago, while o’Neill was still an under-21 last year. goulding made the jump to all-Star status last year, and a similar progression could see him claim the status of best forward in the game, something that has looked likely since his phenomenal under-age career. Kerrigan, inconsistent last year, put up some big totals in the league and has the ability to be at least as good as goulding was in 2009. the same goes for o’Neill. there is also the prospect of Fintan gould, a player perhaps even more talented than goulding and Kerrigan, finally breaking through in the half-forward line after five largely frustrating years at senior level, while under-21 Colm Sheehan showed enough in the league final to suggest at the very least an imminent role as a highly effective impact sub. perhaps the most intriguing prospect of all is midfielder aidan Walsh, man of the match in the league final, the very cut of a young Darragh o’Se and a player whose sheer footballing ability and mobility will greatly improve Cork around the middle of the field. add in finds like Jamie o’Sullivan and Eoin Cotter in the full-back line and you can see that Conor Counihan had an ideal league campaign, discovering the kind of players who gave Cork a strength in depth they had lacked. that the rebels could win the league final without anthony lynch, graham Canty and John Miskella speaks volumes about the enviable situation Cork find themselves in.

Conor Counihan had an ideal campaign, discovering players who gave Cork a strength in depth they had lacked. against this must be placed the nightmarish statistic for Cork fans that for five years in a row Kerry have beaten them at Croke park, on three occasions after the rebels had beaten their old enemy in Munster. on the face of it, this would seem to suggest that history is weighing heavily on Cork and bringing to the fore psychological frailties with the potential to derail them again this year. But it could also be argued that Kerry have had a stronger team than Cork for the past five years and that there was nothing psychological about it.

Should Cork slip up, Kerry will probably make it two in a row. yet they are weaker than last year. No one was more important to their all-Ireland victory last year than tommy Walsh, who contributed 1-6 of the 1-14 the team managed from play in last year’s semi-final and final. he is in australia now. and so is tadhg Kennelly, who chipped in with 0-4 in those games and, more importantly, destroyed Cork’s graham Canty in the final. Darragh o’Se may have been of largely symbolic value last year but he is at a loss. and the withdrawal of aidan o’Mahony from the panel will mean that the durability of Mike McCarthy over a full championship season will be fully tested. these losses will weaken Kerry, not least because despite talk about the conveyor belt of footballers in the county, the Kingdom have won just one of the last eight Munster under-21

Gareth Bradshaw / Galway

Aidan Walsh / Cork

Bernard Brogan / Dublin

The fearless, rosy-cheeked Moycullen native is an all-action half-back in the Tomás Ó’Sé mould.

He’s comfortable on the ball, wholly committed to the cause and can pop up with significant scores. In short, Bradshaw will be critical to Joe Kernan’s battle plan this summer. He could even provide the long-term solution to Galway’s problems at ‘uimhir a sé’, where his combination of direct, attacking style and no-nonsense defending would be a major plus.

The latest in Cork’s long tradition of totemic midfielders. He led the Rebels to All-Ireland Under-21 glory in 2009 and was a somewhat surprising starter in this year’s National League Final. Seventy minutes later the worst-kept secret in football was well and truly out as Walsh picked up the ‘Man of the Match’ gong. In a year when Cork are many people’s tip for ultimate honours, Walsh’s impact could prove a crucial asset.

The past season has seen the younger Brogan fully emerge from the shadows of big brother Alan. The St Oliver Plunkett’s inside forward is a natural finisher and, with a decent service, capable of clocking up impressive double figure tallies. This term’s National League has seen Brogan in typically clinical mode, delivering the sort of sharp-shooting exhibition that has become his trademark.

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playEr BIographIES: EaMoNN SEoIgE. photography: SportSFIlE (2), INpho/JaMES CroMBIE (1), INpho/MorgaN trEaCy (2), INpho/prESSEyE/aNDrEW patoN (1)

Six To Watch

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titles. you have to go back to the period 1979-1986 for a similar fallow spell, one which was soon followed by the county’s worst-ever run at senior level. this year’s under-21 defeat by tipperary showed that when the current Kerry side disbands, the county could be set for a spell in the doldrums.

For the moment, Kerry remain a compelling force. Kieran Donaghy can take up where tommy Walsh left off, paul galvin and Declan o’Sullivan remain among the best forwards in the game, Marc and tomas o’Se among the best defenders. however, all of these players have a lot of miles on the clock, as do the likes of tom o’Sullivan and tommy griffin. they, like the Cork players, will be a year older and that may tilt the balance towards the challengers. and what about tyrone? they have not been as remorseless as Kerry, each all-Ireland victory being followed by an off year or two. yet just two years ago they were good enough to defeat the Kingdom when the likes of Steven o’Neill, owen Mulligan and Brian Mcguigan played the smallest of bit parts. their relegation to division one seems ominous because tyrone have always been a good league team. there are even suggestions that they could be upset by antrim on their first day out. yet tyrone cannot be written off. In 2008 the Ulster Championship defeat by Down seemed to spell the end of the county as a serious force. In 2005 they bounced back from a gruelling Ulster final defeat by armagh. and if Cork are spooked by Kerry, the Kingdom, well beaten three times by tyrone, will probably hope that someone clears the Ulster team out of the way for them before September comes around. tyrone don’t deserve to be more than third favourites – their back-line creaked all through the league while their attack completely misfired in last year’s all-Ireland semi-final – but they are the

only team outside the Munster big two with genuine all-Ireland pretensions. and they are the only Ulster team with a serious shout at a time when the province has weakened considerably.

Mayo will once more be stronger than most but considerably weaker than the very best. their defeats by Meath in last year’s championship and by Cork in the league final suggest that about half of their back-line can’t be depended on in a big game at Croke park, though emerging talent Donal Vaughan, Enda Varley and aidan o’Shea gives them hope for the future.

Dublin have the two Brogans, considerable physical presence, the huge advantage of playing all their games at home, and not enough of anything else to do much more than win another provincial title. they may even have trouble holding on to their leinster crown. Meath are flying well below the radar but they have made two of the last three all-Ireland semi-finals and possess quality forwards such as Joe Sheridan, Stephen Bray and Shane o’rourke. Dark horses at 33/1, (and a tempting 13/2 for the leinster Championship) they are far more genuine contenders than the likes of armagh and Derry (both 25/1, which for the latter might as well be 250/1). With Kieran Mcgeeney’s rejuvenated Kildare also in the mix, the leinster might for once be the most interesting of the four. galway and Donegal can beat anyone on their day, but that day probably won’t come, while the likes of limerick, Wexford and antrim could cause an upset or two.

It would be wonderful if someone emulated galway in 1998 and came from nowhere to win the whole thing. But that won’t happen. at the moment, with all due respect to tyrone, it looks like a two-horse race.

Just like this year’s Cheltenham gold Cup, in fact.

Follow the title battle at www.gaa.ie

Stephen Gilmartin / Sligo

Michael Murphy / Donegal

Martin Clarke / Down

In recent times, The Yeats County have remodelled their once maligned modus operandi.

The over-use of the short hand-pass has been tempered somewhat by a more dynamic, direct approach, helped enormously by towering centrefielder Stephen Gilmartin. Imposing in the aerial exchanges and a long-range score taker par excellence, Gilmartin will relish the upcoming championship and, in particular, the mouthwatering tussle with near neighbours Mayo.

At just 20 years old, Glenswilly’s gifted full-forward is one of the game’s outstanding talents. The ‘Tír Conaill’ talisman has power, two accurate feet and the vision to bring others into play. Superlative performances versus Cork and Galway, among others, landed Murphy the 2009 ‘Young Footballer of the Year’ award.

Unsurprisingly, he’s continued his rich vein of form into 2010. Full-backs countrywide won’t relish his considerable company.

Clarke was a prolific under-age player before heading Down Under, where he became a 2007 rookie sensation in the AFL before suffering a horrible sophomore campaign riddled with persistent injuries. Last year, the prodigal son made an unexpected return, helping ‘An Dún’ win promotion to the elite Division 1 of the National League.

Look for him to pose a considerable threat come championship time.

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From wheelies in Mecca to backflips in Medina. BMX pro rider Senad Grosic took his bike skills to Saudi Arabia and ended up feeling like Michael Jackson

On holy ground

Senad Grosic is a citizen of the world. Born in Sisak, Croatia, but raised in Untertullnerbach, near Vienna, he became a BMX professional who has ridden his bike on every continent for the past five years, learning five languages along the way. But despite his many travels, there remained a pin Senad had yet to stick into his ‘world traveller’ map: Saudi Arabia.

So when, last April, he was offered the chance to go there and take his BMX shows to a new audience, he double-backflipped at

BMX pilgrim

With my bike in front of the Quba Mosque in Medina. I did my best shows in Medina. The spectators went mad and then invited me for dinner. They treated me to a Saudi five-course menu with chicken, rice and delicious chocolate cake.

the chance. Grosic, who’s a Muslim, would be the first star to take his BMX shows to Mecca and Medina, the holiest cities in the Islamic world. About the only predictable thing about such an unlikely trip was that it would throw up surprises – lots of them.

“When I got my bike out,” he relates, smiling broadly at the memory, “people just went berserk!” Here, exclusively in The Red Bulletin, is Senad’s rather unique travel diary.

Words: Andreas Rottenschlager

Print 2.0

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PHotoGrAPHy: KHAlId Al rASHeed

en.redbulletin.com/print2.0 Around Saudi Arabia on a BMX

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Mecca never sleeps

The city of the Hajj is heaving day and night. The vast hotels, the constant crush of people, the scale of everything here is simply mind-boggling.

I saw the Grand Mosque and the Kaaba for the first time, which pleased my grandmother more than anyone. My family clubbed together to pay for her to go on the Hajj three years ago. It’s kind of nice that I’ve now been to the same places on a BMX. I called my gran when I got there and said: “Hi, your grandson’s in Mecca!”

Prince in a Porsche

Prince Abdulaziz Al-Faisal is the coolest person ever. Period. He’s a sort of A-list celebrity in Saudi Arabia and the grandson of former King Faisal Al-Saud (the country is named after the family).

I met Prince Abdulaziz in Jeddah and we hit it off straight away.

He’s absolutely nuts about motorsport and he races in the Porsche Cup. We got on so well that we came up with a joint stunt.

You can see it in this picture (left).

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PHotoGrAPHy: NIzAr MUzAIN (2), KHAlId Al rASHeed (1), red BUll (1), eMAd Al SAlHI (3)

Airtime at Uni

Doing a backflip in Medina – over two students. I’d never have thought that people in Saudi Arabia would be so keen on BMX. The fans went mental. I felt like Michael Jackson.

Street Style Medina’s skater kids

Doing a show in a Saudi skatepark. You can imagine the kids’ reaction. Things for them now are like they were for us 20 years ago. Not everyone approves of them doing sport for fun, but they do it anyway and with huge ambition.

The greatest discovery I made on my trip was understanding that wherever in the world I get my bike out, I can always bring a bit of variety to people’s daily routine.

Senad in action at en.redbulletin.com/ print2.0. More pictures and an interview at en.redbulletin.com/senadinarabia

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The first kick-off

mid the noise and colour of South Africa’s opening match against Mexico at this month’s 2010 FIFA World Cup, any reflection on the national team’s first game, against Cameroon some 18 years earlier, is unlikely. For the hosts, that day in July 1992 will be an age away from the 95,000 fans urging them on at Johannesburg’s lavishly revamped Soccer City stadium.

Time has marched on in a country reborn by dramatic political, social and economic change. The transition from apartheid to a country now in the full glare of the world’s attention has been as remarkable as it has been rehabilitating.

And to place this journey in context, it’s worth looking at the circumstances that gave rise to Bafana Bafana’s (it’s Zulu for ‘The Boys’) return to international football, and the players’ recollections of that deeply significant game.

It’s something of an understatement to say that 1990, two years before that 58

symbolic match, was a big year for both protagonists. For South Africa, it was the year Nelson Mandela was released after 27 years in prison – an event that would be a significant turning point in the country’s troubled history. For their opponents, Cameroon, 1990 was also a turning point. Thanks to their heroics in the 1990 World Cup finals in Italy – beating Argentina in the opening round and giving England an almighty fright in the quarter-finals – African football came of age on the international stage. It was the best performance yet by an African country as the Indomitable Lions reached the sharp end of the tournament, both thrilling and horrifying the watching world with charismatic skills and bonecrunching tackles respectively.

The ball for Bafana Bafana’s re-entry to world football began to roll fairly quickly after the ANC leader’s release from prison. FIFA president João Havelange visited South Africa in early 1991, quickly followed by a fact-finding

mission sent by the Confederation of African Football (CAF) leadership later the same year. By January 1992, South Africa had been given temporary membership of African football’s governing body and their full FIFA membership became a mere formality at FIFA HQ in Zurich four months later.

By the start of July, the country could play international soccer. The football gods were clearly behind FIFA’s newest member when a berth was also found for them in the 1994 World Cup qualifying competition. Thanks to the withdrawal of both Libya and the tiny nation of São Tomé e Príncipe, an unlikely spot in football’s biggest tournament was suddenly on the cards.

This progress had local officials scrambling to find a coach and start putting together a team. The fledgling South African Football Association (SAFA) had no funds, but its sponsors, notably South African Breweries, willingly stepped in to bankroll their

PHoTogrAPHy: gALLo IMAgES (1), THE INdEPENdENT NEWSPAPEr grouP (3)

a

South Africa, host nation of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, has travelled far since the country played its first match as a unified nation in 1992. Mark Gleeson and Nick Said recall the initial steps of an amazing journey

Top: South African striker Phil Masinga (left). Centre: Cameroon goalkeeper Bassey William Andem concedes an historic goal in Durban. Bottom: Roger Milla (right) was one of the visitors’ star turns

early activities. While a high-profile friendly against the likes of Brazil or England might have seemed like a nobrainer for such an important debut, the politically poignant days parallelling democratic changes in South Africa meant that symbolism was paramount.

And no opponents came with more than Cameroon, the new pride of Africa. An invitation was therefore despatched to Cameroon’s capital yaoundé.

“I went to Cameroon to invite them and to meet with them,” explains danny Jordaan, now the head of South Africa’s 2010 World Cup preparations, but back then a member of the new association’s management committee. “We chose Cameroon because of their star player roger Milla and the charisma that had developed around the team at the 1990 World Cup. They were not only the best African team at the time, but Cameroon’s Issa Hayatou, the President of CAF, had also helped smooth our return to the international football fold.”

With the official stamp on South Africa’s FIFA membership papers just a week old, the Cameroonian national football team landed in Johannesburg for a three-match tour, admittedly a weaker squad than the one that had played at the 1990 World Cup, but still with several recognisable squad members. SAFA and the tour sponsors went to extraordinary lengths to ensure a raucous welcome. Crowds were bussed in to fill the arrivals hall at the old Jan Smuts International Airport and the Cameroonian players emerged – later than advertised – looking bewildered, even a little scared, to a noisy reception.

The crowd hoisted Jean Claude Pagal onto their shoulders, recognising his distinctive dreadlocked look from Italia ’90, and roger Milla got a reception usually reserved for a film star. Tired and somewhat bemused, the squad then sat through over an hour of formal introductions in a room full of media, where charismatic SAFA general secretary Solomon ‘Sticks’ Morewa played master of ceremonies. He called up every delegation member by name and held their hands aloft as if they were boxers victorious in a title bout. Morewa, who had whiled away the wait chugging back on his favoured white wine with ice, danced and sang behind the main podium, his inebriation due in equal parts to his consumption and to the promise of an historic spectacle to come.

In African football, visiting teams usually have to run a gauntlet of intimidation, with no one waiting to 59

“It was only a dream. I know people use that term a lot, but for us, it really was. I never thought it would happen in my lifetime” David Nyathi

speed them through customs on arrival, poor and deliberately slow transport, bad hotels, and unplayable training grounds.

Ironically, Cameroon are recognised as among the continent’s worst hosts. But South Africa had more than just a red carpet out for their visitors: a private jet waited to whisk them on to durban and the first international on July 7, 1992.

South Africa’s coach, Stanley ‘Screamer’ Tshabalala, was not the first choice for the job, having been handed the position after irregularities were picked up on the CV of the man initially appointed, Englishman Jeff Butler. But Screamer came with an excellent local record, having won nine major trophies with local Pretoria side Mamelodi Sundowns. That impressive achievement aside, he still had the unenviable task of selecting from a pool of players whose international experience totalled zero.

“It was tricky putting the side together because we had no reference point to work from,” recalls Tshabalala. “In the 60

apartheid era we had no invitation matches against other countries, unlike our rugby and cricket teams, which had very good ‘rebel tour’ opponents touring the country. At least their players had a little international experience. We had nothing. But I like to think that the side we selected laid a platform for the success that followed. guys like david Nyathi, Lukas radebe, Neil Tovey, doctor Khumalo and Phil Masinga all played in the side that won the 1996 African Cup of Nations, and they were in that very first line-up against Cameroon.”

Tshabalala admits that there was much to prove to an expectant nation, and says he felt like he was, “the only one with an eye, leading the blind”.

Elaborating, he says, “we were up against a team with a lot of experience, something we didn’t have, and I could see in the boys’ eyes that they were very nervous. We all knew how important it was for the country that we got a good result because it would lift the mood of

the people. It was a difficult time, but football could do that. So there was a big sense of responsibility, and I felt that on my shoulders. But I didn’t want my players to feel it as well.”

Aside from a trial game between a ‘probable’ and ‘possible’ team, the coach didn’t have much in the way of preparation time for the tour’s opening game. At least the players were in shape – the three-match tour fell in the middle of the domestic league season, which had been temporarily halted to allow for the event. And even then, the team’s last training session before the big day was usurped by the growing publicity. While Tshabalala tried to conduct training, his players peeled away to have their pictures taken in the country’s new strip – a gold, white and back-striped affair manufactured by Italian sportswear firm Kappa, whose products were popular among black society’s nouveau riche.

For the players, the game was not only about representing their country,

PHoTogrAPHy: THE INdEPENdENT NEWSPAPEr grouP (1), MorNE VAN ZyL (1)

Left: David Nyathi tackled by Cameroonian defender Jean-Claude Pagal. Above right: Nyathi is now an elder statesman of South African football

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but also held the promise of real financial security. International football offered the opportunity for many of them to escape poverty. Back then, players in South African football earned a veritable pittance – perhaps a little more than the average worker, but nothing like the amount that separates today’s soccer superstars from the common man.

Football was a way to escape from the harsh realities of township life, where unemployment was rife and it was a daily struggle to put food on the table.

Among those offered a lifeline by the Cameroon match was david Nyathi, arguably the best left-back the country has ever produced, who would go on to forge a career in Spain, Switzerland and Italy’s Serie A. Now a deep thinker about the game, the raw 23-year-old was then playing for the wonderfully named dangerous darkies, a team from Mpumalanga Province in the nation’s second division. until then, international football was never a consideration for Nyathi, given its political context.

“I was not all that aware of the political situation at the time, but I did know that we were missing out on a lot by not playing international football.

I remember watching bits of Cameroon playing at the 1990 World Cup in Italy and seeing these fellow Africans competing with the best in the world.

It brought out a great sense of pride in me; I felt I could identify with these guys and I loved watching them. They were an inspiration, and role models. But then I looked out of my house and saw unemployed people wandering around; I saw the frustration on faces and knew that playing at that level was only a dream. I know people use that term a lot, but for us, it really was. I never thought it would happen in my lifetime.”

Nyathi’s dream suddenly began to look a lot more achievable the day that soon-to-be replaced coach Jeff Butler arrived at a darkies’ training session and took Nyathi aside. “He told me I had been earmarked for selection and would be part of a selection squad for the matches.

I played in a National Soccer League XI against a South African squad XI. In the NSL side we had guys like doctor Khumalo and the late Sizwe Motaung.

I must have done oK, as I was then selected for the official squad.”

The captain was a white player, Neil Tovey, chosen not for his colour, but for his obvious leadership skills. Tovey had just turned 30 and had long given up the dream of playing international football. “growing up in South Africa, we could

never afford to think about playing in World Cups. Suddenly, we had the opportunity, but even then, I thought I’d missed the boat.”

Match day was cold and chilly, rare for durban. It meant a disappointing turnout at the King’s Park rugby Stadium for a match that millions of South African football fans had supposedly been waiting for decades to see. A strike by journalists at the state broadcaster SABC also meant there was no TV coverage. But the significance of the occasion was not lost on the players.

Tshabalala, trying to keep the prematch mood in the dressing room as light as possible, simply went through his game plan one last time.

“It was 18 years ago, but I still remember vividly standing in the bowels of the stadium and hearing the noise from outside,” he says. “The players were nervous, but I told them this was the start of something good in our country. I said, ‘Just go out there and play to your strengths; make sure guys like [doctor] Khumalo get the ball, but be constructive in dribbling. Play from the back, but keep it tight, because we are playing the best in Africa and they will punish even the smallest mistakes. don’t play around with the ball, just do what we practised in training.’’”

Centre-back Steve Komphela, who would later go on to captain the side, says there was a togetherness in the squad from the go, helped by the coach.

“Screamer had an unbelievable sense of humour and a way of making the players feel at ease,” Komphela says.

“This was important because, in South Africa then, we saw each other in terms of our colour. Today we are all just players and those barriers have been broken down, to a large extent – but back then, there was potential for a divide.

The players from the big Jo’burg clubs like [Kaizer] Chiefs, [orlando] Pirates and [Mamelodi] Sundowns, were the main guys, the ‘big okes’. Then the coloured players from Cape Town all hung out together, and then the whites just fitted in wherever. Being the only player from the Free State province, I was on my own, but there were never any problems – quite the opposite, in fact. I roomed with reserve goalkeeper roger de Sá, and today I still call him my ‘white brother from another mother’, because the friendship we forged there has now lasted for almost two decades.

That was the spirit we had in the camp.”

When it came to the anthems, the South African apartheid-era anthem,

The hisTory of fooTball in souTh africa South Africa’s democracy may still be a teenager, but the country is a veritable grandparent in terms of football. Indeed South Africa holds the distinction of being the first nation outside Europe to be a member of FIFA (apartheid policies later saw them unceremoniously booted out), and they have been playing international football since 1897.

1906: South Africa first makes waves in international football when an all-white side travels to South America. After beating domestic Brazilian clubs, they thump Argentina 4-1 in Buenos Aires.

1938: South African Bantu Football Association launches the ‘Moroka Baloyi’ tournament – in essence an inter-provincial competition that also involved the national teams of Lesotho and Swaziland. This paved the way for a proliferation of international representative games with neighbouring countries, which reached a particular intensity in the 1950s.

1956: Along with Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan, South Africa is a founder member of the Confederation of African Football. Kicked out five years later.

1961: South Africa suspended by FIFA. Their last international match before their sporting isolation is against Israel in 1964.

1972: The South African Games sees black, white, coloured and Indian football teams competing against each other.

1976: After the infamous Soweto uprising, South Africa is formally expelled from FIFA. 1977: A South African team beats Rhodesia over two matches with Gary Bailey, later to play for England, on the bench and famed Liverpool goalkeeper Bruce Grobbelaar in the opposite goals.

1991: On December 8 the South African Football Association (SAFA) is founded, the culmination of a long unity process that was to rid the sport in South Africa of all its past racial division.

2004: South Africans celebrate in the streets on May 15 , 2004 when, at the World Trade Center in Zurich, FIFA President Sepp Blatter announces that the country will host the first-ever FIFA World Cup on African soil, in 2010.

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Top: the team that represented a new, rainbow nation. Above, left: Legendary coach Stanley Tshabalala.

Centre: Lukas Radebe, one the country’s greatest exports. Right: former defender Steve Komphela

Die Stem, was jettisoned in favour of popular traditional worker’s song, Shosholoza, meaning ‘go forward’.

Komphela recalls: “As Shosholoza was being sung, I looked to the floodlights and I saw it had started to rain. I like to think these were the tears of god – tears of joy for us and what was being achieved in South Africa. It was a very emotional moment – a defining moment for me. I felt a chill down my spine.”

Tovey adds: “It was something we’d been living for – a chance to compete against the world. It was a privilege to be the captain of the first team back in international football. That’s an achievement no one else will match.”

Also in the team was Lukas radebe, who went on to captain South Africa at two World Cups, as well as English giants Leeds united. He says: “We were playing against our heroes – you know, guys we had seen on TV and who had done so well at the 1990 World Cup. We were in awe of them and when I looked at them 62

on the field, I thought they looked like true international stars.”

There is no match coverage to rewind and study, only snatches from news cameras. But it was no classic, the game degenerating into a farce at times, with the South African players trying far too much trickery and the Cameroonians getting visibly irritated and throwing their weight around. once the game got underway, the South Africans quickly realised what they were up against.

Khompela says: “The Cameroon players had rippling muscles and amazing physiques. We were skilful, but no match for them physically.”

Tovey disputes this, saying: “We didn’t know what to expect and were a little overawed, but to be honest, I don’t remember them being that physical. We were a match for them and should have won more convincingly.”

The footballing gods knew the script well, though, and with the Botswana referee handing South Africa a late

penalty, doctor Khumalo stepped up to take the momentous kick. A skilful midfielder and the chief playmaker within the South African side through the 1990s, Khumalo admits he was a reluctant history-maker: “I used to take penalties all through my career, but this was a scary one!” he says. “Just because of the opposition we were playing and the occasion – I don’t know… I didn’t want to take it. After the referee awarded the penalty, the ball just lay there in the penalty area. We all just looked at each other and I think we all chickened out.

The captain [Neil Tovey] walked up to me and said, ‘Come on, I know you can do it,’ and I wasn’t about to turn him down. He had the confidence to ask me out of all the players and I wasn’t going to say no to him, even though I didn’t want the responsibility.

“As I placed the ball, I was just so scared, but the fans were cheering.

I think they had faith in me, too. I don’t really remember which way I decided to go… I probably did think about placement versus power, but maybe the tension of that moment has made me forget. When the ball hit the back of the net, the stadium went wild and I celebrated more out of relief than anything else. Even after the game, it was just another penalty scored and I was relieved that I hadn’t missed!

“But next day or the day afterwards, someone said to me, ‘man, what does it feel like to make history?’ And it was only then that I really thought about the significance of that goal to South Africa and to myself. It was the most important goal ever scored in the country up to that point, and I can look back on it today and feel a real sense of history. Here we are, nearly 20 years on, still talking about it. None of my other goals from 20 years ago are still talked about!”

Perhaps more remarkable is that Khumalo wouldn’t have been playing had Jeff Butler still been coach, since he failed to call up the Kaizer Chiefs man. It was Tshabalala who drafted then 25-year-old into the squad.

Tshabalala says for him the game went by in something of a blur. He remembers the penalty scored by Khumalo late on, but only knew it had gone in when the crowd erupted.

“I have never watched a penalty in my career! Whenever there was a penalty shoot-out, I always looked at the crowd.

This time, they told me it had gone in – I only saw it on the tape afterwards.”

A win was the perfect start for the new coach and probably the highlight

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“It was the opening of a door to all the players, who could now dream of playing in Europe” Neil Tovey

Above: Former South African skipper Neil Tovey. Above right: In his heyday

of his brief tenure in charge –three months and six matches later, he would be sacked for slapping a journalist!

“I felt like a million dollars in the dressing room afterwards,” Tshabalala recalls. “We had beaten a very good side, and for me, this was a sense of pride. you know, in those days there were few black coaches in South African football, so I felt as if I had sent out a message that said, ‘Look, black coaches have what it takes to perform at the highest level.’’”

Komphela remembers: “When [doctor] Khumalo scored that goal, pandemonium broke out. But what was good about that side was that the players, almost from number one to 11, were all captains of our club sides, or at least players with experience and level heads.

That team had leadership – much more leadership than a lot of Bafana Bafana teams down the years.”

Nyathi says: “When I look back now… it is difficult to put it into words how the occasion felt. There was a tremendous

sense of pride, I suppose, in playing with those players. It’s not something I really reflect on nowadays, but when I talk about it, I do feel immense pride.” radebe adds: “When I look back now, I would say that playing in the game was right up there with any career highlight that came before or afterwards. It’s something that will never leave me, the excitement and the awe we had going into that game. There was no way we could just sit back and let them come at us – we had to take the game to them and that is what we tried to do. We were a bit nervous, for sure, but we really wanted to win because that would send a message to the nation. It’s not often you get 11 players making their international debut and that inexperience would cost us later on – but we were living off adrenalin and a desperation to do well in that first game. That is what got us through in the end.”

Tovey says: “It was the opening of a door to all the players, who could now

dream of playing in Europe. It wasn’t long after that Lukas and Phil [Masinga] went to Leeds united and that was just the start – since then, everyone has had a proper opportunity.”

The tour ended all-square after three matches. The second international saw Cameroon come back after conceding an early own goal, to win 2-1 at the goodwood Showgrounds in Cape Town, and then draw 2-2 at Johannesburg’s Soccer City in the last encounter.

Honour was intact on both sides.

“It was good for us,” reflects danny Jordaan. “I can still now see the fear in the eyes of our other players. But after the match in durban, they had a confidence instilled in them that even became a cocky arrogance, and later, a belief that we could even beat Brazil.”

Who knows – that might even happen, as Bafana Bafana host the word’s elite, nearly 20 years on.

Catch up on the host team’s preparations for 2010, on www.sa2010.gov.za

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Behind the mask Sylwia Gruchała’s faceguard is everything to her. Without it, she’s a sensitive soul with a (very) pretty face; with it, she’s a fighter who cares only about victory Words: Szymon Gruszeski Photography: Dan Vojtech

Beauty and brains. Sylwia Gruchała, one of the brightest stars in the Polish sports firmament, is blessed with both.

And talent. Exceptional sporting talent.

She has won two Olympic medals, seven World Championship medals and stood on the highest step of the podium at the European Championships five times.

Yet the prodigious success has come at a cost: fatigue, suffering and sacrifice. Operating at such a peak, she experiences, she says, moments of tiredness and times when she reflects that maybe she should stop, quit while she’s ahead. Lost family time, neglected friends, experiences missed: this is the kind of sacrifice made possible only by the passion of an individual who truly loves what they do.

It’s rare to find in life something you love and at which you excel. If it happens, as it did for Gruchała, consider yourself blessed. Her experience of fencing is as a kind of art form and for as long as she remains able to perfect her art, she feels an obligation to do so. It is, she believes, her duty.

Her time at the top is her ‘five minutes of fame’ in sport and she wants to exploit it to the max.

To that end, her next target is the London 2012 Olympics and the goal of another Olympic medal. Two years away, two years of devotion, concentration, practising an art form.

But as Sylwia Gruchała puts on her mask, she composes, focuses… and she is ready. red bulletin: So why did you set out to become a fencer?

A schoolgirl crush on D’Artagnan?

Sylwia Gruchała: Ha! Anything but! When I started practising at the age of 12, I hated fencing. I went to sports school in Oliwa because it was the closest to my home. In the second year, the coach, Leongin Szmit, came to our PE lesson and selected a few people, including me, to start practising fencing faster and more intensely. I didn’t want to and I asked my father to go to the school to explain how I felt. He believed that you shouldn’t force yourself to do anything and he never forced me.

But you’re now one of the world’s best fencers. What changed?

When I was 15 I had to choose between either fencing or 64

Art attack: Sylwia Gruchała’s experience of fencing is as a kind of art form that she’s able to perfect

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athletics. I like running so I wanted to do athletics, but the class was already full, so I ended up doing fencing instead.

I owe a lot to my coach, Leongin Szmit, who developed the passion for the sport in me.

So your coaches have been you guides?

I owe them the way I am today. Their words and guidance have shaped me. But the ‘moulding period’ is over now, so these days I look for a different kind of co-operation. All through my career coaches have chosen me, but last year, for the first time, I chose a coach, Adam Kaszubowski, and I believe the partnership has been a great success.

I was told not to, but I knew it was the right choice. Adam and I are on the same wavelength, and apart from honesty, I consider simple understanding between two people the most important aspect of interpersonal relationships.

Who’s your idol?

Valentina Vezzali, the queen of fencing. I have followed her for many years as she has been a multiple Olympic champion.

In the beginning I used to lose to her on a regular basis, although nowadays I lose in individual fights but I win in team fights. I have managed to beat her five times, but until now it’s never been in an important competition. That’s why my current goal is to win at the Olympics or the World Championships when Valentina’s competing.

Why do you admire her so much?

She doesn’t give herself away; she hides her moves and seems like a creeping puma to me. When she attacks, she does it at full speed. And she has a very strong nervous system: she does everything in cold blood.

I’m less sophisticated, more emotional; I sometimes find it hard to keep my temper. I know that if I manage to fully control my emotions I will be able to beat her soon.

It sounds like a job for a sports psychologist...

I don’t work with a psychologist. That kind of co-operation can only help if you believe in it. I believe in myself and in the fact that our life is what we make it. If we believe in something, if we want something very much then this is what will happen. I’m convinced man is the master of his own destiny to a large extent; a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’.

But wouldn’t a psychologist help you to be able to, say, control your emotions?

I try to manage on my own. But at the end of the day no psychologist will be able to stand with me when I’m on the fencing board. It’s extremely difficult to control your emotions. It’s not like any other technique you can learn.

When tiredness creeps in it’s harder to control yourself.

But I do know how to get back on my feet.

A competitive athlete has to be able to control not only every move, but also every thought. This is working with your mind, which is absolutely fascinating, but it also requires a great deal of self-discipline.

So what happens when you lose concentration?

It’s strange, but I often find that my weaknesses, such as a momentary lack of strength, are a source of mobilisation; in dangerous situations I can collect my last resources of energy. This is when the adrenalin rush happens, which is so important in sport.

You seem to be bursting with energy. What’s your source? What fuels you?

Goals motivate me. ‘Target thinking’ is so important in sport and in life. Even if the road to your goal isn’t all rosy, and if you have failures it’s important to think about the target all the time, not to get distracted and not to focus on obstacles.

And failure can serve as a motivator. Whenever I fail at 66

Name Sylwia Gruchała Born November 11, 1981 Gdynia, Poland Lives Gdansk, Poland This Sporting Life Olympic Games: Athens 2004 – individual bronze; Sydney 2000 – team silver World Championships: St Petersburg 2007 – team gold; New York 2004 – team bronze; Havana 2003 – team gold World Cups: Salzburg 2010 – individual 2nd; Havana 2009 – individual 1st; St Petersburg 2006 – individual 1st

Heroes

Er iure ming erostin ut vulluptat laorem quipissis am ver autetuer iuscidui blandiamet nulpute tio consequam ea atio odo ea faccum iure feum erit aliscilis alit erat. Ut pratums

“I believe in myself and in the fact that our life is what we make it. If we want something very much then this is what will happen�

Do you ever feel like saying, ‘Enough’? something, I want to withdraw, but when I get a grip on my After longer breaks in practice I’m always afraid I’ll be tired. emotions and stabilise them, then I get filled with the will I’m scared of the feeling of extreme exhaustion when you to fight. failures teach us to set new targets for ourselves, have no energy to do anything. I’ve learned that you have and teach us humility. There’s nothing better than drawing to pass a certain limit, overcome yourself and hold out. a lesson from your own mistakes.

This is probably the most difficult thing in sport.

I’ve been training for 18 years and the awards that Have you thought yet about quitting?

I’ve received have also been quite useful for motivation!

Well there have certainly been moments when Can you describe the feeling you have when you’re I wanted to surrender, when it all got too nerveon the stage, just away from the fencing board, racking and cost me too much health. before the start of a match?

There was a point when I lost a number of When I step onto the board I look for a very hard-tocompetitions in a row and I thought that I was define feeling: ‘the flow’. It’s an overpowering feeling finished, that it was time to pull out. But I’m past of freedom. When you have it there’s no fear during that now. I realised that what I wanted to do was a fight, no sense of time; you’re devoid of all these chicken out, escape from the problem and bury things. It’s like a drug, a state of nirvana, you forget it deeply. now though I’ve awoken the will to fight about everything. It’s really phenomenal. You could again and said to myself that this is what I enjoy say it’s the most beautiful thing about this sport. doing, this is my life. I realised I couldn’t give up, What does ‘the flow’ give you?

SYLWIA that I wouldn’t be happy if I surrendered. Because When I manage to reach it during a match, I can GRUCHAŁA this is what I am by nature – a fighter. foresee the moves of my opponent, sense her PLAYS WORD What’s the hardest part of being a sportswoman? intentions, I know what she’s going to do before ASSOCIATION The choice between professional career and the she actually makes her move. It’s a sort of sixth family was really very hard for me... There are sense. It feels like everything is in slow motion, and I am a number of other sacrifices too, such as fighting remember that fencing is a very fast, dynamic sport.

A woman with your weaknesses, lack of social life, diet, You have to think ‘straight’ – and simple, logical Dream travelling and discipline. But the worst thing is thinking is most difficult in stressful situations.

An Olympic definitely that professional sport kills social and When we’re excited, our perception of reality is gold medal family life. I keep promising myself there will be distorted and we can’t see solutions that might Fear a time when I make up for all this, be with my be right in front of us, so we try to come up with Health family and spend time with friends. unnecessary tricks. When I feel this happening, And what about now, when you do manage my philosophy is to stop and look inside. Often, In five to find some time off? this is where we can find the right answer. years’ time I will be a mother There’s not a lot of time off. Apart from training How do these ideas of self-reliance translate sessions, I’m studying physical education at the into co-operation with your coach?

Fencing Academy of Physical Education. I enjoy going Put it this way: the kind of regimen that inevitably Fight to the cinema and theatre… but I can only find accompanies professional sports is not something The Olympic real peace at home. I like to be on my own. I run that I find natural. We can get into difficult situations Games a huge bath for myself, light the candles and when, for example, I’m tired and the coach pushes Stress burn incense. I like this Eastern stuff [laughs]. me and starts an even harder workout. That’s when Gdańsk You took part in Poland’s equivalent of Strictly I become intolerable: I stand up for myself and rebel.

Home Come Dancing. Did you enjoy it?

But my strength is that I live in harmony with Valentina Looking back, I think maybe it wasn’t such a good myself. I know my body and my capabilities perfectly.

Vazzali idea. I wasn’t being true to myself by taking part I’m aware of what I’m feeling, so I can’t be thrown A great in the show. I’m actually a little ashamed of doing into a group by force. A coach can’t kill individuality. sportsperson it, even though I learned a lot. I saw what the showIt doesn’t sound as if this kind of confrontation Handsome business machine is all about and I realised I didn’t would be an issue with your current coach. men fit into it. In sport, if you work for something, you How does the harmony happen?

It would be nice have tangible results – maybe a medal, but in TV, I have a lesson every day at 4pm. Adam sets the agenda, if they didn’t take somebody else is deciding your fate. we talk a lot, then discuss tactics and philosophy. advantage of it So why did you do it?

After that I have a training session with the group.

Out of curiosity. I wanted to know what it was Sparring is the most important part of training: Travel like. Besides, I love dancing. After the Olympics fencing is a combat sport, so the more you fight your Broadens the I had some time off, and this show allowed me competitors, the better, because each of them has a mind to do something completely different. different style and represents a different challenge.

Did you fancy constructing a new media image You have to find your way to fight each of them. My for yourself based around the show? sparring sessions last more than two hours a day.

My image is something I’ve created in a very natural way How much time do you devote to fencing every day? from the start. I’ve only had a manager for a short time and Three to four hours – although I spend much, much more this dance show was not premeditated. time fencing before important events such as the World I want to be perceived as a sportsperson, the best female or European Championships. I often go to national team fencer, not a star. Believe me, when I prepare for important training camps, during which I train twice a day. That’s events such as World or European Championships or the about six to seven hours in the fencing hall and a big Olympic Games, I’m exclusively focused on the sport: there physical effort. You really have to love it; you can’t be are no distractions at all. I have no contact with the media, scared of fatigue, physical or mental.

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AddITIOnAL PHOTOGrAPHY: fOTO-SPOrT/AGEnCjA GAzETA (1)

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“Fencing is nothing but modern-day gladiator combat. It used to be hardcore in the old days!

People celebrated when a contestant died”

Fighting fit: “Before the big championships I train for six or seven hours a day. You can’t be scared of fatigue”

there’s nothing else. Before the Olympics in Athens, in 2004, I didn’t have any media contact for six months.

So is the media bad?

It can be an unnecessary distraction. Having said that, when I found out after the Athens Olympics that many more children in Poland had started to practise fencing I realised that I could influence society in a positive way. But only if somebody is writing about what I do and showing it to them.

Do you have a lot of fans?

Of course people write letters to me and ask me for autographs.

But fencing attracts far fewer spectators than most other sports.

Perhaps because it’s treated as an elite sport. It does have its spectacular qualities and fighting always raises the adrenalin.

Is that what spectators are looking for?

Let’s be honest, fencing is nothing but modern-day gladiator combat. It used to be hardcore in the old days! People celebrated when one of the contestants died. That aspect is still present. I practise a combat sport and there’s no denying that. When you step on the fencing board you have to show who’s the boss, who’s stronger, who’s going to defeat the opponent. But I try to keep my emotions under control because blown-out aggression burns me out quickly.

So what do you really look for in fencing?

I often think about that. What is this sport really about?

I sometimes come to the conclusion that I don’t care about competing with other people. But I do enjoy competing with myself and this is the only thing I focus on. I can say with full conviction that I am my most serious competitor.

What does success mean for you? not medals or cups. The biggest success for me is the path I’ve chosen for my life. I could have chosen many different routes, but I put my bet on sport and it has moulded me.

I’ve been independent and self-sufficient since I was 15. I’m a professional – I’m 29 years old and I do nothing apart from this. for me the most important thing is what it contributes to my inner self, how I change as a result of it. The spiritual and psychological rewards are much more important than the material ones: the sense of fulfilment, the self-esteem boost, joy, euphoria and satisfaction.

How long will we be celebrating your successes?

[Laughs] You can fight for a long time: the Italian Giovanna Trillini, who’s 40, is still practising. The absolute number one of fencing and my biggest competitor, Valentina Vezzali, is 36. I don’t know if I want to carry on that long. right now I don’t think so… But who knows?

You can find out more about Sylwia Gruchała on her official website: www.sylwiagruchala.pl

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rookie

racers

The heart of Italy’s racing country is also home to the ever-improving Scuderia Toro Rosso – the training ground for Red Bull’s junior F1 drivers Words: Anthony Rowlinson Photography: Jiri Krenek

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hey say that you can smell Faenza from the Autostrada. It’s the legacy of poultry factories, a brewery, a pigprocessing plant and sundry other light- to welter-weight industries that pepper this small town in the EmiliaRomagna region of Northern Italy.

It’s an unfussy place, landscaped for work, not romance, but only a fool would dismiss it for its humble appearance.

Faenza, you see, sits cheek-by-jowl with the home of two of Italy’s most treasured jewels: Ferrari, around 60 miles away in Maranello, and Ducati, barely 60 clicks distant, in Bologna. Then there’s the Imola circuit that hosted 27 Grands Prix from 1980-2006 – properly known as the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari – just a 15-minute drive down Via Emilia Ponente.

Motorsport magic dust has settled into the soil around here through the generations. It’s a land that grows racing artisans. How’s this for a roll call: Massimo Tamburini, probably the world’s most influential motorcycle 71

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designer (his classics include the Ducati 916 and MV Agusta F4) lives and works in nearby San Marino; Valentino Rossi hails from Urbino, an 80-mile blast (flatout, presumably) from Faenza; Maserati, like Ducati, calls Bologna home. There’s so much motorsport fever in these parts, it’s surely infectious.

So it’s not too much of a surprise to find a Formula One factory in a town otherwise content to rest in the shadows of its limelight cousins. That factory houses Scuderia Toro Rosso, the junior squadron of Red Bull’s F1 adventure (big-brother Red Bull Racing is based in Milton Keynes, England). And while it might appear a hick-from-the-sticks compared to its city-slicker relative, currently in the thick of the fight for the F1 world championship titles, Toro Rosso has a proud F1 past of its own.

It can trace its roots back to a tiny, 20-man team that decided to go Grand Prix racing as Minardi in 1985, but then hit the big time spectacularly in 2008, when a certain young German you might have heard of – Sebastian Vettel – drove one of its cars to victory. It was a stunning, memorable win – Vettel’s first, Toro Rosso’s first – and it came of all places, at Monza, hallowed home of the Italian Grand Prix.

It was a giddy moment for all in the team, for all, indeed, in a sport that has a fine appetite for fairy tales. But it wasn’t, lest anyone tell you otherwise, a freak victory or a lucky result on a crazy day.

No, Toro Rosso and Vettel won the race with a fast car, brilliantly driven and expertly run by the tightest-knit bunch of F1 troops you’ll ever find.

Formula One for these boys is family, not just work. Many of the Faenza factory staff go home for lunch, because they live here, have grown up here. When Toro Rosso does well, this quiet town quietly celebrates – although that fabled Monza win prompted the ringing of the town-centre church bells in a manner reserved normally only for Ferrari in its Maranello home parish.

When they do less well, they’re allowed to get on with their business and work away at success until it comes, as everyone in the team believes it eventually will.

A family affair then, but a somewhat unusual one, because it has an Austrian ‘father’ in one Franz Tost. A native of Trins, near Innsbruck in the Austrian Tyrol, Tost joined Toro Rosso in November 2005 after six years with BMW, where he jointly ran the team’s Formula One activities. Now in a team 72

whose nationality is 75 per cent Italian, but whose mentality is nearer 95 per cent Italian, he stands out as something of an enigma: a lean, upright, precise man whose intelligent intensity is apparent from first meeting. Cultural stereotypes might cast him more readily at a team such as Switzerland’s Sauber, or certainly with his former Bavarian employers. It’s hard, for example, to picture Tost bursting into an impromptu rendition of Nessun Dorma, whereas Toro Rosso’s technical chief, Giorgio Ascanelli, looks as if he might pass his occasional spare Sunday as lead tenor with the Faenza Operatic Society.

As with the team itself, however, it pays to look harder at the 54-year-old Mr Tost. He is remarkably friendly, for starters, gracious and generous with his

“Toro rosso can trace its roots back to a 20-man team that decided to go Grand Prix racing as Minardi in 1985, but then hit the big time at Monza in 2008” time (within, you suspect, a clearly defined window reserved for media guests) and refreshingly devoid of ego for one whose Formula One team-boss peers are most often consumed by this single, dominant characteristic.

And it quickly emerges that whatever superficial differences there might be between this boss and those he’s charged to lead, they are united by something far more important: passion.

Tost, like many of his kind, is a former racing driver. He competed in his younger days in both Formula Ford and Formula 3, before studying sports science and moving into team management at Austria’s Walter Lechner Racing School. From there it was Formula 3, where he worked closely with Ralf Schumacher. The two were later reunited in F1 when Ralf drove for Williams-BMW and Tost was BMW’s track ops manager.

It was here, too, that Tost crossed paths with compatriot and multiple Grand Prix winner Gerhard Berger, who, six years later, would become part-owner of Scuderia Toro Rosso. Racing, it’s clear, is in Tost’s blood, just as it’s a DNA strand

in those born within sniffing distance of the Toro Rosso factory floor.

A racer’s precision is evident in his movements: he walks fast and straight, with precise economy of motion. His desk and office continue the theme: this is not a man to fumble for a chewed pencil and scribble notes on a rumpled Post-it that will then be slapped precariously onto a laptop. No – paperwork is aligned with slide-rule perfection against the lines of his desk. A pen is set square against the paper. His laptop is open and you might guess that its angle of aperture has been optimised at 73 degrees from the horizontal. He is, in short, co-ordinated, as befits a man whose particular expertise is making things happen with minimum fuss, maximum effectiveness.

But this makes Tost sound austere, which emphatically he is not. When he talks, his eyes betray the excitement that’s the hallmark of any true enthusiast and as The Red Bulletin’s photographer starts his work, he collapses into giggles when he quips: “I must try to get my hair straight.” Tost is quite shiny-domed and he’s not shy of this joke against his defunct follicles. He is also, for a man with no trace of fat on his frame, surprisingly partial to a slice of Sachertorte or Black Forest gateau. We digress.

On Tost’s watch, Toro Rosso have undergone something of a transformation from battling underdogs – happy simply to be part of the great Formula One travelling circus, scraping a point here and there, surviving – to something altogether more serious. Staff numbers have trebled from 80 to 257 (the precise figure known, and shared, by Tost) and hefty sums have been spent on the factory’s manufacturing capabilities, in a push to take it from tail-end to midfield and offer junior Red Bull drivers a chance to break through to superstardom, just like Vettel.

The Monza day of days was, Tost admits, “amazing”. But in a paternal, team-leader-ish way, he’s quick to extrapolate the value of simply winning into something of wider, more lasting, worth. “It was an amazing day for the complete team,” he reflects, “and very important for motivation because it showed that we are also able to win. It proved that if we do everything right we can beat anyone and that is hugely important for the future. You can tell a person you are good and that you will do a good job, but between telling and doing there’s a difference.” Wonderful as that triumph was to witness (and, for

From top, left to right: Austrian Franz Tost runs a tight ship at the Toro Rosso factory; from the drawing board and onto the car; a show of local passion; Factory manager Giovanni Baldi

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those involved, to experience) F1 has since changed significantly, with new technical regulations and a stipulation that all teams must build their own chassis, rather than share technical information, as was previously allowed between Red Bull Racing and their Italian relatives.

And despite the substantial investment that’s been made in this one-time F1 minnow, Tost – lean, meticulous Franz Tost – understands more than most of his ilk how there can be no fat or slack in his operation: “This team was once very small,” he remarks, in predictably precise and considered English (no words wasted here, no brainmouth disconnect). “Now we are 257 and that’s quite an increase in the number of employees. But it’s working quite well because we didn’t grow too fast and we kept everything under control and that was important. Our goal and target must be to work as efficiently as possible.”

Efficiency, indeed, is the Toro Rosso mantra – as important for the likes of the greatly respected Ascanelli (he appears in homage to The Pope on the team website) as it is for a veteran such as Giovanni Baldi, who’s been with the team since joining as switchboard operator in 1985.

For Ascanelli, who has worked handin-glove with the likes of Ayrton Senna and, more recently, Vettel, that means a daily wrestle with the challenge of maximising a technical resource that, while adequate, will never rival the million-dollar megabucks available to, say, Mercedes or Ferrari. For factory

manager Baldi, a genial son of Faenza, it means never having attended a Grand Prix, despite 25 years’ unbroken service, simply because his role does not demand it, nor permit the expense such a trip would entail. Not that he seems unduly concerned: “Here in Romagna, racing and engines are in our blood.” It’s more than enough, you sense, to be working for this proud team, part of a proud tradition. Going to races? Maybe one day.

He talks amid the hubbub of a bustling Formula One factory, prepping its cars on the final day at home (March 3), before crates and planes take cars, parts and people to the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.

Baldi has been escorting The Bulletin around some of the team’s swish new equipment such as giant cutting tools and autoclaves (used to bake carbonfibre body parts and make them strong enough for racing). He’s joined by Tost, keen to usher along final tweakery of the two chassis that only a day before have been track-tested for the final time. It’s a choice moment, this last sight of the cars, before they will be driven harder than it’s possible to imagine by their two young hotshoes, Sébastien Buemi, 21, and Jaime Alguersuari, 20.

Tost inspects a carbon-fibre enginecover – intricately shaped and with the surface area of a large bedsheet. Then he lifts this apparently weightless object on the end of two fingers. Such is the advanced manufacturing technology strewn casually across these ultimate racing machines. Does he feel any emotion during these last hours when

the team’s fate is already largely dictated, according to the efficacy of its off-season labours, but is still yet to be known?

“The only emotion I feel is seeing that the cars are ready on time.” Somehow, you knew they always would be.

A few hours later, after many (but by no means all) Toro Rosso mechanics, and draftsmen and composites engineers and lathe operators have popped home for lunch, or visited the second home that is Daniele Zinzani’s nearby Tana del Lupo restaurant, Tost is once again on the prowl around his six-building empire. A discarded chocolate wrapper at the factory gates annoys him. He picks it up and discards it.

Ten metres inside he spies a pair of wheel uprights propped outside a door.

These offending items, more at home on a workbench, or padded and packaged for transport, stood no chance of escaping his hawk eye. A frown crosses the Tost brow and he nips inside to enquire of his engineers why these vital parts have been left unattended. He returns – scowl banished – with the news that the uprights have just been fitted with bearings, were therefore extremely hot, and have been left in the grey afternoon to cool.

It is not, perhaps, how Franz Tost himself might have acted, but after five years as an Austrian at the head of this Italian table, he’s certainly not one to refuse a little pasta.

For the latest results and news from the team from Faenza and their drivers visit www.tororosso.com

Bahrain GP 14.03.10 Grid positions of 15th and 18th were roughly in line with team expectations after engine problems for Buemi in practice and Alguersuari’s hurdle of being a circuit virgin. Still, strong preseason form had led some in the team to expect more.

Alguersuari was encouraged to finish 13th, although Buemi was gutted to retire just three laps from home.

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Australian GP 28.03.10 A first-lap knock-out did for Seb’s chances at Albert Park, Melbourne, but Jaime looked all set for 10th place and the final point until a mistake at turn 13 allowed Michael Schumacher past. Team boss Franz Tost praised Alguersuari for “his most competitive race weekend by far” and claimed the team had made “a significant step forward”.

Malaysian GP 04.04.10 Two points for ninth place made Jaime Alguersuari the second-youngest pointsscorer in F1 history (behind Seb Vettel). His last 20 laps were so free from drama he radioed his pit crew for some conversation to help him stay alert! He raced hard with seven-time champ Michael Schumacher, later stating he had learned loads from F1’s past master.

Chinese GP 18.04.10 A crazy, rain-affected race brought little more than flashes of speed for Toro Rosso. Buemi lost both front wheels in a dramatic-looking practice accident and was taken out in the race, while Alguersuari could finish only 13th. An even tougher race lay ahead for the team as they struggled home through travel chaos cause by the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud.

Spanish GP 09.05.10 A feverish home race for Jaime Alguersuari ended in a point for 10th place, despite a scuffle with a backmarker which resulted in a drivethrough penalty. Buemi had less to shout about as a problem with hydraulics put him out on lap 42, but the team were upbeat that their performance continued to place them in the midfield action, fighting for points.

ADDITIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTY IMAGES (4), xPB (1)

The season so far ...

Clockwise, from top left: Engineers Luca Esposito and Roberto Monni in discussion; technical director Giorgio Ascanelli; twins Mauro and Maurizio Bertoni attend to the bodywork; SĂŠbastien Buemi gets ready to go; lunch at Tana del Lupo

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Magna con heniam, sim vullam, quatum del dolore ea feum ipis incidunt nullaore te molorem cincipis acilit utat.

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Hangar-7 Interview

Björn Dunkerbeck He’s dubbed ‘The Terminator’ by rivals, such has been his dominance of the Windsurfing World Cup for so many years. But back on dry land, he’s a nice, relaxed guy, not a surfing robot. Just don’t tell the competition…

red bulletin: Looked like you were having fun talking to Sebastian Vettel.

Was it Formula One chat? Or was it windsurfing? bjÖrn dunkerbeck: Sebastian wants to surf with me once the season’s over. he’s already been to robby naish’s place on Maui, so now it’s my turn to teach him something. and it’d be good for him too. it’ll beef up his arms.

You both love speed. What’s the fastest you’ve ever surfed? the top speed i’ve reached on the open sea is 47.9 knots.

That’s almost 55mph (88kph). How does it feel? you’re not surfing at that speed. you’re just flying through the water. it’s all happening on wild waves. anyone can drive at speed on the motorway, but try going fast on a gravel path. that’s exactly what speedsurfing on the open sea feels like.

When you’re not surfing, you like to whizz around on your mountain bike 78

Björn Dunkerbeck at Hangar-7: He may not be intending to drive the car behind him but he’s made plans with Sebastian Vettel to take him out for a spot of windsurfing

or snowboard or go spear-fishing.

Do you ever slow down?

Sure, when i play with my kids. and i have to recharge my batteries when they’re empty. But i’m not the kind of guy who can sit and watch paint dry.

So you’re easily bored? no. i’m always doing something. apart from when i’m waiting for my wife, Maria, when we’re going out.

Wave machine: Björn is aiming to achieve speeds of 62mph (100kph)

A trip to Hangar-7 always means you’re going to enjoy excellent food.

What’s the best you’ve ever eaten?

Whatever’s in front of me after five hours’ windsurfing.

OK, on a regular day? i eat as healthily as possible: vegetables, fish, salad. But i eat meat too.

And are you a dab hand in the kitchen? i’m brilliant at barbecuing, but normally i leave the cooking to Maria.

You’re on the road a lot. Do you take the family with you? yeah. My eldest daughter, alba, is seven now and has been to Maui seven times. liam is a year younger, so he’s been six times. they go everywhere with me.

What gets their attention? they love watersports. i already surf up to 25mph (40kph) with liam on a tandem board. he’s getting an uncanny feel for the board and loves the speed.

Your father’s Dutch, mother’s Danish and wife’s Spanish. What are you? i’ve got a Dutch passport, but would say i consider myself european.

PhotograPhy: PhiliPP horack (1) Björn DunkerBeck (1)

today, hangar-7 in Salzburg is neither restaurant nor museum; it looks more like a central railway station at rush hour. Film crews set up cameras, microphones and lights among the guests. an ad is being filmed here on top of the regular preparations being made for the weekly live chat show broadcast on ServustV. and in the middle of all this chaos, two superstars sit calmly, talking and laughing. until duty calls, that is, when the smaller, slighter one, Sebastian Vettel, is hauled before the camera. the other, a six-foot-four giant, Björn Dunkerbeck, prepares to be interviewed…

PhotograPhy: kurt alan heck

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But where are you at home? all over europe, really. Perhaps the canaries feel a bit more like home than other places because my parents live there. and my current residence in Silvaplana in Switzerland, because i love to snowboard in the winter.

People say you’re very headstrong... ...yeah, i was competitive even when i was little. Maybe it’s because i had to compete against real men when i was 12, 13 years old. When i won my first races, i thought, “there’s got to be room for improvement, and if i train well and prepare properly, then i’m bound to win.’ Plus i had all the best equipment, so it was really just down to me. So when it came to competing, i knew i was going to win. i didn’t want to go all that way just to try and win. and it’s always worked out. Well, almost always!

You’re not kidding. You were unbeaten as world champ from 1988 to 1999.

Wasn’t it a bit, well, boring? i always set my goals higher and higher.

First, i wanted to beat robby naish. once i’d done that, i wanted to win five World championship titles in a row, like him. and i achieved that too. then it was 10. and then 12. Back then the competition was battling it out for second place. and then i started wanting to win every single race and not just the overall cup at the end of the week. then i wanted to win by an ever-greater margin. i constantly gave it 100 per cent.

But you were great fun too. Is it fair to say you had a reputation as a man who could handle his ale? yeah, look at me. i can get a lot in there! i’d often be the last one at World cup parties, but i only partied when it was all over, you’ve got to know when you can do it and when you can’t. i prefer to really go for it every now and again and then lay off it for a while.

How are things shaping up this season? i’ve had a great winter. i’ve got perfect equipment so there’s no reason i shouldn’t win; i want to be speed and slalom World champion. So i’m hoping for strong winds. With my size i need a lot of power.

You have a caddy for all your equipment. Luxury or necessity? an absolute necessity, to avoid all that wasted mileage, setting up the equipment and so on. While he’s taking care of that, i can concentrate fully on racing and Pr or sponsorship duties. he’s my fourth caddy and he’s been working with me for six years now. he’s a friend of mine too, and it’s not exactly the worst job in the world, is it?

Check out the PWA World Tour: June 8 to 13, Spain, at www.pwaworldtour.com

Warming up: ‘Chef Ann’ has been making the best curries in Bangkok for the past three years, with the perfect amount of chopped chilli. And French chef Nicolas Schneller (top right) adds his Gallic touch – the harmonious fusion of two culinary worlds

A question of taste

Supanut ‘Ann’ Khanarak The top Thai chef from Bangkok restaurant Spice Market gives us three very interesting answers to our culinary questions The main ingredients she can’t do without are… “chilli, fish sauce, date sugar and garlic,” thailand’s only female star chef Supanut (or ‘chef ann’ as she is known) khanarak answers without a moment’s hesitation.

Which is no surprise, considering all four are staples of thai food and the Spice Market at the Four Seasons hotel is considered the best exponent of the native cuisine in Bangkok. ann knows how to respect the culinary heritage of her country while adding a personal touch with her own modern interpretation. She learned her skills

in Sydney under master chef David thompson. For four years she showed australians what they mean in South east asia by spicy without sacrificing the taste. But homesickness brought her back to the thai capital, where she cooks for the Four Seasons’ guests alongside French chef nicolas Schneller.

The one thing she really can’t bear is… “i love all kinds of thai curry. i learned how to make it from scratch so i’ve always hated it when people ask me to make it without chilli. i don’t think that’s right at all!”

The most important item of equipment in her kitchen is…

“My pestle and mortar.”

‘Chef Ann’ Khanarak and Nicolas Schneller are guest chefs at the Ikarus Restaurant in Hangar-7 for June. Visit www.hangar-7.com

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Felix Baumgartner’s Everyday Essentials

Still life: kurt keinrath. Portrait: Sven hoffmann

Later this year, for Red Bull Stratos – a journey by balloon to the edge of space and freefall back to Earth, during which he’ll break the sound barrier – Baumgartner will be using bespoke cutting-edge kit; this is the stuff of his ‘regular’ life

Felix Baumgartner

Magnavox MPD850 DVD Player www.magnavox.com “To play my American DVDs on.”

Nokia N97 Mini Phone www.nokia.com “A slider, with an adequate keypad, touchscreen and five-megapixel camera with a Carl Zeiss lens.”

Beats By Dr Dre Spin Professional Headphones www.beatsbydre.com “A pleasure to use, they look great too.”

Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life by Jon Lee Anderson “I’ve been trying to read this for a couple of years now, but at 800-plus pages, it doesn’t quite fit in with the life I lead.”

Ray-Ban RB3025 Aviator Sunglasses www.ray-ban.com “Minimalist, but an absolute must for a helicopter pilot.”

James Harvest Stowell Trolley Bag www.james-harvest.com “The stand-in for when I don’t want to take my black Diesel bag.”

Sketchpad “A birthday present from our former project manager, Christiane Hoffmann. It’s important for me to get my ideas and visions down on paper.”

Red Bull Energy Shots “After I do a 10,000m test jump, a couple of these are essential.”

US Driver’s Licence “I’ve got a second home in California, where I drive a Ford GT.” Pilot Logbook “Ah, that should be in my helicopter.”

Follow Felix’s journey at www.redbullstratos.com; peruse his goodies at www.felixbaumgartner.com

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Fashion Forward These stars of the British fashion scene are heading for Europe, showcasing their work and, with it, the vibrant scene they and their peers have created

PierS aTkinSon

Words: Uschi Korda

Emma BEll Designer Born Newcastle-UponTyne, 1982.

First fashion creation “At one point I was obsessed with The Wizard of Oz. Me and my grandma made me a Dorothy dress, tried to mix it up a bit, and ended up with a green, floral, frilly number.”

Current material of choice “I enjoy working with plastics. It’s challenging and I like the unexpected results. Jersey is good too, my latest work includes print artwork of my own design on cotton jersey. I’m all about trimmings and special features right now, so I’ve collected little birds and tin hearts for a new piece.”

Fashion favourites for summer 2010 “Aztec-style embroidery, acid dying and novelty prints.”

Colour of the moment “Pastels: yellow, pink, blue, green.”

Fantasy celebrity client “Paris Hilton and Dolly Parton.”

Website www.emma-bell.com stars in Emma Bell:

Ebony Bones

Beth Jeans houghton

guy hills / dashing twEEds Designer Born London, 1967 First fashion creation “A mock ermine robe – with help from John Lewis’ sewing advisor and a machine on which I made ermine tails in fake fur.”

Current material of choice “Tweed. Simply the best sportswear material there is, and the most perfect

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and original way to wear colour.”

Fashion favourites for summer 2010 “Our forthcoming summer collection of cotton jacquard, which is based on unravelling tweed designs.”

Colour of the moment “I always love purple with a splash of yellow, but, for a change, at the moment I’m keen on a light teal.”

Fantasy celebrity client “Johnny Depp would look fabulous in our latest New Dandy designs.”

Website www.dashingtweeds.co.uk stars in dashing tweeds:

Charlie le Mindu

agyness deyn

Pharell williams

alExis knox stylist Born Oxford, 1988.

“When I’m left with anyone for more than a minute, I turn the conversation to my hometown.

My family are there still there. I’m very proud of it.”

First fashion creation “I went to an all-girls convent school with unforgiving uniforms, and I used to live for home-clothes day when I could parade about wearing the most eye-catching outfits possible.”

Current material of choice “A bit of tie-dye. I adore it, whether it’s psychedelic or grungy. It’s fab and looks hot on boys day or night.”

Fashion favourites for summer 2010 “I go mad for anything inspired by the Buffalo fashion movement of the ’80s. So lots of black-and-white geometrical dressing. My dream guy would wear a crisp white shirt buttoned to the top, teamed with a bomber jacket – and I love a cycling-shorts look with a cropped vest top and brothel creepers.”

Colour of the moment “Technically my answer is incorrect, but I’m obsessed with black and white. There are so many great geometric and mirror-print patterns hitting the catwalk, which have

eMMa Bell

inspired high-street versions.

Fantasy celebrity client “As clichéd as it is, I’d love to style Madonna, and put her in a decent pair of trousers! And on the same score, Lady Gaga.”

Website www.alexisknox.com stars styled by alexis knox:

m.i.a

VV Brown

The exhibition, Fish and Chips, Twice Please?! is at quartier21 in Vienna’s Museum Quarter from June 6 to September 12. Grand designs are visible at: fishandchipstwiceplease.blogspot.com/

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SCoTT raMSay kyle

charliE lE mindu

PiErs atkinson

Hairstylist

Milliner

Born “I don’t remember where I was born. I think it might have been in a bordel.”

First fashion creation “It was a hairy condom. I have it now on my mantelpiece as a trophy.”

Current material of choice “Hair, of course. I can do so many things with it… everything… volume, colours… everything!”

Fashion favourites for summer 2010 “Crosses and roses: I really liked Jean-Paul Gaultier’s shows.”

Colour of the moment “Navy and dark blues. They are chic yet interesting.”

Fantasy celebrity client “Cher: she’s my favourite. I love her so much! I don’t know what I’d do for her, but I’m sure if I meet her I will have loads of ideas in my head.”

Website www.charlielemindu.com

Born “Surrey – sounds nice, but the town where I was brought into the world is a dump, so it shall remain shrouded in mystery, along with my year of birth. However I can reveal that I was born at 7.10am – like my mother and sister. An astrologer looked at the alignment of the planets and reeled in shock. I’m a Leo, but a hard-core version – Leo in my moon, Leo ascendant, Leo in Sagittarius – everywhere. I’m almost solid Leo.” First fashion creation “Mum had a big roll of red felt (she’s a milliner, too) and when I was about six I had a vision. I placed my sister Lucy, then aged four, on the felt in the garden, cut round her and sewed round the edges to create a fabulous gown. I snipped the hem with pinking shears, for a little American Indianinspired chic. I wish I had a photo of Lucy in that pivotal frock.”

Current material of choice “Tusk sequins, because they look like little scimitars.”

Fashion favourites for summer 2010 “David Koma zig-zag jackets.”

Colour of the moment “Lime green, the colour of new leaves in the spring.”

Fantasy celebrity client “Dame Judi Dench!”

Website www.piersatkinson.com

stars who’ve received the mindu treatment:

Peaches geldof

lady gaga

Charlie le Mindu

daShinG TWeedS

alexiS knox

photography: ap photo (3), piers atkinson, Dashing tweeDs (2), emma Bell (2), amy gwatkin, kirsty mc Dougall, kim JakoBsen to, getty images (2), guy hills tweeD, alexis knox (2), charlie le minDu (2), pictureDesk.com (8), scott ramsay kyle, morgan white

stars sporting Piers atkinson:

lily allen

cate Blanchett

kirsty mcdougall / dashing twEEds Designer Born Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, 1978.

First fashion creation “I won a prize for my robot outfit at the primary school pageant. The main part was a bin bag covered in gift-wrap rosettes, stickers and polystyrene balls. Over my head was a cardboard box with holes for eyes, antennae made from straws and fangs made from tin foil.”

Current material of choice “Wool, reflective yarn, smart yarns using nanotechnology, more wool.”

Fashion favourites for summer 2010 “I’m not a summer dresser: not wearing tights would be a good start.

Factor-50. Or maybe one of our Dashing Tweeds summer jacquards!”

Colour of the moment “Hot Coral.”

Fantasy celebrity client “Josh Homme. I would put him in one of our grey raver-reflective Modern jackets based on the Harrington.”

Website www.dashingtweeds.co.uk stars in dashing tweeds:

Bill nighy

ian Bruce

scott ramsay kylE Designer Born Glasgow, 1982.

First fashion creation “I helped my father make me a Bertie Bassett costume, the mascot of Liquorice Allsorts sweets, for my school disco, I was maybe 10 years old and it won me a prize. Can that be considered my first collaboration?”

Current material of choice “I’m working with a lot of beadwork just now; getting through the largest amount of Swarovski stones left over from a previous project. It’s looking super-luxurious. Also working on a really fun jersey project.”

Fashion favourites for summer 2010 “I’ll be kicking around all summer in my denim shorts, vest and desert boots – so long as London offers up constant sunshine and fun times.”

Colour of the moment “Lots of blue, in many aspects of work, which I think is usually considered quite a sad reflective colour, but I’ve never felt happier in my life, so I guess I’m drawn to it for some unknown reason.

Answers on a postcard, please.”

Fantasy celebrity client “The obvious, I guess: Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Madonna in the early ’90s. I’m happy for anyone to enjoy what I do, and I’m not so bothered about the trappings of celebrity.”

Website www.scottramsaykyle.com stars wearing scott ramsay kyle:

angelina Jolie

Björk

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Molnar Janos lies beneath the Hungarian capital

Into the Abyss Intricate limestone caverns and crystalclear water – cave diving is one of the last great adventures. Just make sure to bring along air, light and fearlessness 84

5 3 2 1

6 4

more body & mind Exploring the Sistema Ponderosa, Mexico

Ojamo limestone mine in Lohja, Finland

PHOTOgRAPHY: WWW.jPBRESSER.Tv (3), WWW.DIvERSOFTHEDARk.COM (1)

Source de Landenouse, France

Scuba diving has as much in common with cave diving as hiking does with free-climbing. The physical strength and psychological mettle required to navigate underwater caverns makes it a far more dangerous proposition.

To wit, the massive difference lies in the number of exits. In cave diving there’s usually only one. And it’s almost always blocked.

So it’s worth doing the extra training and investing in the right equipment. Because after all that exertion, the underground geological tapestry, transformed by lights into a colourful spectacle, is astonishing.

Perhaps nowhere as vividly as Mexico, the sport’s El Dorado. The warm water, fantastic visibility – courtesy of limestone that cleanses the rainwater before it washes into the pools – and bizarre rock and stalactite formations in the caves between Playa del Carmen and Tulum on the Yucatán Peninsula (1), attract divers by the scores. Some parts are so shallow that snorkellers can get a feel for them, before they plunge to beyond 328ft (100m).

The longest systems are the Sistema Ox Bel Ha (Three Water Pathways), linked to the outside world via 130 sinkholes (cenotes) and the Sistema Sac Actun (White Cave), at 109 miles (175km). Also well known is Dos Ojos (Two Eyes), a system of caves north of the town of Tulum, exploration of which began in 1986 and is still incomplete; 37 miles (60km), 25 cenotes and a maximum depth of 387ft (118m) at an area of the caves called ‘The Pit’ have been recorded to date. Dos Ojos is already a film star – parts of the sci-fi thriller, The Cave, were filmed there in 2005.

Divers are welcome tourists in Mexico and many cenotes have showers and restaurants nearby, such as at Ponderosa (by Puerto Aventuras) and Escondido (or Mayan Blue), near Tulum.

Spain’S deep blue pot While Europe has yet to catch up to Mexico’s hospitable cave-diving climes, it still boasts excellent spots for all levels. Located near Covanera, in north-western Spain, Pozo Azul (2) is a karst spring, with deep blue groundwater – not any surface inlet or outlet – responsible for hewing the elaborate below-surface limestone caverns over the centuries. The two shafts – one of 2300ft (700m) and

the other 11,482ft (3500m, as explored so far) – are the longest in Spain. Despite a water temperature of just 11 degrees, they are considered the best practice caves in Europe.

Southern france You enter the Doux de Coly cave (3) near the village of Coly in southern France via a private sump, or cess, pool. Like almost all French caves, this one burrows through the mountain like a hose. It rarely branches off and visibility is mostly modest. The surrounding area is one of the best cave-diving regions in the world: the Dordogne, Lot and Célé rivers have created some of the longest and deepest shafts, including the Trou Madame and Emergence du Ressel.

Sardinia While these caves require a lot of experience, any diver can have fun at the ProTec Sardinia diving centre at Cala Gonone (4) on Sardinia’s east coast. There are several systems, with caves connecting to one another over a distance of 47 miles (76km), which can only be dived from the sea and reached by boat. The area has a tantalising holiday feel with its turquoise water, perfect visibility, different rock and stalactite formations and its dry sections. finland It’s a whole different type of diving at the abandoned Ojamo limestone mine in Lohja (5), 37 miles (60km) west of Helsinki. Ojamo is impressive with its crystal-clear water in channels that descend 656ft (200m). It’s a bizarre location; all the tools and machinery lying around make it look as if a wicked fairy has put a stop to life in the pit with a spell. Or might it have been the cold? The water temperature is just four degrees. hungary Molnár János (6) is just the opposite.

The cave lies under Buda, the oldest part of the Hungarian capital, and it’s easy to reach too, the entrance being just 98ft (30m) from a tramstop. It’s about 3.1 miles (5km) long all in all – hundreds of halls and a thermal lake are interconnected – and there are fossils, crystals and sandstone formations to discover at depths of up to 246ft (75m). Seldom has a city tour been so thrilling.

Get a deeper insight at www.cavediving.com

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ifSc climBing WoRld cuP 04 – 05.06.10

hot SPotS

Just one week after the World Cup competition in Vienna, men and women chalk up and cmpete to be the best at bouldering in Colorado.

Vail, USA

Check out our pick of the world’s most exciting sporting events Red Bull Road Rage 04.06.10 The high-speed downhill bike race arrives in Israel for the first time, pitting more than 100 riders against each other and the steep, winding course in Teberius.

Mevo Hama, Teberius, Israel

Red Bull JungfRau Stafette 05.06.10 The Jungfrau Relay has been challenging athletes since the inaugural race in 1931. Teams take on the ultimate multidiscipline challenge, with stages of vintage aircraft flight, car and motorbike racing and more.

Zürich, Switzerland

photography: rainer eder, gepa/red Bull photofiles, jürgen skarwan/red Bull photofiles, getty images

Red Bull aiR Race 05 – 06.06.10 The action heads to Canadian skies as the Red Bull Air Race flies into Windsor. Reigning champion Paul Bonhomme won last year, but with pressure from main rival Hannes Arch, and Australian Matt Hall, anyone could sweep to victory.

Windsor, Canada

mountain Bike WoRld cuP 05 – 06.06.10 Around 20,000 spectators ascend to the highland home of the World Cup’s toughest challenge. Champion sibling riders Dan, Gee and Rachel Atherton will all compete for the first time since Rachel recovered from serious injury.

Fort William, Scotland

aSP Women’S WoRld touR 05 – 10.06.10 The Movistar Peru Classic marks the tour’s halfway point.

Australian Sally Fitzgibbons is riding hard, and Peruvian titlecontender Sofia Mulanovich is a favourite in home waters.

Lobitos, Peru

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Red Bull haRe ScRamBle 06.06.10 The 16th edition of one of the world’s toughest enduro races returns to its iron-mine home. More than 1500 riders compete for one of the 500 places in Sunday’s main event, with amateurs and pros racing shoulder to shoulder. Among those taking part will be New Zealand pro rider Chris Birch, British racing legend Dougie Lampkin and former Dakar Rally winner Cyril Despres.

Erzberg, Eisenerz, Austria

Red Bull cliff diving WoRld SeRieS 06.06.10 The second stage of the 2010 championship moves to Mexico.

The competition is hotting up too. Colombian Orlando Duque is fighting to remain reigning champion, while British young gun Gary Hunt is determined to better his 2009 second place to steal his crown.

Ik Kil Cenote, Yucatán, Mexico

fivB BeachvolleyBall gRand Slam 07 – 14.06.10 The second grand slam of the year gets underway at a location not exactly famed for its beaches. Luckily there’s plenty of bagged sand to create courts fit for the world’s best.

German male pair Brink and Reckermann hope to win again.

Moscow, Russia

tRiStkogel challenge 12.06.10 Teams of two use a combination of running, mountain biking and navigation to get to the end of this tough adventure race.

Mountain runner Markus Kröll and his team-mate, snowboard world champion Benjamin Karl, are two to watch.

Kitzbühel, Austria

foRmula one euRoPean gRand PRix 27.06.10 Red Bull Racing drivers Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel are keen for a first European Grand Prix victory.

Valencia, Spain

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motogP of gReat BRitain 20.06.10 For the first time since 1986, the Silverstone track is to come alive with the roar of premier-class motorbikes.

A new track layout and improved spectator viewing areas will ensure a good day both sides of the fence.

Silverstone, England

foRmula one canadian gRand PRix 13.06.10

Red Bull game BReakeRS 25.06.10

Last season was the first not to feature a Canadian GP since 1987. But 2010 is set to get things back on track as one of the most popular circuits makes a welcome return to the calendar.

Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, Montreal, Canada

American high-school football gets a revamp with this new seven-on-seven series. Some new rules, great locations and the involvement of star names such as Devin Hester and Reggie Bush put the series in a league of its own, and teams will also get the chance to taste the pro game by playing at the historic Cotton Bowl Football Stadium.

Cotton Bowl Stadium, Dallas, USA

ifSc climBing WoRld cuP 17 – 21.06.10 Some of the best climbers in the world arrive in the Russian capital to compete in boulder and speed disciplines as the World Cup battle continues.

Moscow, Russia

Red Bull aiR Race 19 – 20.06.10 For the first time the Red Bull Air Race action takes place above the skyline of NYC, but there’ll be no time for sightseeing for the pilots, as they do battle in the skies looking for the coveted win.

New York, USA

naScaR SPRint cuP SeRieS 20.06.10 As the high-octane petrol fest that is NASCAR nears the midway point of the 2010 series, Red Bull drivers Brian Vickers and Scott Speed continue their quest.

Infineon Raceway, Sonoma, USA

fim motocRoSS WoRld chamPionShiP 20.06.10 When it comes to women’s motocross, German rider Stephanie Laier and French Livia Lancelot are the ones to beat. In 2009, Laier took the title from defending champion Lancelot, and in 2010, the battle for the supremacy is back on with a vengeance.

Teutschenthal, Germany

26tRix 2010 24.06.10 Red Bull flugtag 19.06.10 Ukrainians have the chance to build a flying contraption of their own invention, and test it out over the Dniper River in front of an amused crowd.

Kiev, Ukraine

The annual mountain bike dirtjump contest attracts big names from around the world for a mid-air battle of skill and agility.

German rider Benny Korthaus joins Canadian Darren Berrecloth and Spanish double-backflipper Andreu Lacondeguy for what will be a hard-fought contest.

Leogang, Austria

Red Bull RookieS cuP 25 - 26.06.10 Twenty-five of the world’s most-promising young motorbike road racers reach the midway mark in this tough series.

Assen, Netherlands

Red Bull x-fighteRS WoRld SeRieS 26.06.10 Russia hosts the tour for the first time, welcoming the cream of the international FMX scene to historic Red Square.

For once, its world-famous architecture won’t be the focus for the crowds, as all eyes turn skywards for the breathtaking aerobatic battle to take the Red Bull X-Fighters crown.

Moscow, Russia

fim SuPeRBike WoRld chamPionShiP 27.06.10 The battle for two-wheeled wins returns to Europe for the popular Misano race.

British riders Jonathan Rea and James Toseland will be determined to continue their strong performances and enter their home race at Silverstone in August on a high.

Misano, Italy

deSeRt cuP goBi 27.06 – 05.07.10 A 250km course, across desert and through mountain ranges, during summer in the hottest place in China, and the farthest in the world from the sea, makes the Gobi stage of the Four Deserts Cup one of the toughest endurance races on the planet. But having conquered the Atacama Desert stage in Chile already this year, Austrian ultra runner Christian Schiester is ready for the challenge.

Gobi, China

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nigHt sPots Festival season is upon us once more – here’s our guide to the world’s best music Belgrade design Week 01 – 06.06.10 More than 30 of the world’s most noted names in the fields of architecture, branding and advertising gather to share and innovate. But it won’t be an extended day at the office: a daily dose of afterparties, including an MTV bash, will ensure a work/play balance.

Various locations, Belgrade, Serbia

Hercules and loVe aFFair They have made disco acceptable again and recorded with Lady Gaga. There’s a new album coming soon too… see page 93.

New York, USA

Villette sonique Fest 01 – 06.06.10 The fifth edition of the rock and electro fest promises the varied mix of sounds that has won it a band of dedicated followers.

American multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter Joanna Newsom opens the event, while English electro duo Fuck Buttons up the tempo at one of the festival’s free concerts.

Various Venues, Paris, France

PhotograPhy: Dan Wilton, Benita liPPs, thomas Karlsson, liam lynch

Mutek FestiVal 02 – 06.06.10 Part festival, part music conference, the event has been promoting electronic music and the digital arts since 2000. This year’s line-up includes Detroit legend Theo Parrish.

Various venues, Montreal, Canada

rock aM ring/rock iM Park 03 – 06.06.10 These rock festivals take place at the same time, with acts performing at each in turn.

All festivalgoers can either get down on the tarmac of the Nürburgring racetrack or party in the park at Zeppelinfeld. The 2010 line-up includes Kiss, Rage Against The Machine, Muse, Jay-Z and Dizzee Rascal.

Nürburgring/Zeppelinfeld, Nuremberg, Germany

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urBan art ForMs 03 – 06.06.10 The audiovisual festival features David Guetta, Carl Cox and Roni Size, while the Red Bull Music Academy Radio stage hosts headliners of tomorrow.

Festivalgelände Wiesen, Austria

We loVe sounds 04.06.10 It’s time to head in from the cold in New Zealand as the winter dance fest lands on its shores for the first time. UK supergroup Underworld heat up the dancefloor with help from Italian beat stallions Crookers, Holland’s Laid Back Luke and a local talent including Kids of 88 and The Naked.

Trusts Stadium, Auckland, New Zealand

liFe FestiVal 04 – 06.06.10 With the unique location of an 18th-century mansion and walled gardens, Life festival stands out. From traditional live bands to dubstep, reggae and techno, it unites sounds including the trance of Infected Mushroom and Mad Professor’s dub.

Belvedere House, Mullingar, Ireland

FrigHtened raBBit The Scottish folk rockers have caught people’s imagination and fans are flocking to their gigs. Catch them on page 90.

Cologne, Germany

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Berns The location is one of Stockholm’s best-known spots.

And this club is where you’ll find all the best club nights and DJs, see page 92.

Stockholm, Sweden

syncH Fest 04 – 05.06.10

Jónsi Birgisson 08.06.10

The full force of a great line-up will be felt at the brilliantly named Technopolis, a former gas works in the Greek capital. Hot Chip and Laurent Garnier headline, while other acts include DJ Krush, Fuck Buttons and Afro-beat legend Tony Allen.

Technopolis, Athens, Greece

Fresh from his first-ever solo performance at USA festival Coachella, the Sigur Rós frontman continues his tour to promote his new album. But worry not Sigur Rós fans, the man himself recently confirmed he would be back recording with the band later in the year.

Kaufleuten, Zürich, Switzerland

rock in rio 04 – 14.06.10

Wilsonic FestiVal 10 – 12.06.10

This is a festival with claims to fame. The line-up for the first event in 1985 (held, less confusingly, in Rio itself) included Queen, AC/DC, Iron Maiden and Ozzy Osbourne.

This year Shakira, Rihanna and David Guetta add some different sounds to the mix.

Arganda del Rey, Madrid, Spain

The urban festival on the banks of the Danube river aims to create the atmosphere of a festival-meets-party-meetsclub. And by all accounts it does it well. The line-up always includes new regional artists alongside international cuttingedge acts such as Dorian Concept and Jazzanova.

Bratislava, Slovakia

an on Bast/zaPala 05.06.10

Hartera FestiVal 10 – 12.06.10

Anna Suda, known as An On Bast, has been creating downtempo electronic sounds since 1993. The philosophy graduate switched to music and never looked back, releasing two critically acclaimed albums and graduating from the Red Bull Music Academy in Australia. Back on home soil, she teams up with collaborator Zapala.

Made in Poznan – noc, Poznan, Poland

Locally dubbed the ‘little Coachella’ after the famed US festival, the event took its official name from the abandoned paper factory where it set up home six years ago. Now incorporating showers, a lounge and a museum of old computer technology (!), the venue is growing to match the stature of its musical line-up. This year Erol Alkan, Fuck Buttons and Duke Dumont are among those clocking in.

Rijeka, Croatia

Moderat 05.06.10 Three producer friends from Berlin with a love of techno beats joined forces and became Moderat.

Computerised creations meet instrument samples and vocals to create their laid-back, layered signature sound.

Casa Da Musica, Porto, Portugal

kinotaVr MoVie FestiVal 07 – 14.06.10

kenny nzaMa The DJ and club owner showed us around his city – from where to buy jeans and locally made clothes, to his favourite cafe’s beef stew, on page 94.

Johannesburg, South Africa

The world’s biggest national film festival celebrates the top talents in Russian cinema and gives up-and-coming filmmakers a chance to be seen. Masterclasses, special screenings and coveted awards make this a place for filmmakers and film buffs alike.

Sochi, Russia

noVa rock FestiVal 11 – 13.06.10 Austria’s biggest rock festival has assembled a list of acts fit for its fifth birthday. Green Day, Slayer, The Prodigy, Alice in Chains, Bullet for my Valentine and Wolfmother are among those bringing the noise.

Pannonia Fields II, Nickelsdorf, Austria

red Bull Pirate PoPular soundclasH 12.06.10 Prepare to be boarded: Red Bull Music Academy Radio is taking over the airwaves. From a mystery location and for one day only, a pirate radio broadcast will share some new sounds with the people of Lisbon.

Lisbon, Portugal

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frightened rabbit Cologne

Green Room

Rabbit Run The Scottish folk rockers appear to be a band on the brink. With an ambitious US tour looming, Nick Amies wonders if cramped vans and broom-cupboard dressing-rooms will soon be a thing of the past

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Scott Hutchison loiters on the pavement outside Cologne’s Luxor club, toeing one of the tyres on the band’s tour van with his boot. “The worst thing is the boredom,” the Frightened Rabbit front man says wistfully. “There’s no bunk bed to escape to or PlayStation to lose yourself in, just faces and feet for miles and miles.”

The white VW, the type designed to transport bags of concrete rather than rock bands, lists wearily on a tired axle.

Surely there’s a luxury coach parked around the corner? “No. This is it,” Scott says. “We’re doing it old school.”

The feeling that Frightened Rabbit are still paying their dues is reinforced backstage where the toilet attendant doubles as the band’s in-house security guard. “He takes his job very seriously,” deadpans Grant, the other Hutchison and the Rabbit’s drummer. “It would take a brave man to try and take a leak without paying.” The dressing room may resemble a broom cupboard but it’s still cosy and clean despite its diminutive size and its proximity to the Gents. “The level of

backstage comfort does tend to vary,” Grant says ruefully. “Sometimes there’s none at all and we’re sat at a cordoned-off section of the bar with everyone gawping at us. But we’ve been pretty well catered for and looked after on this tour so far.”

It’s possible, however, to detect a creeping enthusiasm in his voice when he begins to talk about the Scottish folk rockers’ upcoming American tour and its promise of more spacious environs.

“We’re flying straight out after this European tour to do a six-week stint in the US, including gigs at Webster Hall in New York, the Metro in Chicago and the Fillmore in San Francisco,” he says, a boyish grin flickering briefly on his lips. “When these were booked, we were like, ‘Really?’ These are around 1200-capacity venues, but now we hear they’re selling out so that’s a big deal for us.” Then, as if he feels that he’s getting too carried away, he adds: “Saying that, who knows what the backstage at Webster Hall is like. It could be crap.”

Since Scott Hutchison started performing solo sets under the Frightened

PhotograPhy: Benita LiPPs

Wild things: The band on tour in Germany

Roska 12.06.10 The UK funk pioneer, producer and DJ from London town isn’t straying too far from home as he arrives in Essex armed with his trademark sounds, many on his own Roska Kicks & Snares imprint.

Barhouse, Chelmsford, England

Sónar 17 - 19.06.10 The Spanish gathering boasts one of the best collections of electronic acts on the world calendar. Jetting in for 2010 are The Chemical Brothers, Roxy Music, Dizzy Rascal, LCD Soundsystem, Flying Lotus and Hudson Mohawke, while the Red Bull Music Academy presents Sonar Dome and the Croydon grime stylings of Goldielocks.

CCCB/Fira Montjuic 2, Barcelona, Spain

In the headlights: On stage in Luxor; (below) arriving in style at the club

Rabbit name in 2003, the band has slowly expanded in personnel and scope, but beckoning fame has yet to separate the band from its humble roots.

“We had expectations when we started but no ultimate goal because that puts a cap on things,” Grant says. “We just take things as they happen, a bit at a time.

We’re happy with the trajectory it’s taking.

It hasn’t been an instant thing. It’s been gradual and slow. But we were playing to about four people in Austin three years ago and this June we’re going to play Glasgow’s Bellahouston Park with Snow Patrol. We’re constantly being surprised by new developments with the band.”

They aren’t the only ones. Critics who were alerted to the edgy post-folk of Frightened Rabbit’s first album Sings the Greys were persuaded to stay interested by the more ambitious follow-up, The Midnight Organ Fight. Expecting more of the postrelationship angst and soul-baring that poured from the broken heart of Organ Fight, the third album, The Winter of Mixed Drinks, came as quite a revelation when it was released in March. While there is still a theme of isolation running through this new set of more muscular songs, it is an album full of bruised hope shot through with a resolute desire for positive change.

That change may be just around the corner. Frightened Rabbit appear to be a band on the brink, and it’ has dawned on the crowd tonight that catching them in the claustrophobic surroundings of the Luxor may soon be a thing of the past.

Frightened Rabbit certainly sound gigantic when they eventually take to the stage. Rolling out emotive epic ‘The Modern Leper’ from Organ Fight as an opener could be considered a brave move, especially on their Cologne debut. Lesser bands may have opted to keep their big guns in reserve just in case, but with powerful songs such as ‘Living in Colour’, ‘Skip the Youth’ and the rousing ‘Swim Until You Can’t See Land’,

Kidkanevil 18.06.10 The hip-hop producer from Leeds is touring fresh from a stint at the Red Bull Music Academy, London, and the release of his third album Basho Basho.

Paradiso, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Matt Kowalsky 19.06.10

Frightened Rabbit have huge tunes in spades. In fact, it’s the anthemic quality of much of the new material which suggests that the band themselves had bigger things in mind when they wrote them.

Barely an hour later, the Frightened Rabbit show comes to a close. The Luxor wants the band done by nine so its regularly-scheduled club night can begin on time. While the crowd seem less than happy to be denied a longer set, the band begin packing away their gear without complaint.

With no road crew to speak of, Frightened Rabbit’s work – at least for now – includes packing themselves up and moving on. But as the white VW once again braces to take the strain of five Scottish blokes and their equipment, one gets the impression its days of toil may soon be over. Perhaps there is a luxury coach waiting around the corner.

Check out Frightened Rabbit’s latest album The Winter of Mixed Drinks and see their tour schedule on www.frightenedrabbit.com

Mixing electronic music with live band performance, the Polish DJ, producer and programmer fuses electro, dance and jazz sounds as only he can, bending ears on the international scene and earning him an army of loyal fans.

Confashion, Warsaw, Poland

Green Day 23.06.10 More than 23 years after first forming, the US punk revivalists are still going strong in the mainstream, with over 22 million records sold worldwide and fans across the globe.

Marlay Park, Dublin, Ireland

Celtronic Festival 23 - 27.06.10 The music and arts festival has always been the perfect excuse for five days of hard partying, and this year marks the festival’s 10th anniversary, so Northern Ireland’s second city will come alive with the sound of people getting down. There will be the usual mix of folktronica, dubstep, experimental and ambient sounds, plus Horse Meat Disco.

Various venues, Derry, Ireland

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glastonBury 23 – 27.06.10 Controversy in recent years of the guitar band vs hip-hop variety has done nothing to harm the popularity of the historic music gathering, which sold out as fast as ever this year. The musical genres have remained mixed with U2 and Dizzee Rascal headlining, alongside Muse, Scissor Sisters and the sounds of much-loved Stevie Wonder.

Worthy Farm, Pilton, England

dancity FestiVal 25 – 26.06.10 The city of Foligno is taken over in the name of dance for 48 hours of hedonism in historic settings.

Electronic music reverberates off 14th-century frescoes inside a medieval church, as music lovers wander through alleys to reach their next destination. Germany’s Henrik Schwarz brings his beats and Prins Thomas his psychedelic ponderings, as old and new seamlessly blend.

Foligno, Italy

World’s Best Clubs

Northern Decadence Whether they’re dark or white, the nights are long in the far north. And Uschi Korda finds there’s only one place in Stockholm to revel in them

berns stoCkholm

FestiVal au Bord de l’eau 25 – 27.06.10 In three years the laid-back gathering has attracted a cult following. Festivalgoers can take part in a pétanque tournament, see street arts and play summer sports while the musical entertainment comes from the likes of Benji B, The Bamboos and many more.

Lac de Géronde, Sierre, Switzerland

sea sessions 25 – 27.06.10 The stunning coast off Bundoran is the perfect setting for a surf music festival. Revellers can watch big names, this year including Paul Weller, Fun Lovin’ Criminals and Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, and it’s only a short trot down to the beach to catch some waves.

Bundoran, Co Donegal, Ireland

onra 26.06.10 The French beatmaker creates hiphop and electronic sounds layered with samples as exotic as vintage Vietnamese pop classics picked up in the back streets of Saigon.

Peer Pressure, Ghent, Belgium

erykaH Badu 26.06.10 The ‘Queen of Neo Soul’ takes to the stage at the famous New York performance spot alongside Maxwell and Jill Scott.

Madison Square Garden, New York, USA

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No sign of IKEA: At Berns, winding balustrades, crystal chandeliers and state-of-the-art technology set the tone

Cool parties with the crème de la crème of the international DJ scene in a setting that dates back to 1863?

What might sound like a contradiction in terms is in fact a brilliant blend of the 19th and 21st centuries in Stockholm’s cult dance temple, Berns. This Revivalist grand hotel in the middle of the Swedish capital was already something of a conceptual collage back when it first opened: a theatre, a dining room, various salons and a boutique hotel all under a single roof. The concept endures to this day, even if things have been changed around a bit here and there.

Though the old world charm has been restored and maintained, tactful modern improvements are visible – like in the plain, dark wooden tables below the grand crystal chandeliers in a dining room serving contemporary Asian cuisine.

Next door, where actors used to keep the public entertained, international stars such as Erykah Badu, Lily Allen, MGMT, White Lies, Editors and Juliette Lewis now rock a stage fitted out with state-of-the-art equipment. You can host private parties in the refurbished setting of smaller rooms including the Red Room (Röda Rummet), which takes its name from a novel set in the Berns by August Strindberg, the father of modern Swedish literature.

Since the turn of the millennium there has been a covered outside bar, which one enters, fittingly, via a winding staircase.

It’s also where the club’s smokers go for a cheeky fag. The name of the underground heart of the concept is 2.35:1 is and it’s Stockholm’s trendiest nightclub.

“We love dance and we love decadence,“ club manager Martin Kling and guest manager Payman Dehdezi admit. Which is why they looked around the best clubs in New York, Ibiza and London for their inspiration on staging long club nights and an excellent sound system. VJ art plays on the screens along the walls in time with the DJ art behind the turntables.

It goes without saying that the world’s deejaying elite, from Goldie to 2 Many DJs, Pete Rock to Booka Shade, have all had their turn at the decks at Berns. It even gets the VIPs out of their private rooms, where they sip cocktails among themselves watched over by the fluorescent wallpaper artworks of Makode Linde.

Which is all fine for the 10 cold months of the year. But in July and August, around the white nights of the summer solstice, it all moves up onto the roof where it’s a most welcome reward after a winter of snow and ice.

Berns Salonger, Berzelii Park, Stockholm.

Tel: +46 (0)8 566 322 00; www.berns.se

PhotograPhy: thomas Karlsson (3)

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Hercules and Love Affair are Kim Ann Foxman and Andy Butler

hercules and love affair new York On the Record

A New Affair After Andy Butler and his band Hercules and Love Affair made disco cool again two years ago, he made remixes for Lady Gaga and Goldfrapp. Florian Obkircher caught up with him in Vienna as he wrapped his latest album RED BULLETIN: You’ve just completed your new album. Who did you play it to first?

Andy Butler: Apart from those who worked on the album, I just played it to two friends of mine in Tel Aviv, a sound engineer and an editor. I was pretty nervous because I really value their opinion. But I could breathe easily again. They loved it.

You kicked off a bit of a disco revival with your hit, ‘Blind’, two years ago.

How did that come about?

Disco was an important part of my life at the time. I used to rummage around flea markets looking for old ’70s hits and read a lot about the disco and gay movements. So it was a completely natural thing for me to grapple with that sound in the recording studio too. And to bring it back to life with people like Antony (Hegarty, the singer from

Antony and the Johnsons), who also sings on Hercules and Love Affair’s debut album, Hercules and Love Affair.

Are you carrying on with that trend in your new album?

Yes and no. This time I’ve concentrated more on the music I grew up with, so it’s more classical house and techno.

Which is why it made sense to get Patrick Pulsinger on board as the producer. But don’t worry. My passion for disco still burns just as brightly as it always has.

There are two classic songs on the album which ooze an even more classical disco sound than ‘Blind’ did.

How did you come across Patrick Pulsinger?

A mutual friend recommended him to me. Patrick has a fantastic studio in Vienna with a whole arsenal of analogue synths. I’ve known his music for ages.

I worked as a music journalist in New York years ago and wrote a review of a record produced on his Cheap Records label.

Have you had any time to look around the city on top of your work in the studio?

Yes, but not much. I’ve been really impressed by the churches. The Votive Church, St Stephen’s Cathedral and so on. And I also went to probably the best exhibition I’ve ever been to in my life, Edvard Munch und das Unheimliche (Edvard Munch and the Uncanny).

I love the mystical, surreal side to his paintings. It’s really inspirational.

Who has influenced you musically?

I listened to a lot of Cocteau Twins when I was writing stuff for the new album. But also folk stuff. I’m fascinated by simple,

soft music, by songs like Terry Callier’s The Golden Apples Of The Sun. Or some of the songs on Sinéad O’Connor’s album, I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got – songs that are just simple guitar and a great voice.

Should we be expecting more guitar this time around?

No, I only use guitar for rhythm. But, yes, I do listen to a lot of guitar music. I even went to a Metallica concert recently.

Is it true that you’ve recorded work with Kele Okereke, the singer from British indie band Bloc Party?

It is. We met via our managers. They thought we’d get on. We met up for brunch when Kele came to New York and we hit it off straight away. So we decided to try and do something together. Then we met up again in Vienna and made a fun dance track.

Have you already got a title for the album?

I’m toying with the idea of calling it Blue Songs after one track on the record, which I wrote five years ago.

But we’ll see, I’m not sure.

Today’s your last day in Vienna.

How will you take your leave?

I’ve got friends here from Barcelona, Berlin and Paris. They surprised me for my birthday yesterday and came to celebrate it with me. So we’ll probably take it a bit easier this evening. But I have promised myself I’ll do one more thing before we leave. We want to see another Klimt.

The new Hercules and Love Affair album comes out in September. You can find live dates and Andy Butler’s blog at inlovewithhercules.com

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Kenny nZama Jo’burg

Resident Artist

Newtown values Johannesburg, to put it politely, scares the hell out of people.

Other South Africans included.

DJ and club owner Kenny Nzama begs to differ For me that used to be just a line. You know, you hear people say “Yeah, I represent Jozi”, but even though I grew up in the Jo’burg township of Soweto, I’ve also lived in Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria. The words have substance with me now though. Now more than ever, I feel very responsible for the 94

city. I feel touched by it. Our business – a club called OST – represents black youth in this area. And when they come and tell you how much they like what you’re doing, you realise it represents a whole lot more people than just you. So my city is more connected to me by the people behind me.

My day starts at 8am, but I tell everyone I’m only up from 10am, so my phone’s only on from then. I live out in Strydom Park which is north of the greater city. The day can take a couple of directions – it kinda depends of which one of my two careers needs me. If it’s the club owner bit, I’ll go to the office at my club, OST, and en route grab a cup of tea and sometimes a spinach and feta tramezzini at Kaldi’s coffee shop on the other side of Mary Fitzgerald Square in Newtown. I’ve come to know everyone there, the food’s good and even if I’ve no cash on me, they’ll help me out.

I’ll probably also make a turn past Ritual Store at 111 Bree Street – it’s a cool hip-hop culture store owned by Osmic, who’s also my partner at OST. The store is all about local products, selling locally made clothing and

hip-hop records. If it’s my DJ persona that requires attention, I’ll stay at home doing admin or making beats on my turntables until I come through to Newtown for the rest of the day. It’s taken me a while to adjust to the vibe here, actually. I’m used to peace and quiet, but there’s noise here, man, it’s everywhere. Newtown is Jo’burg’s art hub with theatres, galleries and clubs; and apart from that buzz, there’s also actual noise. A two-level highway cruises past right above our heads and creates this constant ambient fuzz.

Lunch is often a visit to Sophiatown – a black-owned business here in Newtown and they serve some great African food.

Favourites of mine are stampo – a mix of coarse maize meal and beans – which I’ll have with their killer beef stew, and the tripe – sheep stomach – is also good, cooked just like my grandmother used to.

I’m not a much of a clothes shopper.

I get a lot of clothes from Nike – especially at their Gallery On 4th stores – and I have a good relationship with Levi’s so I get stuff from them too. What I do like looking for is

WorDs: steve smith. PhotograPhy: liam lynch

Decked out: Kenny at the OST Club

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ruHr in loVe 26.06.10 …with electronic sounds. The annual festival calls all lovers of techno, house, hardcore and trance together for a love-in which was 41,000 people strong last year. This year sees a dizzying international tribe of turntablists jet in to pack out the festival’s 35 stages.

Olga Park, Oberhausen, Germany

aWakenings FestiVal 26.06.10 The hugely popular techno festival celebrates its 10th year with a stellar line-up including Derrick May, Laurent Garnier, Richie Hawtin, Jeff Mills and Dave Clarke. And with 1 Thefour Ostof the six stages indoors, it’s 2 Kaldi´s Coffeefestival. a weatherproof 3 Sophiatown Deelplan Houtrak, Spaarnwoude, Netherlands 4 Ritual Store

et Smit Stre

41 3 2

NEWTOWN

5 Collectors Treasury

JOUBERT PARK

Bree Street t Sauer Stree

Commiss Marshal St

M1

MARSHALS TOWN

reet

et ioner Stre

M2

On the town (clockwise from top): Dancing at OST club; visiting favourite shop Ritual; browsing the Nike Store

vintage clothes. For that I trawl downtown…

Bree St, Jeppe St, End St. There’s great shop at the corner of End and Commissioner St – the Collectors Treasury. These guys hoard the good shit – anything from furniture to vinyl. But you need an overall and a face mask when you go in there though, because that shit is dusty man…

A couple years back I was hunting for The Cure’s ‘Love Cats’ everywhere – I love that baseline – and I found it at the Collector’s Treasury which sells mainly second-hand and rare books. I first heard the track at the Mystic Boer club in Bloemfontein about five years ago.

I was playing with a guy called DJ Bob and I was the only black guy there. He put this tune on and all the white folks went mad. I knew I had to get it.

I’m also huge soccer fan – I watch the English Premiership, La Liga, and support Kaizer Chiefs in our local league – plus I play the game too. The guys play at the sportsground on 9th Avenue in Melville.

We’re there from 5pm until sunset. And, yeah, obviously the FIFA World Cup’s about

5

CITY AND SUBURBAN

M2

1 The OST Henry Nxumalo/Bree Street 2 Kaldi’s Coffee 1 Central Place, Jeppe Street 3 Sophiatown 1 Central Place, Jeppe Street/ Henry Nxumalo Street 4 Ritual Store 111 Bree Street 5 Collectors Treasury 244 Commissioner Street

to kick off here. I’ve had mixed feelings about it though. I’m in business and I’m also a private citizen. As a business person I’ve been privy to the prescriptive rules that FIFA has come in with, but as a private person – as frustrated as I am with the slow pace of all the new road construction – I see the long-term benefit it will have for the city.

I know a lot of people are freaked by Jo’burg, with the crime and everything and yeah, I’m not going to say it’s a safe city just for the sake of it. Like any big metropolis, there are places you shouldn’t go. You’ve just gotta be smart. Don’t dress too fancy, don’t wear expensive labels, and when you do walk around, don’t walk around looking scared – people can see that. And definitely don’t walk around whistling some crazy made-up tune either. I guess in terms of safety, Jo’burg is improving – they’re putting CCTV cameras everywhere.

I’ve been robbed once in South Africa.

And it was in Cape Town.

Kenny Nzama, aka DJ Kenzhero – for his music, videos and live dates, log onto www.myspace.com/djkenzhero

Blaxtar 27.06.10

The Dutch rapper has been widely known in his home country for more than 10 years. Originally performing in English, until an argument with his record company saw his English album shelved, he reverted to writing in Dutch, a move which doesn’t seem to be hampering his plans for international success.

Walter Sisulu Square, Soweto, South Africa

Henrik scHWarz & Bugge WesseltoFt 28.06.10 German house DJ Henrik Schwarz teamed up with Norwegian jazz boundary-pusher Bugge Wesseltoft at the Red Bull Music Academy in London before taking their deep house and jazz grooves on the road.

Philharmonic Hall, Köln, Germany

roskilde 01 - 04.07.10 Denmark’s answer to Glastonbury with more than 80,000 festival goes pitching up for the 2009 event. With Gorillaz, Muse, Jack Johnson, The Prodigy and Prince among those joining the happy campers, 2010 looks set to be even bigger.

Roskilde, Denmark

rock otocec 02 – 04.07.10 For 34 years, fun lovers have headed to Slovenia for this threeday gathering. But this festival is more than just the music. It’s renowned for the unusual array of activities it offers, most notably the mud wrestling. At least no one will complain if it rains.

Rock Otocec, Slovenia

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A story by Arturo Bianchi

The Ledge of Reason Based on true events, this is the tale of a man driven to a desperate, unplanned act

Two portraits of Ruslana Korshunova stared back at James Slattery. One, from the cover of Vogue Beauty, was an image of shimmering, defiant perfection.

Budding rose lips, cheekbones drawn high with a swipe from the brushes of God’s own maquillage artiste, crystal eyes that ebbed from grey to green to blue, according to the light.

Hers was a face almost too perfect to look at and, age 20, it had taken her from the Kazakhstan city of Taldikorgan, to the cover of the world’s most feted fashion magazine.

In four short years of professional modelling she had become known as the ‘The Russian Rapunzel’, on account of the yard of thick, hazel hair that tumbled from scalp to waist.

The second image was smaller: just two inches by two. It accompanied a feature profile in the New York Post – ‘Suicide Supermodel’.

The story related how Korshunova had fallen to her death from the window of her ninth-floor Manhattan apartment, on June 28, 2008. The paper had no hesitation in labelling her a ‘jumper’, although no suicide note had been left.

There was no evidence of foul play, so why else would she have fallen?

James shuffled the pages on his white office desk and leaned back in his ‘ExecuRest’ office chair. What, he wondered, would her last thoughts have been? Desperation? Fevered subconscious calculations as to how long the drop would take? How small those yellow cabs looked from nine floors up? Maybe she hadn’t intended 96

to jump, but had fainted or wobbled on the ledge, lost her footing, fallen. The thought made James shiver, a tingling frisson running right down his spine.

He exhaled. Shook his head a little.

Then reached for another newspaper from his shoulder bag, dozing somewhere beneath his desk. It was a New York Times.

James flicked to a sober report on the death last June 30 of a respected medic, after a fall from a 17-storey tower at the Beth Israel hospital. Forty-four-year-old Dr Douglas Meyer landed on an airconditioning unit, The Times wrote.

There was speculation elsewhere in the item – denied – that Dr Meyer had been fired shortly before his death.

Perhaps because he had been feeling a bit low lately, these gloomy articles had caught James’ attention and he’d found himself re-reading them through the week.

How lost these two poor souls must have been, he thought. Nothing left behind to explain their actions. Such bright people, but no longer with enough self-regard to continue their lives. And, worse, with no one close enough to them to pull them back from the edge. They must truly have wanted to end it all, for as one of the articles noted, the small percentage of unfortunates who commit suicide by jumping, never fall into the ‘cry for help’ category. They’re dead serious.

James looked across his open-plan floor to the window and let his unsettled mind run away. Here he was, alone on the third floor of a central Manhattan office block, late, with an engineer’s structural report to finish, no one to go home to and with nothing in the world, apart from his dearly loved little girl, April, about which he could truly say he cared. Of course he enjoyed watching baseball whenever work pressures allowed the time to get to Yankee Stadium, and there was little he didn’t know, in a geek-obsessive kind of way, about Led Zeppelin (or any other lumpen 1970s rock beasts, come to think of it).

But that was his life in a nutshell.

His marriage to Leanne had passed in a four-year blur of booze, passion, nakedness, pregnancy, recrimination, then hatred and divorce. How dully predictable, James reflected, picking up his Rotring precision pencil and doodling the silhouette of a Porsche 911

‘Here he was, alone, with nothing in the world, apart from his dearly loved little girl’

on the technical drawing board in front of him (it was his favourite sketch – a visualisation of something else he would never attain).

Maybe this was the start of a midlife crisis. Every man had one, didn’t they?

His existence had been unremarkable in all other aspects, so a meltdown on the tipping point from 30s into 40s was the obvious thing to do.

Thing is, he didn’t feel that bad.

Yeah, he was a bit bored, and he really could have done with a more regular shag (“Jesus, when was the last time?

Was it really that drunken grope-fest with Theresa at Colin’s 40th bash? Shit!

Theresa better not ever tell Colin about that or I’ll have no one to watch the Yankees with”). But he didn’t feel at breaking point. Nothing like, in fact.

And there was always little April, now three and chattering like an adult, already into everything from her mum’s iPhone, to Transformers, to pink ballet tutus. She was a beam of joy in James’ life, with enough magical radiance to brighten all its other dreary aspects.

At that very moment James’ own iPhone burst rudely into life, ringtone set to Pink’s So What – April’s current favourite pop tune. ‘Gorgeous Girl’ popped up on the screen. April was abusing her mum’s phone bill again, calling her dad just as he had cheekily shown her how, two weekends ago. She had called him most mornings since, secretly, while her mum was getting ready for work. This mischievous thought amused James and he grabbed the phone with excitement.

“Hello, my little princess” “HELLO DADDY!!!!”

April always shouted on the phone.

She was still amazed that this object could bring her daddy to her, whenever she wanted. Already April was exhibiting some of her mother’s ferocious controlling tendencies, but as she was James’s little girl, he somehow didn’t mind.

“What have you been doing today?”

“BRILLIANT! BRILLIANT! I’VE GOT A NEW DRESS AND MY FRIEND SARAH HAS ONE THE SAME AND MOMMY SAYS YOU’LL BUY ME A HORSE!” James had never before been lost for words with his daughter, but she had just managed to floor him.

What had he committed himself to? Or, more likely, what had he been committed to?

“April, could Daddy speak to Mommy for a second? Lots of love, darling.”

“OK. MOMMY, MOMMY. DADDY WANTS TO SPEAK TO YOU.”

ILLUSTRATION: JAMES TAYLOR

more body & mind

James could hear muttering discontent, then a stiletto click-click-click-click as Leanne marched, long-legged, across the parquet flooring of the former marital lounge, to reclaim the iPhone.

Every stride screeched irritation.

“Yes?” “Oh. Hi, Leanne, hi. April said something about a horse.”

“Yes, and?”

“Well, that I would buy one for her.”

“Yes, and?”

“Well they cost a damn fortune and you cleaned me out pretty fucking comprehensively with the divorce.”

“Look, James. Don’t be a frickin’ loser all your life. She’s your daughter. You do jack-shit to look after her, she wants a horse, she won’t talk about anything else and I’ve told her you’ll get her one.

It would be great all-round if for once in your life you’d just get on with it. OK?” Beep. End of conversation.

“Fuck,” James muttered under his breath, expressing with admirable economy his simultaneous feelings of defeat, exasperation and befuddlement.

“Bad day, man?” asked Frank the cleaner, with whom James had become quite friendly on account of his nowroutine late office nights.

“Yeah, you could say that. My ex-wife has promised my daughter that I’ll buy her a horse. A goddamn horse! Not a teddy bear, man, or a Barbie. A horse!!”

“That’s heavy man. Real heavy.

But you know what? You can’t win with women, whether she’s yo’ woman, your daughter, or your ma. You just gotta do exactly what they wan’, then everything’s reeeal easy.”

Frank may or may not have been from New Orleans (he was evasive about his past) but he spoke as if the wellspring of the Blues resided in his chest.

“Yeah man, maybe you’re right.

Sorry to give you my troubles. I should go home. Have a good night.”

“Sure, James. Any time.”

James gathered up his bits and pieces, flattened his laptop, packed it and headed out into a hollow New York City night. His too-familiar Ford Taurus started first time, as it always would. An anonymous man, in an anonymous car, headed back to the two-room apartment in Washington Heights he called home. ********* Fair to say that when, the next morning at around 7am, James found himself standing on the window-ledge of his office, he wasn’t exactly in the best frame

of mind. He had been unable to sleep the night before, his head racing with images of ponies ridden by supermodels dressed in tutus, shouting into their iPhones to their therapists, as they tried to complete the last round of the New York State junior gymkhana. And the suicide stuff!

He couldn’t get it out of his head.

Somewhere in the sleepless small hours he had hit upon an idea: a sort of genius moment that linked suicides with ponies in an April-pleasing way that would also keep the dreaded Leanne off his back.

His tortured mind had reasoned thus: if he could be on the window ledge as his co-workers arrived at the office, they would see that in every way he was a man on the edge. One or two knew that he’d been considerably troubled by the recent Manhattan ‘jumpers’ and they would reason, he figured, that he had been encouraged to emulate them.

Thing was, James had absolutely no intention of jumping. In fact he was terrified of heights, but the prospect of being able to wangle several months off work, on account of mental stress, and pick up a few well-paid freelance projects from his, ahem, sick bed, was too tempting. Without the excessive time demands of his day job, he could easily pull in several thousand dollars-worth

of commissions over a couple of months.

After which period he’d be well enough to go back to work and, more important, flush enough to buy April her horse.

So there he stood. On the windy ledge, utterly aghast at his own actions, but still under the control of the apparently rational part of his mind that had taken him there in the first place.

The tails of his two-piece, blue, pinstripe suit flapped in the breeze. His striped college tie fluttered around his face. He could taste salty sweat on his top lip, despite the cold air whipping around him, through him.

James pressed himself back into the brick window surround, reaching both arms behind him to grab fast wherever his fingers could make purchase. There was something thrilling in his mad sanity.

James was terrified but exhilarated, feeling himself on the threshold of liberation and self-determination. Any minute now, Cheryl or Jolene, the two office managers of McKenna & Partners, would make their chattery arrival and see him, panic, scream, then alert the emergency services. Whereupon James would wait for their arrival, and allow himself, after offering brief but convincing resistance, to be talked in then shepherded to hospital for an appointment with a psychiatric specialist.

All he wished was that he’d worn his running shoes instead of stiff-soled brogues, as they weren’t gripping too well on the stone ledge underfoot.

He was ready – readier, he reckoned, than he had ever been. Ready for something new.

Then his phone rang. Loudly. Tucked in his breast pocket it made him start.

It was Pink, his favourite ringtone. It was April. He was distracted for a split second and looked down instead of up.

Balance unsteady, hit by a nauseous wave of vertigo, he struggled to remain upright, but felt his knees wobble and his hands go weak. The soles of his shoes offered scant resistance to the sudden change of pressure. James’ last, fleeting thought was that he’d never get to tell April he’d be able to buy her a horse.

The call had made him jump. That’s what the papers said, anyway.

About the author

Arturo Bianchi loves New York.

But he also loves Naples, London and Beijing. One day he’ll settle somewhere. Before the pressure gets to him and he does something reckless 97

W

hat is the single greatest factor that’s driving the success of Irish rugby teams at the moment? It’s the same thing that has driven every other successful team in every other sport: the team’s culture.

You can have everything else at your disposal, from top-quality coaching staff and world-class players to a vast organisational budget, but if the team culture is wrong it becomes almost impossible for it to be successful. The number of examples in every sport, from soccer in the UK to hurling here in Ireland, are almost too numerous to mention but just think of how many teams appear to be equal in every aspect, apart from the one that makes you think they will be too hard to beat.

Over the years I witnessed some excellent coaches try in vain to create a team culture that would allow their respective teams, at club, provincial or national level, to reach the heights that were commensurate with their collective abilities. However, as they all came to realise, the coach cannot create a winning culture. The best they can hope to do is to create the environment in which such a culture can be born, nurtured and ultimately allowed to flourish. The team creates its own culture and every player has a part to play.

When I was first capped for Ireland in 1997, it was not a particularly successful time in Irish rugby. Off the pitch the IRFU struggled to get to grips with professionalism, but on the pitch things were worse. As a team we were deficient in many areas, but probably none more so than in having a culture that might enable us to get better.

After my second match, in which we were beaten by England at lansdowne Road by 50 points, I heard two senior players whispering to each other with a nervous smile that at least they had done OK. A culture of self-preservation had taken hold: watch your own back and get picked for the next game.

Mind’s Eye

Culture of Success Denis Hickie on how Ireland’s rugby team found the winning formula Clearly, that had been the attitude in Irish rugby for many years. Ten years on and the attitude of players could not have been more different. Everything was about team performance.

Performance, not results. Collective, not individual. So what had changed?

First, coaches quickly realised that not only did they have to teach Irish players the technical elements that they needed to win, but they also had to empower their teams to spearhead the quest for excellence in performance from within. Declan Kidney, Matt Williams, Eddie O’Sullivan, Harry Williams – all schoolteachers – had an understanding of how people develop when they get a better sense of how they can control, and are therefore responsible for, their own destiny. Under their tutelage, leaders like Ronan O’Gara, Shane Horgan, Paul O’Connell, David Humphreys, Anthony Foley and Brian O’Driscoll emerged.

So while a team’s culture is steered and facilitated by a coach, it is a core group of leaders in any team who will

create a winning culture. I have never played in any successful team where the coach has had to lay down a code of conduct for his players to follow, either on or off the pitch. The coach may have the ultimate power of sanction, but in a good side the players regulate themselves. Young players whose behaviour is outside this understood code are taken aside by experienced ones before they will ever have to face their coach on the same issue.

Obviously, the role of the captain is crucial in shaping a culture of success.

A truly great captain wants the role, not because he gets to lead the team out on the big occasion, but because he wants to be able to lead by example every day and wants to steer the team’s behaviour towards what he believes is necessary to make them winners.

Players also learn from each other and from opposing players. After the British and Irish lions tour to Australia in 2001, O’Driscoll and O’Gara arrived home full of chat about the exacting standards in preparation of the likes of Martin Johnson, neil Back and Johnny Wilkinson, three key players of the England World Cup winning side of 2003. Three years later, Ireland were the better team as those same Irish players spearheaded their team’s excellence in preparation.

Success in sport has always been about excellence in preparation. In an individual sport such as athletics, it’s down to one athlete. Regulating the efforts of 30 or 40 individuals of different ages, backgrounds and ability cannot be left to the dictatorial efforts of one individual. no amount of technical coaching can change attitudes and behaviour, and in tight games it is the attitudes and behaviour of players, established long before they arrive at the stadium, that will determine if they win or lose.

Denis Hickie is a former Irish rugby international and a cultural commentator

United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland: The Red Bulletin is published by Red Bulletin GMBH Editor-In-Chief Robert Sperl Editorial Office Anthony Rowlinson (Executive Editor), Stefan Wagner Associate Editor Paul Wilson Contributing Editor Andreas Tzortzis Chief Sub-editor Nancy James Production Editor Grant Smyth Photo Editors Susie Forman (Chief), Fritz Schuster Deputy Photo Editors Markus Kucera, Valerie Rosenburg, Catherine Shaw Design Erik Turek (Art Director), Claudia Drechsler, Miles English, Judit Fortelny, Markus Kietreiber, Esther Straganz Staff Writers Werner Jessner, Uschi Korda, Ruth Morgan Contributors Nick Amies, Stephen Bayley, Arturo Bianchi, Ulrich Corazza, Tom Hall, Paul Fearnley, Mark Gleeson, Szymon Gruszecki, Andreas Jaros, Simon Kuper, Florian Obkircher, Olivia Rosen, Andreas Rottenschlager, Nick Said, Thomas Schrefl, Eamonn Seoige, Eamonn Sweeney, Steve Smith Production Managers Michael Bergmeister, Wolfgang Stecher, Walter Omar Sádaba Repro Managers Christian Graf-Simpson, Clemens Ragotzky Printer Prinovis Liverpool Ltd, www.prinovis.com Augmented Reality Martin Herz, www.imagination.at General Managers Karl Abentheuer, Rudolf Theierl International Project Management Jan Cremer, Bernd Fisa, Norman Howell, Sandra Sieder Office & Editorial Manager Kate Robson Administrator Sarah Thompson Finance Siegmar Hofstetter. The Red Bulletin is published simultaneously in Austria, the UK, Germany, Ireland, Poland, South Africa and New Zealand on the first Tuesday of every month. Website www.redbulletin.com. Head office: Red Bulletin GmbH, Am Brunnen 1, A-5330 Fuschl am See, FN 287869m, ATU63087028. UK office: 14 Soho Square, London W1D 3QG, +44 (0)20 7434 8600. Austrian office: Heinrich-Collin-Strasse 1, A-1140 Vienna, +43 1 90221 28800. The Red Bulletin (Ireland): Susie Dardis, Richmond Marketing, 1st Floor Harmony Court, Harmony Row, Dublin 2, Ireland +35 386 8277993. Printed by Prinovis Nürnberg GMBH, Breslauer Strasse 300, 90471 Nürnberg.

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The nexT issue of The Red BulleTin is ouT on july 6, 2010

IllUSTRATIOn: AlBERT ExERGIAn

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