The Red Bulletin UK 11/22

B-Boy

on his journey from

breaker to

Neen Williams @neenwilliams

Neen Williams @neenwilliams

B. Thom Stevenson @bthomstevenson B. Thom Stevenson @bthomstevenson

Jasmine Perry @jaypearr

WARMTH WHEN YOU WANT IT

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Photos: Bianca Germaine Location: Iceland

CONTRIBUTORS THIS ISSUE

ALEX BEER

The London-based, multiaward-winning portrait and documentary photographer felt an unexpected nostalgia when he shot three of rugby’s Red Roses for this issue. “It was super-fun reconnecting with the sport I played when I was younger, and the players were great – they really went with it,” he says. “People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they do.” Page 42

DIGGING DEEP

Editor’s

JANE STOCKDALE

Having shot FIFA World Cups in Russia and Brazil – the latter for a book, Watching the World Cup – the British photographer was the perfect choice for our feature on this year’s host nation, Qatar, and she jumped at the chance. “I loved shooting the story,” she says. “Everyone we met was super-friendly, and it’s going to be a World Cup like no other – I can’t wait!”

Page 54

Athletes become defined by their successes, but the stories that underpin these accomplishments aren’t always as well-known. In this issue of The Red Bulletin, we look beyond the victories and discover how some of these (very diverse) competitors managed to reach new heights.

Our cover star, champion B-Boy Victor Montalvo (page 32), has encountered as much failure as success en route to becoming a potential Red Bull BC One World Final 2022 winner. It’s a story that actually began with his father in Mexico in the early ’80s.

Then there’s national rugby side the Red Roses (page 42). Abbie Ward, Marlie Packer and Holly Aitchison may be three of the best players in the game, part of an England team that’s tipped to win this year’s World Cup, but each is tackling issues off the pitch as well as opponents on it.

We also take a look – through the lens of renowned US photographer Jimmy Chin (page 68) – at the most terrifying (and often career-shaping) moments in the lives of some of the world’s top adventure athletes; times they’ve found themselves far from their comfort zone and been forced to think fast.

And we visit Qatar (page 54), controversial host nation of this year’s FIFA World Cup, to get a taste of the country behind the headlines as all eyes turn towards its shiny new pitches.

Enjoy the issue.

Lyin’ out: photographer Alex Beer goes to ground while shooting this issue’s Red Roses feature. Page 42

BORN IN THE WILD. RAISED EN VOYAGE.

The purpose-built travel line METROSPHERE is a statement for everyone who moves between worlds. Made with the unmistakable outdoor DNA of ORTLIEB for use on business trips without denying its origins. Waterproof and robust yet stylish enough to impress at the next meeting. The ORTLIEB promise: Our sustainable products are waterproof, Made in Germany and backed by a fve-year warranty.

10 Gallery: chasing trails in the forests of British Columbia, living the stream in Slovenia, prehistoric parkour in southern Italy, and learning a hard lesson in Tuscany’s marble mines

17 Pet sounds: Bill Laurance, of Snarky Puppy and solo fame, shares some of his inspirations

18 Nature of the beast: why bison are roaming free in England after years in the, er, wilderness

21 Plastic fantastic: the flotation vest that saves lives while also highlighting the perils of pollution

22 I Am Here: a tale of friendship, frostbite and flat tyres on an eightday cycling trip across Iceland

25 Chain reaction: new coffee-table book Ice Cold serves up a visual history of 24-carat hip-hop bling

CONTENTS

November 2022

26 Ines Alpha

Shaping the future of beauty

28 Tom Pidcock

Empowering cyclists worldwide

30 Leon Oldstrong

Rethinking Black filmmaking

32 B-Boy Victor

Spinning stories with the US dancer who has breaking in his blood

42 Red Roses

England’s women have high hopes for this month’s Rugby World Cup, and here are just three reasons why

54 Qatar football

As the FIFA World Cup looms, what can its hosts bring to the party?

68 Jimmy Chin

Elite athletes, extreme situations, caught on film by the outdoors icon

79 Deep thinking: at Pierre Frolla’s freediving school in Monaco, a spiritual awakening awaits (if you can master the breathing)

84 Better, smoother, faster, cheaper: why upgrading your current road bike beats buying new

86 Spin spin sugar: monitor your blood glucose, improve your ride

87 Carv: meet the ski coach you can tuck into your boot

88 Destiny’s chill: the future’s bright if you want it to be

90 Take five: how games like Wordle shape the way we talk and think

91 Essential dates for your calendar

98 Outdoors wisdom from Semi-Rad

Fired up: football culture is on the rise in 2022 FIFA World Cup host nation Qatar

REVELSTOKE, BC, CANADA

Home run

There’s no substitute for local knowledge. Ryan Creary can attest to this, and having lived in Revelstoke, British Columbia, for more than a decade, it’s served him well. “I spend a lot of time on the local trails and in the forests, searching for new imagery,” the photographer explains. “This image was captured on Lower Boondocker [on Boulder Mountain], a popular trail that’s had some new woodwork in the past couple of years. I knew this particular spot would work well that morning, adding depth and contrast to an already moody trail and forest. [Local riders] Dominic [Unterberger] and Brian [Langlois] nailed the timing perfectly.” A semi-final place in Red Bull Illume’s ‘Playground by WhiteWall’ category was their reward. ryancreary.com; redbullillume.com

RYAN

JAVORNIŠKO

Narrow margins

A microscopic kayaker paddling along a chalk line on a restaurant’s ‘specials’ board, or Slovenian slalom ace Matjaž Lužar navigating a steep, narrow downhill stream in the north of his country?

Photographer Nejc Ferjan, who won himself a place in the final of Red Bull Illume’s ‘Creative by Skylum’ category, knows the answer: “I went up with the drone, super-close to the tree branches, and Matjaž went for it. It turned out to be superfun.” (Did you guess right?) Instagram: @nejcferjan; redbullillume.com

One jump ahead

Matera, southern Italy, is known as ‘the city of caves’ because of the prehistoric dwellings carved out of its cliffs. Milanbased photographer Anna Rossini was in town for Red Bull Art of Motion when she captured this shot of parkour legend Joe Scandrett, which won her a semi-final place in Red Bull Illume. “Before the start of the competition, all the athletes were out finding new challenges,” she says. “I saw the beautiful spot and the challenge and… how could I not shoot? Instagram: @rossini_anna_; redbullillume.com

CARRARA, ITALY

Final cut

The marble of Carrara, Italy, has been prized since Roman times for its exceptional whiteness; Michelangelo used it in his celebrated sculptures. But its mining has come at great environmental cost. “The mountains are literally cut like butter,” says Federico Ravassard, whose film Carie – made with Marzio Nardi (pictured) and director Achille Mauri – explores the relationship between climbers and nature. “And the lake is artificial; it was created by rainwater that hasn’t drained away.” This thought-provoking shot won him a final place in Red Bull Illume’s ‘Playground by WhiteWall’ category. federicoravassard.com; redbullillume.com

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BILL LAURANCE

Puppy love

The film composer and Snarky Puppy co-founder on the songs that have steered his passions

Bill Laurance is undeniably a renaissance man. As well as a music producer, multi-instrumentalist and founding member of four-time Grammy-winning jazz-fusion ensemble Snarky Puppy, the 41-year-old Londoner is a film composer, university lecturer, science aficionado, and CEO of record label Flint Music. It’s little surprise, then, that his inspirations are just as wide-ranging. “I could have made a much longer list than the one here,” he says. “But these four songs are me. They track my life and the moments that shaped who I am today.” Laurance’s new solo album, Affnity, is out on October 21; billlaurance.com. Snarky Puppy’s latest album, Empire Central, is out now; snarkypuppy.com

Scan this QR code to hear our Playlist podcast with Bill Laurance on Spotify

Stevie Wonder Golden Lady (1973)

“You can’t make a playlist without including Stevie Wonder somewhere on there. He really is the king. I was lucky enough to meet him about five years ago [by chance, on a cruise ship in the South China Sea] and he gave me a pearl of wisdom: ‘Musicians are the glue of society, and it’s our role to bring love and unity to the planet.’ I take that with me wherever I go.”

John Adams Hallelujah Junction: 1st Movement (2004)

“I’ve admired [the American composer] for years, and I first heard this piece in [the 2017 Luca Guadagnino-directed film] Call Me by Your Name. It features two pianists seemingly improvising, but everything is notated out. It’s the most remarkable example of composition mixed with a sense of improvisation that I’ve ever heard. An absolutely stunning piece of music.”

James Brown

It’s a New Day (1970)

“The master of groove. No one can touch [The J.B.’s – Brown’s band in the ’70s and early ’80s] in terms of articulating a rhythm that gets you off your seat. We had this on repeat on the Snarky Puppy tour bus because it has an almost hypnotic quality. There’s just one loop at the end, and the more times the band go round the vamp [riff], the deeper the groove becomes. You can almost hear them becoming hypnotised by it.”

Julie London

Our Day Will Come (1963)

“When I was growing up, my mum was a singer. In London Fields in the summertime, she’d sing in soul and blues bands, and I’d go around the park telling everyone my mum was on stage. She sang along to these incredible recordings by this amazing singer called Julie London. This track was on repeat in the house for years, and my wife and I had it as the first dance at our wedding. It’s very close to my heart.”

WILDER BLEAN

Right to roam

Bison are living wild in the UK for the first time in more than 10,000 years thanks to a far-thinking conservation project

On July 18 this year, three female bison ventured out into West Blean and Thornden Woods in Kent. Bison have not lived wild in England for more than 10,000 years, yet this trio made themselves right at home.

“The older one came out, confidently looked around, then looked back to let the younger two know it was safe,” says Stan Smith, Wilder Landscapes Manager for the Kent Wildlife Trust, who’s been working on the Wilder Blean project since its inception four years ago.

“They have this matriarchal structure; the three met for the first time on-site and sorted it out immediately. They slotted into their environment quickly.”

The bison are part of a global trend of reintroducing vanished native animals into struggling ecosystems to restore the natural balance, rebooting wild spaces to function as they did before humans took over. Most successful has been the reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone in the US, which has revitalised the national park’s flora and fauna.

European rewilding projects have included the return of beavers to Scotland, Iberian lynx and wolves to parts of Portugal, and vultures to Bulgaria. Setting wolves loose in Kent was never an option, however. Fortunately, bison were ideal for this specific task.

Smith explains that, at present, the forest is a monoculture containing only non-native conifers planted for timber production, and it lacks the diversity needed to encourage the range of wildlife you’d find in naturally developed woodland. As the conifers are mature, they’re no longer taking in as much carbon as growing trees. By trampling paths through the forest and eating bark from the conifers, bison help kill off older trees and create space for a diverse range of new ones, along with the wildlife this attracts.

“The bison push over trees and flatten vegetation, which encourages new tree growth, meaning more carbon is sucked out of the air,” Smith says. The result: woodland that captures carbon more efficiently and is home to a greater number of wildlife species.

Woodland conservationists typically employ mechanical methods to bulldoze paths through forests, but this causes noise and air pollution. An adult male bison eats an average of 32kg of vegetation a day –females 23kg – and covers many kilometres, providing a natural alternative. Smith calls them “dynamic agents of change”, and, unlike wolves or wild cats, farmers can’t complain that bison will escape and eat their sheep: “Bison can look scary, but they’re docile; they won’t cause people problems.”

Rewilding is still in its infancy and, at present in the UK, no legal framework exists to guide it. But in Kent the future looks bright. Smith wants to see his herd grow so that members of the bison family can be transplanted to and restore other locations.

“I hope this site becomes more and more wildlife-rich, so people can be inspired about what’s possible,” he says. “We can hope for better, and we can reverse the biodiversity loss.” kentwildlifetrust.org.uk/ wilderblean

Design student Ewan Morrell never expected to be bobbing about in the icy North Sea in winter – even less that he’d be doing it wearing one of his own inventions. But, thanks to some ingenious thinking, that’s exactly where the 23-year-old found himself in February this year. “The air temperature was about 2°C,” says Morrell. “It was absolutely freezing.” Despite the cold, it was a great day: his Bot life jacket passed its first major test.

Morrell designed the simple floatation vest, made from recycled materials, with the primary aim of helping people in low-income countries. While doing research for the final project of his degree course in Design for Industry at Northumbria University, he was stunned to learn that around 19,000 people a year drown in Bangladesh during monsoon season, 80 per cent of them children.

“I’ve always been interested in natural disasters and projects that provide aid products to developing countries,” says Morrell, who grew up in the floodprone village of Corbridge, Northumberland. After further research, he discovered that Bangladesh was not only one of the countries most affected by serious flooding but also among the most polluted by plastic. “So I came up with a solution: to use plastic waste in a life jacket.”

To create his prototype, Morrell dug around in waste fabric bins and devised six different life-jacket designs using various materials, from corduroy to calico. “I worked out that a life jacket can be made from any material,” he says. Buoyancy comes from salvaged plastic bottles that slot into vertical pockets on the jacket, secured in place with loops. The life jacket is also printed with easy-to-read infographic instructions. And when rolled up, it’s smaller

Design for life

This British university student’s genius idea using upcycled offcuts and recycled bottles could save thousands of people every year

than a 500ml bottle, making it easy to transport and store.

Aware that cost could be a major barrier, Morrell then decided to contact large fashion brands such as H&M, Primark and Zara, all of which manufacture clothing in Bangladesh. He proposed the idea of using fabric offcuts to create life jackets as a charitable initiative. “It would essentially cost them nothing,” he says. “Whatever they have left over can be cut into templates and sewn together.”

After testing the jacket in the North Sea, Morrell also convinced one of his university lecturers to take a sample to

Kenya for children to try there. “They loved it,” he says. “They were jumping off a pier into the sea wearing it.”

Morrell is still waiting for the fast-fashion brands to act on his proposal, but initial responses have been positive and he’s optimistic that funding to mass-produce the life jacket will be forthcoming. “Though still in development, the Bot has already raised awareness among people who’ve never even heard about this issue. It’s a massive problem, and more can be done to help. One day, hopefully, the Bot will save lives.”

designforindustry.online/ Ewan-Morrell

Buoyant wonder: Ewan Morrell, inventor of the Bot life jacket

Cold weather friends

In April 2021, the trio did just that, setting out to cycle across the island from north to south, a brutal, self-supported journey of more than 500km. Their exploits can be seen in a new documentary, I Am Here.

The trip took eight days on fatbikes with 4.5in (11cm) tyres, no suspension, and snow studs for riding over compacted ice.

Each carrying a load weighing around 30kg – water, food and survival gear – the riders faced whiteout storms, vertigo and extreme cold. “The hardest thing was staying warm,” recalls Burkard. “We had a million layers on when we were riding.”

One of the trip’s literal high points – a midnight traversing of the 1,493m-tall Mýrdalsjökull glacier – was also a low when Burkard’s bike got a flat tyre and emergency maintenance was required. “We took turns, one of us warming our hands, another working with the tools, and the other pumping up a tyre,” he says. “It was savage.”

Four hours later, Morton noticed a burning sensation in his hands: the onset of frostbite. Disaster was averted again, but a greater challenge awaited Morton post-journey. Burkard and Rusch returned home without problems, but COVID protocols dictated that Morton, an Australian citizen, couldn’t enter the US, and he was forced to spend two weeks in Mexico. “In Iceland, we realised Gus had been dealing with substance abuse and had just got sober,” says Burkard. “Unfortunately, stuck in Mexico, he relapsed.”

Iceland in winter is a striking, otherworldly landscape. Green waves of aurora borealis light the night sky, and snow forms a white blanket over black volcanic rock. For legendary US endurance athlete Rebecca Rusch, pro cyclist-turnedfilmmaker Angus ‘Gus’ Morton and photographer Chris Burkard, it was too perfect a canvas to resist.

“Iceland in winter equals freedom,” says Californian Burkard, 36. “Places that were off-limits are now covered in crusty snow; you can go anywhere you want.”

At first, Morton was embarrassed to ask for help. He’d just completed a huge adventure and now addiction was getting the better of him? “A lot of adventure athletes are addicts,” Burkard says. “They seek extremes. There’s a very fine line between choosing something constructive and something destructive.”

But Morton eventually reached out to people who were able to support him. “You have these pinnacle experiences and you pull each other through,” says Burkard. “You realise you aren’t as strong as you thought you were, because you need your friends. In Iceland and afterwards, we all learned the importance of asking for help.” I Am Here will be released next year. For more details, go to Instagram: @chrisburkard

A new film shows a group of athletes tackling Iceland’s beautiful, brutal landscape – and the challenges they faced when returning home

Freeze frame: (from left) Chris Burkard, Rebecca Rusch and Gus Morton

Team Designed,Custom Built.

Between international travels to stack clips for his next video part, Zion is either hanging with the homies or working on a different type of stack. This stack was for the kids. At Zach Miller’s Social Surf Club, Zion took a few minutes with a white paint pen to autograph a couple decks. He signed someone’s ice cream cone right after.

@zionwright@blabacphoto

Names and slogans on multifinger rings that resemble knuckledusters. Solid gold ropes thick enough to tow a truck. Diamonds so dazzling they need 24-hour protection and are best viewed through shades. From Run-DMC and LL Cool J to A$AP Rocky and Megan Thee Stallion via Jay-Z and Missy Elliott, rappers and MCs have made their jewels and precious metals a central part of their culture. Now, they’re the focus of a new coffee-table book, Ice Cold. A Hip-Hop Jewelry History.

Its author, Vikki Tobak, became immersed in the hiphop world in the early ’90s –she worked for four years as marketing and PR director for New York record label Payday – and has written about the music and its makers ever since.

It was while working on her 2018 book, Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop, that the journalist began to think more deeply about the way people – not just hip-hop artists – adorn themselves.

“We all care what we put on our bodies and how we present ourselves,” she says. “In hiphop, a huge part of that is customisation, of clothing and sneakers but also of jewellery. It’s about standing out with something nobody else has.”

Today, artists commission unique pieces from jewellers as famous and in-demand as themselves, such as Greg Yuna, Martine Ali and Joe Avianne (the inspiration for Adam Sandler’s character Howard Ratner in Uncut Gems, a movie set in NYC’s Diamond District, where much of the merch in Ice Cold was made). Back in the day, rap stars experimented with off-the-shelf purchases.

On the cover of his self-titled 1980 album, Kurtis Blow is pictured shirtless, wearing six gold chains. This image, argues Tobak in the book, “introduced a broader audience to the stylings of the street”. It’s one of many milestones she marks

in her timeline, which reaches back before hip-hop to Bob Marley and Malcolm X and the rings they wore to show their religious beliefs. “Like diamonds,” Tobak writes, “hip-hop emerged under pressure to create a rarefied thing of pure excellence.”

With hundreds of photos across 388 pages, Ice Cold is an exuberant, extravagant visual journey. Tobak is the ideal tour guide; her insightful prose

sparkles alongside the gems and the grills. Hip-hop heads will enjoy the hall-of-fame roll call of artists, and the evolution of the jewellery itself is fascinating. What’s also clear, from the mid2000s onward, is the increasing presence of women.

All gold everything: Ice Cold is the final word on hip-hop bling

“Early on, some women wore rope chains, like Salt-NPepa and Roxanne Shanté,” says Tobak, “but as women’s power and self-direction in the industry grew, with people like Cardi B, Megan [Thee Stallion] and Kash Doll, they made their own decisions and had the money to do so. Now, women are in the same playing field as the men. There are more women jewellery designers, and more Black designers too. This is really important.” Recording that change and more besides, Tobak’s book is 24-carat pop-culture gold. Ice-Cold. A Hip-Hop Jewelry History is out now, published by Taschen; taschen.com

It’s a bling thing

Hip-hop’s high-rollers and the precious metals they drape themselves in are the focus of this sterling new book

PAUL WILSON

Virtual visionary

Words LOU BOYD Photography DIANE SAGNIER

Iridescent splashes that frame the face, flowers that bloom from one cheek to the other, octopus-inspired masks with moving tentacles… These are not images from science fiction, but make-up looks created by Paris-based digital artist Ines Marzat, aka Ines Alpha – and they could be the future of the beauty industry.

Marzat uses 3D design software to create make-up that can only be viewed in the metaverse and in augmented reality (AR). Elevating social media filters into works of art, her designs build fantastical versions of beauty and provide new digital tools for others to explore their selfexpression online. Fans of her work include Charli XCX and Lizzo, and Marzat works with models, artists and art directors to bring her ‘makeup of the future’ to life.

“I want to create a space for complete creativity in one’s appearance,” says the 36-year-old. “It’s difficult to be different in our society, to stand out, wear colourful clothes and crazy make-up in the street, without getting comments or weird looks. In the digital space, you can be anything you want. You have total freedom of expression.”

the red bulletin: When did you start creating 3D digital make-up? ines alpha: I worked in advertising as an art director, specialising in beauty, cosmetics and fashion, but it was difficult to be creative because of the beauty standards you need to follow. I started by experimenting with 3D software for fun, creating iridescent blobs and weird creatures.

One day, I had the idea to combine my interests in beauty and 3D art and start applying my designs to the face.

What’s the appeal for you? I love the human face and how people express themselves through texture and make-up. Teaching myself how to add 3D to real environments made me see the potential of 3D beauty – it could be the make-up of the future.

What inspires your designs? I take a lot of inspiration from sea creatures: how they move, their colours and textures. When you take them out of the water, they dry and die. Reproducing them in 3D allows you to do things that aren’t possible in the physical world. You can recreate those glassy, colourful and elegantly moving creatures on the face.

Everyone has a curated online identity now – do you consider that when creating 3D looks? Yes. In the metaverse, you choose your identity and can create multiple selves. It’s so easy to choose a filter and be a character on one platform, then be another elsewhere. People tag me in their videos, and they instinctively move and act differently with different filters. That really informs my practice and how I can tell different stories through design.

In the future, will people walk around wearing 3D make-up only visible through AR glasses? That’s my dream! There are companies already trying to build AR glasses and contact lenses, but for now they’re not advanced enough to make you feel as though you’re in another environment. It’s early days,

but it’ll definitely happen. I think the technology will evolve fast, and I hope I’ll still be on this planet to see it.

Could this AR technology be used to change the world around us? Absolutely. You could augment your own world by adding things, and also diminish it. You could choose to not see any advertising in the streets, or only see YouTube ads. You could say, “I want to see my friends wearing [3D make-up] masks, but not people I don’t know.” Or – a horrible dystopian idea – you could say, “I don’t want to see the faces of people I don’t know.” I’d rather see the physical world become more fantastical, magical and colourful, but apparently it’s difficult to achieve that. So let’s create a more fantastical reality in the AR space.

Do you think the growing interest in digital beauty and fashion comes from people’s desire to rely less on physical resources?

I’m not sure digital fashion can replace [real-life] fashion. But what bothers me is that we’re creating something that emphasises consumption, whereas we need to decrease it. Also, digital work and its hardware is still ecologically problematic. We need to think about finding the right hardware and recycling it properly.

Which of your 3D make-up designs should people try?

There are two recent filters I released on Snapchat. HyperEmotionalSkin is a collaboration with [machine learning expert] Adrien Chuttarsing. He trained an algorithm to recognise facial expressions as emotions, and the filter changes shape in reaction to those expressions. And Alpha Beauty Booth is the first 3D make-up palette, made in collaboration with a coder named Sava. You have a selection of different digital elements – colours, but also tentacles and flowers. It’s tactile, so you apply it with your fingers like physical make-up. In the future, everyone will apply make-up using palettes like this. Moving closer to that future is exciting. You can try out Ines Alpha’s 3D make-up filters on Instagram and Snapchat; lens.snapchat.com

Meet the Parisian digital artist and 3D make-up designer who’s shaping the future of beauty with her fantastical creations

Man of traction

Not content with becoming European MTB champion and winning an iconic Tour de France stage, the multitasking rider is turning his attentions to bringing cyclists together

Photography TWILA FEDERICA MUZZI

It’s fair to say Tom Pidcock has had a good 2022. Following last year’s gold in cross-country mountain biking at the Olympics, the 23-year-old from Leeds took first place at the Cyclocross World Championships and the European Cross-country MTB Championships, and won the Tour de France’s iconic Alpe d’Huez stage on his debut. Even the setbacks he suffered seem impressive – not many athletes could crash and sustain a puncture at the MTB World Championships and still finish just one place off the podium.

But for Pidcock there’s always room for improvement. It’s a work ethic that – along with remarkable bike-handling skills, racing nous and unshakeable self-belief – has made him one of cycling’s ultimate multidisciplinary stars, dominating in MTB and cyclo-cross, and making his mark this year in road racing with the Ineos Grenadiers team.

Life’s busy when you’re a triple threat, though Pidcock has somehow found time in between podiums to launch Link My Ride, a networking app connecting cyclists worldwide for group rides. And, of course, to speak to The Red Bulletin…

the red bulletin: How did it feel to win on Alpe d’Huez on Bastille Day on your debut Tour?

tom pidcock: I don’t think there’s a better stage I could have won. It almost felt too easy, because it all just went so perfectly. Sometimes you get those days when it all comes together. To be honest, I remember the crowds more than the winning itself. It was pretty spectacular, the

amount of people. You don’t get that anywhere else, in any other sport.

Tell us about the Link My Ride app. What are you hoping people will get from it?

It was an idea that my friend Jacques [Sauvagnargues, a fellow British road racer] came up with – we were teammates at the time. The app basically makes cycling more accessible for everyone. You can organise group rides all in one place – the route, the time, the place. It makes everything as easy as possible. There’s been such an influx of new cyclists during lockdown, but if I was one of them I wouldn’t know where to start. Link My Ride will neaten everything up. It’s free to download and built for the community.

Did you have a cycling community around you when starting out as a young rider?

Growing up in Yorkshire, the cycling community is really good. We have chain gangs on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and every Saturday there are loads of different groups – all at various levels and riding a whole range of distances – that all end up at the same café. It’s a really good place to develop. For me, there were different levels I could progress through. Honestly, I don’t think there’s a better place I could have grown up to be a cyclist. Riding with people is fun; it’s enjoyable. Cycling is a hobby, a people’s pastime. It’s a social sport, and if you’re riding all the time by yourself, you’re really doing that just for fitness. I think socialising is half the story.

What challenges do amateur cyclists face right now?

I think the biggest thing is road rage and the relationship between drivers and cyclists. The lack of respect, mainly from drivers towards cyclists, but also the other way around. The number of times I’ve seen cyclists just riding in the middle of the road… you can’t do that, you have to be respectful. But then, of course, there are the drivers who just hate cyclists. People get angry, and it’s not nice. On a bike you’re vulnerable, whereas [drivers] are in a big metal box. That’s the biggest challenge. I can see someone new to cycling experience this and think, ‘This isn’t fun.’

There’s a lot of excitement about the new, young generation of cyclists who can do a bit of everything. There’s you, Wout van Aert, Mathieu van der Poel… Why do you think you’re all doing so well right now?

I think it’s probably because Wout and Mathieu have grown up racing together and they push each other. And then I get pushed by them, because they set a level and I’m like, ‘Wow, I want to beat them.’

It’s like leapfrog. Someone is always gonna come along and try to be better. People set a benchmark and it’s there to be beaten.

Do you feel any pressure to specialise in one discipline?

Nah, I do what I want! If I want to, then I will – but to be honest, I’ll [only] be good on a bike if I’m happy. So it’s in nobody’s interests to force me to do anything, because if I’m not happy, I’m not gonna be good.

There’s been speculation about whether you could be a future Tour champion. Has your Tour experience had an impact on your long-term plans?

On the plan? No. But it’s given me confidence and shown me that it’s perfectly reasonable to think that I can win the Tour de France one day. linkmyride.com

Words RACHAEL SIGEE

Tom Pidcock

“Riding with people is fun. Socialising is half the story for me”

A fresh take

Words BABA OSIKOYA Photography BRUNEL JOHNSON

Leon Oldstrong’s filmmaking journey began at 7.30am on a summer’s morning in 2009 when he climbed out of the window of his smashed-up Volkswagen Polo on the M25 near Dartford, Kent. A large van had crashed into the back of Oldstrong’s car – the driver had been sending a text – leaving him sandwiched between it and an estate car in front. Traffic officers were amazed that Oldstrong made it out alive.

This near-death experience instilled in Oldstrong a determination to “do something that matters”, so he quit his job as a surveyor and –following an eye-opening stint as a primary-school teacher in Lewisham, the London borough where he grew up – in 2013 he picked up a camera. He started out making documentaries and film shorts, including That’s Not Ours (2019) and Fair Trade (2020), works that address racial injustice within the Black community. But now Oldstrong, 40, is moving into other genres, such as fantasy and horror. “As a Black filmmaker, there’s an unspoken expectation you’ll cover racism, gang violence or anything around slavery,” he says. “My goal is to create the films that I wanted to see while growing up, but never did.”

Oldstrong’s latest film, the partcrowd-funded The Lies of Our Confines, is a horror short true to these aims, putting Black characters front and centre in a genre in which they’re typically underrepresented. In the film, his almost all-Black cast of teenage boys find themselves far from ‘the hood’, on a trip to the Scottish Highlands intended to show them a world beyond inner-city life. But when they discover a doll possessed by a vengeful spirit,

everything is upended in this jumpy, entertaining tale which, Oldstrong says, feels like “an act of rebellion”.

the red bulletin: According to your website, you went to the same film school as Quentin Tarantino… leon oldstrong: Yes, the school of watching films! I’m a huge film fan, always have been. Then I went out and taught myself to use a camera.

What prompted you to make The Lies of Our Confines? I like genre films, and I came to understand my place in the world as a Black man quite late. I looked back at my experiences [of film] as a kid and a lot of things became clearer. When it comes to fiction, [Black filmmakers] are largely restricted to drama and comedy. But I like horror, sci-fi and fantasy. I want to make something that feels like me but doesn’t address trauma – that seems like an act of rebellion. This film is an F-you to the [industry] gatekeepers: I’m going to tell this story and there’s nothing you can do about it.

What in particular did you want to do differently?

Whatever you think of this film, it’s an important story. One guy said to me, “I like the story a lot. I just like looking at it.” Our usual representation is against a grey concrete backdrop, wearing dark colours. This backdrop is green, and I deliberately had the characters wearing different colours. I try to show variety among the characters in the film, and affection between Black males. At its heart, it’s a film about brotherhood, identity and the need to belong.

What does the title mean? It’s a recurring theme throughout the film: the characters’ belief that

certain things are ‘not for us’. That’s a confine, which is a lie. For you, as the viewer, it’s also a lie that [Black filmmakers] don’t do horror. Any confine placed upon us is a lie. If you’re Black and you want to get into film, and then you see someone like me… I don’t have talent that anybody else doesn’t have. My superpower is that I’m too stubborn to quit.

Most of the crew had never been outside London, let alone to Scotland. What was filming like? Most people hadn’t met each other before, but everyone was invested. I drove the kit van for 10 hours, which was an experience, and it was nice to see everyone taking in the mountains for the first time. It was hard work, but rewarding. It’ll say ‘a Leon Oldstrong film’, but it’s an ‘everybodywho-was-involved film’, too.

How was the film funded?

Eighty per cent out of my pocket. I wanted to see a film like this – it shines a light on what’s lacking right now. It’s already a win because of the young people involved – we realised we don’t have to be what the media wants us to be. There was a real appetite from Black actors to take on roles not about the streets. They all expressed they never get roles like this.

What does the future hold for you after the release of TLOOC? The logical progression for me can’t be short films. For me to move to features, I’m working on getting the industry gatekeepers to watch this film. They don’t look like us, so they don’t understand the importance of this story. But I’ll become one of the gatekeepers giving opportunities to a new generation of Black filmmakers with an understanding of the need for the stories they’re pitching. One day, we’ll see Black characters in fantasies riding dragons and spaceships, and as wizards. Black filmmakers will have more space to dream and create beyond the hood. The sky’s the limit. For release info, go to Instagram: @theliesofourconfines

The 40-year-old British director is challenging the conventions of the film industry, telling Black stories that aren’t about trauma or the hood

Leon Oldstrong

“My superpower is that I’m too stubborn to quit”

Victor Montalvo, aka B-BOY VICTOR , is one of the best competitive breakers in the world today, but the foundations of his success were laid long ago – before he was even born

BREAKING THROUGH

Words JEFF WEISS Photography LAUREL GOLIO

Victor

Planet rock: Victor has competed – and triumphed – in B-Boy tournaments around the world

“Victor is probably the most dominant B-Boy of all-time in terms of competitive breaking”

Legendary breaker

Ivan ‘Roxrite’ Delgado

The story of how Victor Montalvo became one of the greatest B-Boys of his generation doesn’t start with the moment when he discovered the art form at six years old. Nor does it begin a decade and a half ago, when he began appearing at cyphers in Central Florida, displaying such precocity that the unknown teen was swiftly anointed a saviour of US breaking. In actual fact, the tale of how B-Boy Victor became an international champion – and one of the US’s best hopes to win the gold medal in breaking at the 2024 Paris Olympics – begins in the projects of Puebla, Mexico, more than a decade before he was born.

“My dad always told me, ‘Whatever you do, give it 100 per cent and be the best at it – even if you’re a janitor, just be the best janitor,’” Victor says. It’s August, and after a long day of honing his craft the B-Boy is lounging on a couch in his graffiticovered practice space in West Los Angeles, where he relocated a couple of years ago to pursue opportunities in the entertainment industry. “My dad would always tell me how he wanted to become a champion in breaking but was never able to.”

Rewind to autumn 1983, and to the subtropical highland metropolis of Puebla, located about 110km south-east of Mexico City, in an indigent district where factory workers paid a portion of their salary to live in tiny, run-down, corporate-owned houses. There, the Bermudez twins discovered what was then known as breakdancing – the fledgling art form that emerged from the South Bronx of the mid-’70s.

At the time, the five boroughs of New York City might as well have been a solar system apart from Puebla, known for its mole – the thick, spicy sauce –

and UNESCO-protected architectural heritage. But even though hip-hop still remained largely unknown in large swathes of the nation that invented it, Victor and Hector Bermudez – the father and uncle of the future B-Boy Victor – learned about breaking through a visitor from the US. On a trip back to his homeland, a friend’s cousin had brought a Betamax player to the brothers’ neighbourhood, along with a homemade breaking documentary that revealed the windmills, head spins and downrocks first popularised by the Rock Steady Crew. Inspired by the creativity of it all, the Bermudez twins rewound the tape endlessly, attempting to master the moves that they saw.

Then, in the summer of 1984, everything exploded. The seminal dance films Breakin’ and Beat Street became international sensations, introducing adolescents around the globe to a phenomenon that had almost exclusively been concentrated on the East Coast of the US and in Los Angeles. But the 13-yearold Bermudez brothers had got a head start.

“When we went to the movies to watch those films, there were guys trying to break outside of the theatre,” remembers Victor Bermudez. “But because we’d watched the documentary beforehand, we had more experience and knowledge. When we started dancing, everyone went crazy for us.”

As the trend took root in Mexico, the Bermudez brothers and their friends formed a breaking crew that swiftly became known as the area’s finest. In particular, the twins were known for their dazzling power moves. Over the next 18 months, they participated in big competitions across the state of Puebla. There was no prize money, but they’d receive

food, transportation, and occasionally a hotel – a massive deal to kids barely into their teens, who’d never left their neighbourhood, but who dreamed of dance stardom.

But by 1986 the first breaking boom died out. The Bermudez twins switched their energies to playing guitar and drums in a death-metal band. However, music didn’t pay the bills either. Hoping to escape the region’s crushing poverty, the siblings joined a street gang. “We were getting into trouble, doing bad things,” Victor Bermudez recalls. “My mum told me that I was either going to die or end up in jail. She told me that I needed to come with [my family] to the US. I told my wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, ‘Let’s go.’”

Reaching the US involved a harrowing journey across the Chihuahuan Desert, at times without adequate food or water. After the border crossing, the family was picked up and crammed 20-deep into a van, then transported to a different, unfamiliar outpost. Their odyssey ended in Kissimmee, Florida, a predominantly Puerto Rican city where they eventually settled. By 1994, the year of B-Boy Victor’s birth, his father and uncle had found employment as chefs in a restaurant at nearby Walt Disney World.

The notion of winning fame and riches through dancing became a distant memory. In their new country, the Bermudez brothers dedicated themselves to work and to supporting their growing families. But they never forgot their childhood passion.

Sometime around the turn of the century, the family were watching Beat Street in their living room when the famous battle scene between the New York City Breakers and the Bronx Rockers at the Roxy came on screen. Hector and Victor Bermudez told their children about how they used to do those moves back in Puebla. Six-year-old Victor Jr and his older cousin began cracking up with laughter. Never one to back down from a challenge, the Bermudez twins rifled through their closets, busted out their old hoodies and began doing windmills, backspins and pops. The children were blown away and demanded that their parents teach them the routines.

But after a brief infatuation, B-Boy Victor and his cousin, Hector ‘Static’ Bermudez, quit B-Boying for four years. When they started back up, there was no half-stepping. They practised daily and formed a local crew. None of them had any clue about the burgeoning domestic and international breaking scene. This was, after all, the mid-2000s. The underground, back-to-basics traditionalism of the late ’90s was already out of vogue. The likes of 50 Cent and pop-rap crossovers controlled the Billboard charts. For most high-school kids in Central Florida, breaking seemed as anachronistic as a manual typewriter.

“We thought we were the only breakers in the world,” B-Boy Victor remembers. “We weren’t looking at YouTube; we didn’t even know what YouTube was. We didn’t have a computer, and I didn’t have a phone until I was 18. All we had were

old video cassettes of some people on MTV doing head spins. We would just try to copy them.”

Wearing a navy-blue hoodie, track pants and sneakers, the 28-year-old with closely cropped black hair and forearm tattoos looks like an archetypal B-Boy – albeit one with the aesthetic appeal of a pop star. After our interview on this broiling August afternoon, Victor will head to Santa Monica to play beach volleyball with some friends. For the last several hours he’s been practising his renowned power moves in preparation for this November’s Red Bull BC One World Final in New York, where he’ll represent the US.

To watch Victor break is to wrongfully assume he emerged straight from the womb with a staggering array of lightning backspins, airflares and windmills – as though he long ago struck a Mephistophelian pact to forever defy gravity. But while he was genetically gifted with natural athleticism, agility and flexibility, Victor’s path to stardom required years of practice alongside his brother and cousin. There was no fancy studio; instead, the crew practised on the carpet with cardboard on top, or concrete with a mat for protection.

“I’d be practising in my room and see him walking by, peeking through the door to see what I was doing,” says Static. “I’d be like, ‘Do you want to come in and learn?’ That’s when we really started training. We’d practise day and night, to the point where my father and uncle would be like, ‘OK, time to sleep.’”

For the next three years, the pair tirelessly refined their moves alongside a squad of about half a dozen. Devoid of contact with the outside breaking world, they developed their own style, unaffected by contemporary trends. Finally, someone in the crew heard about a breaking jam in Kissimmee. When they showed up, they seemed like the survivors on the TV show Lost, finally making it off the island.

“It was crazy because no one knew about us,” Static says. “They were like, ‘Who the heck are these kids?’ People thought we were from out of town.”

At the age of 14, Victor finished in the top 16. At the next tournament in Gainesville, Florida, their crew took home the grand prize. But the road to the international circuit was paved with numerous losses. Even the most dominant B-Boys fail more than they succeed. But it’s all about how you bounce back.

“Our crew thought we were the only breakers in the world. We weren’t looking at YouTube; we didn’t even know what it was”

Victor will represent the US once again –and hope to repeat his 2015 victory – at the Red Bull BC One World Final in New York on November 12

“I loved losing because it pushed me to do more,” Victor recalls. “I remember training hard, going to all these events and not placing, and I’m like, ‘Ugh, I gotta go back and train harder.’ Then I’d place in another event, but lose. I’d be like, ‘I gotta get better.’ The more I lost, the better I got.”

Victor inherited his ferocious determination from his father, whose own hardships taught him the importance of strength, discipline and a will for greatness. The elder Victor remembers this era vividly, specifically a time when his son came to him in tears. Then 15, the future champion was

devastated after a near-victory in a regional battle. “I told him he needed to learn from it,” Victor Bermudez says. “If you lost, you did something wrong – not in a bad way, but where you need to fix it so you can win the next time. I knew he was good, but I always taught him the importance of being the best.”

By the end of the 2000s, B-Boy Victor and his crew, Flip Style, acquired DVDs of Red Bull BC One competitions and discovered the global breaking galaxy. The dawn of YouTube offered access to clips of international events, which spurred his stylistic evolution and desire to break on a larger stage. His first major victory occurred at the 2011 Red Bull BC One cypher in Tampa, which qualified him for the US national finals in Chicago. Until then, he’d never left Florida.

“Everyone was like, ‘Who’s this kid? He’s gonna lose first round,’” says Victor, who competed in Chicago as ‘Vicious Victor’. “No one believed that I was gonna make it past the first round.”

“I loved losing – it pushed me to do more. I’d be like, ‘I gotta get better’”

Just a few months after his 17th birthday, Victor almost earned the top prize, ultimately losing to Boston B-Boy El Niño in the final round. It was a ‘star is born’ moment that won him invitations from all the elite tournaments around the world. the first being the Notorious IBE competition held every autumn in the Netherlands. He’d dreamed of this moment, but two problems stood in his way: his lack of a passport, and his senior year of high school.

“My mum and her brothers and sisters were like, ‘He’s not going!’” Victor says. “Even my older brother was like, ‘He has to stay in school.’ I begged my mum every day, but my dad was like, ‘Shut up. Don’t tell her nothing – you’re going.’”

Even though he was short on money for rent, Victor’s father paid more than $500 (£430) to secure a rushed passport for his son. The Netherlands trip was followed by an invitation to the Battle of the Year competition in France. Victor soon fell behind in school, dropped out, and moved to England for the next three months.

“My mum and her side of the family were really upset,” says Victor. “They thought it was horrible, that I was going to be a nobody, that I needed to go back to school to have a career. But my dad was OK with it. He was like, ‘Just follow your dreams. Do what you’re doing.’ He was the only one who truly believed in me.”

After several years of high placings in tournaments but rarely wins, Victor’s breakthrough came in 2014, when he won a battle in France and then another in Taiwan. Now a member of the vaunted Squadron crew, Victor still suffered plenty of losses, but his hard work and raw talent allowed him to take his art to the next level. No one had blended such fast and agile power moves with preternatural confidence and a rhythmic communion with the music. With his athleticism and sense of improvisation, Victor brought forth the next evolution of routines without sacrificing the traditionalist fundamentals of the greats who stood before him.

It all led up to 2015, when Victor won the Red Bull BC One World Final championship in Rome, the

Ground control: Victor in action. During his youth, his skills were honed on carpet with cardboard on top, or concrete and a mat

“My dad always told me, ‘Whatever you do, give it 100 per cent and be the best at it’”

Silverback Open Championships in Philadelphia, and the Undisputed World B-Boy Series in Marseille (he also won the event in San Diego in 2017) and began a run unmatched in modern competitive history, with notable victories including Outbreak Europe in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia (2017, 2019), the World Urban Games in Budapest (2019) and last year’s WDSF World Breaking Championships in Paris.

Despite the success, those around Victor describe a modest, tenacious and kind person, so dedicated to his family that he recently bought them a house in Kissimmee with his earnings. “He’s humble and hard-working,” says his wife, Kateryna Pavlenko, herself a celebrated dancer known as B-Girl Kate. “It feels like he was born under a lucky star. He has a good heart, passion and patience. It just accumulates and allows him to keep getting better at whatever it is that he wants to do.”

But over the past three years there was a period when he fell out of love with the sport. The problem with being at the top is the tremendous amount of effort it takes to remain there – not to mention the pressure that comes with it. You can practise all day, but it starts to feel rote, as though you’re going through the motions. By the beginning of 2020, Victor understood that it was time to take a break, which soon became a forced hiatus due to the pandemic. “I lost the love of it,” he says. “I was like, ‘Man, I gotta stay away from breaking.’ Maybe it was the events, maybe the music, but it didn’t feel the same.”

That year, he returned to Florida for six months to regroup with his family. When the international borders reopened, he and Pavlenko headed to her native Ukraine. During his B-Boy sabbatical, Victor took up Muay Thai fighting, bike riding and running.

Since returning to competition, he’s continued to rack up victory after victory, most recently in July, taking the breaking gold medal at the 2022 World Games in Birmingham, Alabama.

“He’s probably the most dominant B-Boy of alltime in terms of competitive breaking,” says Ivan ‘Roxrite’ Delgado, a legendary breaker and fellow member of the Squadron crew. “He takes what has already been done to new levels and adds his own twist. He has already won three of the biggest events that the Olympic Federation has hosted. His chances of winning gold in 2024 are very high.”

Bringing home the first-ever Olympic gold medal in breaking could make Victor the face of the sport, both nationally and internationally. He projects a quiet and low-key temperament, but beneath the surface he’s brimming with aspirations for the future: to raise a family, invest in real estate, and operate a business – ideally a gym for breakers and other athletes, perhaps with a café that offers the healthy food options that Kissimmee currently lacks. But in line with his sense of tradition, Victor deflects discussions of personal gain, instead speaking to the broader opportunities it would afford the art and the community. “We’re going to get more respect out of it,” he says. “There are two sides to breaking: the battling and the culture. I want people to know about the culture, because if you don’t understand what breakers are doing, the competition side can get boring. I want people to see both sides.”

This awareness of its cultural roots could only come from someone steeped in it since childhood, or in this case, before he even came into consciousness. The Olympics offers a chance to realise the dreams of a father who never had the opportunity to watch his talent fully bloom, who sacrificed everything to ensure his son could be the world’s greatest. It would be a victory much deeper than acclaim, wealth or fame; the culmination of a hope that began four decades ago.

“I didn’t have a chance to do it, so it means everything to watch my son live his dreams – and through him, I can live my own,” says Victor Bermudez. “I wanted to be the best, but I couldn’t because I had my kids and was young and needed to work. When he travels abroad and I see the pictures or he calls me, I can see everything through him.

Everything I wanted to do, he’s doing now.”

Instagram: @supamontalvo

“There are two sides to breaking: the battling and the culture…

I want people to see both sides”

Full bloom: (from left) Red Roses stars Abbie Ward, Holly Aitchison and Marlie Packer, photographed for The Red Bulletin in Bracknell, Berkshire, in August this year

THE LONG GAME

ABBIE WARD, HOLLY AITCHISON and MARLIE PACKER are three of England rugby’s top-ranked Red Roses, a national team built on dedication – on and off the pitch

Words JESSICA HOLLAND Photography ALEX BEER

Red Roses

It’s a baking hot August afternoon, and three of the nation’s top athletes are lying on the vivid green grass of a local club’s rugby pitch in Bracknell, Berkshire. Marlie Packer, Abbie Ward and Holly Aitchison are pro players for the Red Roses, England’s women’s rugby team, ranked number one in the world. Each is a force of nature with her own particular superpower: force, strategy, speed. Their skills have helped England win four consecutive Six Nations Championships, and made the Roses favourites heading into this month’s delayed 2021 World Cup in New Zealand.

During a game, they’re formidable opponents who’ll dive headfirst into a ruck without thinking twice, but today they’re relaxed as they pose for photos, sprawled on the grass in a tangle, making each other laugh. “Not gonna lie, I feel like I’ve got six chins on,” says Yeovil-born Packer as the others do their best to gaze at the camera with a straight face. “All I’m thinking is, ‘Chin up, Marlie, chin up!’” Aitchison, the youngest and newest member of the team, needs a little encouragement to huddle in close to the others, while Ward is all poised professionalism, joking about smizing – smiling with your eyes – before demonstrating with an intense, smouldering look.

It’s already been a standout year for women’s sport thanks to the success of the England football team, and women’s rugby is on the rise. The upcoming World Cup is being broadcast by ITV, and the Red Roses are on an unbeaten streak stretching back more than two years. If the team triumph in New Zealand, they’ll not only thrill their growing fanbase but also be poised for a Lionesses level of superstardom when the World Cup comes home to England in 2025.

The trophies the Roses have racked up tell only part of the story of this team. Packer, Ward and Aitchison’s journeys offer examples of the many battles being fought off the pitch, too. From tackling

pay inequity and mental health, to challenging stereotypes of femininity and inspiring others to embrace who they are, there are issues just as significant to the Roses legacy as the tournaments they play. And these players’ paths have been carved out with as much vigour as they bring to the pitch.

When Packer, now in her thirties, was growing up in a council house in Somerset, the idea of becoming a women’s rugby pro wasn’t even a fantasy. She fell for the game at the age of five after being taken to a session by a friend’s parent and coming home caked in mud. “Rugby gave me a sense of belonging and purpose,” she says. But without pay it wasn’t a career path at the time: “I played because I loved it.” She trained as a plumber and, like many of her England teammates, worked full-time as she began pursuing the sport at the highest level. She had spent almost a decade with the Red Roses before professional contracts were introduced to the 15-player game.

Now, Packer is one of a few mothers currently playing for their country, with a two-year-old son carried by her partner, Natasha. She brings driving physical force to the team. “If it’s a 50-50 ball, I’m going to win it,” Packer says. “I’ll put my body on the line for my team. Crashing through the line, running through people, that’s me. And if I’m telling you something on the pitch, I will be direct.”

Abbie Ward, on the other hand, describes herself as a “technical, tactical player” whose job on the pitch is leading the line-out. She grew up in the Lake District, playing summer touch rugby in a mixedgender group of adults and kids, along with every other sport under the sun. It was in rugby that Ward shone most brightly and, after securing an undergrad degree in history and politics and a master’s in sports coaching, she joined the Red Roses in 2015. Now 29, she brings the same strategic thinking that helps her win games to the wider fight to push forward the

“The biggest thing for me is for girls to know they can play rugby, they can be strong, they can be big”

Abbie Ward

Try and mighty: the Red Roses are favourites to win the delayed 2021 Rugby World Cup tournament in New Zealand this month

Irresistible force: Ward was named Player of the Match for her performance in the team’s 54-0 demolition of Italy in the 2020 Six Nations final

women’s game. “Sometimes you’ve got to pave your own way,” she says. “It’s difficult; it’s not always nice. You meet a lot of resistance, but it can be done.”

During the last World Cup, in 2017, the Rugby Football Union (RFU) introduced salaries for the Red Roses for a year, but these were not renewed. Ward decided to live off her savings and moved from the north-east to the Home Counties to play for club team Harlequins, continuing to devote herself fulltime to the sport. The gamble paid off. In September 2018, the RFU announced that from the start of the following year they’d pay 35 of the Roses squad, 28 of them on full-time professional contracts. That number has since risen to 30. Though women rugby players still earn less than their male counterparts, it was a huge step forward. “We were the first team to be awarded contracts, and we fought for that,” Ward says. “For me, it was about not letting anyone tell you what you can and can’t do. I wanted to be a professional rugby player. There are a lot of glass ceilings. It’s about finding a way to smash them.”

When asked what that fight looked like, Ward replies, “Lots of meetings, working with the Rugby Players Association, which is essentially our union.” Pressure from players appears to be paying off: after a petition signed by 123 former internationals, the Welsh Rugby Union offered 12 full-time professional 12-month contracts in January this year, with a further 17 in July. “We need to push other countries to go professional, which will help the quality of rugby improve,” says Ward. “And then more people will want to invest. I’d also like to see that support rolled out in club rugby. It probably won’t be professional until I retire, but I want the young players coming through to know there’s a career path.”

Holly Aitchison, 25, whose dad Ian is a former England player, is an example of what’s possible with this kind of investment in place. She played on a boys’ team until she was 12; joined the England Talent Development Group the same year; was coached at Range High School in Formby, Merseyside, by a former England captain; and did a BTEC in rugby at Gloucestershire’s Hartpury College, known for its development of top-level players. “I was the first generation to come out of school and go professional,” she says. “I don’t think I’d cope with a full-time job on top of all the training we do.”

Last summer, she went to the Tokyo Olympics with the GB Rugby Sevens team and joined the Red Roses as soon as she got back. In her first match, in October 2021, she was filling in for an injured Emily Scarratt, 2019’s World Player of the Year. It was the team’s first meeting with their biggest rivals, New Zealand’s Black Ferns, in two years, and Aitchison scored one of seven tries that won England the game.

That moment when she caught the ball and decided to make a run for the try line is burned into her brain. “I was so scared,” she says. “I was like, ‘If I take this gap, I have to score.’ People were screaming at me to go, and it just opened up for me. Apparently my brother was crying. Everyone was so proud.”

Aitchison is a versatile athlete who says she can “kind of fit in wherever”. Ward agrees: “Everything looks easy when she does it, and at every camp you see more confidence with it. She’s an exciting player to watch.” Aitchison has benefitted from older players blazing a trail before her, and she’s keen to pay that forward. In 2021, she became an ambassador for the British Inspiration Trust (BRIT), which supports the mental health of young adults. She’s open about having “quite bad social anxiety”, which can be a challenge in a sport with a big squad that requires assertiveness on the pitch. “I’m here as an international athlete,” she says, “telling you there are things I struggle with in day-to-day life. I hope that might help other people be more open about things they struggle with.”

Aitchison also admits that she’s found it difficult in the past to reconcile being a pro rugby player with the pressure to conform to a traditional idea of femininity. “When getting into rugby, I shied away from being muscular,” she says. “I didn’t think it was cute and pretty.” Now, she challenges her own negative thoughts, telling herself that her powerful physique “helps me be the best athlete I can be. It’s not a negative”. As Aitchison acknowledges, being a star athlete doesn’t protect you from life’s ups and downs; if anything, it can make them more extreme.

Packer has been through it all. She was in her early twenties when she played in the 2014 World Cup, coming back from injury to help England win both the semi-final and final. She’d just signed a contract to be a salaried Sevens player, allowing her to put her plumbing work to one side. “I had no care in the world,” she says. “It was amazing.” But when

“There are a lot of glass ceilings. It’s about finding a way to smash them”

Abbie Ward

Red Roses

she returned home, the feeling evaporated. “I was putting on this smile and winning these accolades, but inside I was really sad. My dad had died just before the World Cup and I’d never processed that properly. I had an operation on my elbow that took me out for a while, and my relationship broke down around the same time. That was me at my lowest. It took me a good year and a half to get out of that.”

Packer was part of the Sevens squad that qualified for the Rio Olympics, but it was a tough season. “My weight fluctuated,” she says. “It wasn’t what the coaches at the time wanted. Then I wasn’t selected for the Olympics. I was gutted.” Her family had their flights to Brazil already booked, so at the last minute she decided to go out and watch. “It was the best thing I’ve ever done. I enjoyed myself so much. I felt every emotion the girls were feeling on the pitch. When I got home, I put that [chapter] to bed and concentrated on the 15s game. We had the World Cup coming up in 2017, and I was still a great 15s player.”

Since then, Ward says, Packer “keeps getting better, season upon season. She’s evolving her game. That’s really difficult to do, and she’s smashing it”. This year, Packer is co-captain of her London-based club team, Saracens, and in May she earned her first nomination for Women’s Six Nations Player of the Championship. Her commitment is fierce – “I’d do anything for my teammates,” she says – but having her son, Oliver, has provided valuable perspective. Oliver’s birthday comes just before the Red Roses fly to New Zealand, so, she says, “while most of the girls will be putting their feet up at the spa, nice and chill, I’ll be going round Peppa Pig World, having a great time. In 2014 and 2017, my entire life revolved around rugby, but there’s a bigger world out there”.

This distance is necessary at times, as Ward can well appreciate, having torn both ACLs and had a serious hip injury, each one taking her out for nine

“If it’s a 50-50 ball, I’m going to win it. I’ll put my body on the line for my team”

Marlie Packer

Safe pair of hands: Aitchison’s Red Roses debut – against New Zealand in October last year – saw her replace injured star player Emily Scarratt. She went on to score one of the tries that won England victory

Triple threat: with their combination of strengths and skills, youth and experience, the trio are key to the Red Roses’ push for World Cup glory

Red

months to a year. Both she and Packer were forced to watch the start of the 2020 Six Nations on TV at home as they rested their injuries. But in March the competition was stopped due to COVID. When it resumed in November, and England took on Italy in the final, the two athletes were not only fit to play but both scored tries. England won 54-0, and Ward was awarded Player of the Match.

Since then, the Red Roses’ upwards trajectory has continued as gains on and off the pitch have pushed the sport forward. When they won the Six Nations for a fourth consecutive time in April this year, the event was broadcast on the BBC, sponsored by TikTok and watched by millions. The Roses’ September victory over Wales made them the first tier-one nation – male or female – ever to win 25 games in a row.

But these wins aren’t all that keep Ward fighting. There’s the bigger picture. She has two “rugby-mad” nieces aged 10 and 13, who, she says, want to be pro

players when they’re older. “I remember seeing them in tears at the local Boxing Day game – they were so invested. That gives you a bit of perspective as a player. You’re playing for more than yourself; you’re playing to inspire generations. The biggest thing for me is that responsibility to be seen, and for girls to know they can play rugby, they can be strong, they can be big. I love it because, from [rugby positions] one to 15, everyone is a different shape and size, with a different skill set. That’s life, right? We don’t all fit one mould. We’d be a terrible team if we did.”

On the day Packer, Ward and Aitchison gather in Bracknell for their Red Bulletin photoshoot, the selection for the final World Cup squad is about to take place. It’s on the minds of all three as they return from the pitch to the clubhouse, snacking on melon and trying not to sweat off their make-up. They’re all cautious about assuming they’ll make the cut, but ready for what the autumn will bring. “The last seven weeks have been brutal in how we’ve trained, mentally and physically,” Ward says. “We’ve done so much training against each other, we’re really ready to go and play against an opposition.”

After their interviews, the trio get their make-up touched up and head back out to the pitch for group photos. Meanwhile, the clubhouse manager of this grassroots sports ground, Lauren Clark, is waiting for the right time to ask for her own keepsake photo with the women, once they’ve changed out of their topsecret new kit. She’s a little starstruck, and grateful for all that the Red Roses have done to transform the game. “I’m 30 now,” she says, “and I’ve played rugby all my life. When I was young, we [girls] only had a corner of the pitch [to practice on]. Things have changed so much.” Now, she says, “People are taking the Red Roses seriously. They’re seen as a professional rugby team, not girls throwing a ball about.”

The club Clark works for, Bracknell RFC, now has girls’ teams in several age brackets, as well as a women’s squad. “They’ve influenced that,” she says, gesturing towards the three athletes posing for the camera. “They’ve had a huge impact in such a short time. It’s not a boys’ sport any more. It’s for everyone.”

Once the photoshoot is over and Clark has got her snapshot with the trio, the players wait for a taxi back to camp to continue their gruelling training schedule. Whatever happens in New Zealand, Packer, Ward and Aitchison have already helped usher a centuries-old game into a new era. And the Red Roses will play with the same spirit that’s seen them push the limits of what’s possible not just for women’s rugby but for women’s sport as a whole.

“As a Red Roses squad, we don’t settle,” says Ward. “We always want to improve. It’s not about standing still, it’s about, ‘What heights can we go to?’ The exciting thing is that a lot of the time we’ve not really left third gear. Although we’ve had some great results, I don’t think you’ve seen us full throttle yet.”

“I shied away from being muscular. I didn’t think it was cute or pretty” Holly Aitchison

Abdulla Yousef Al Mulla, director of the 3-2-1 Olympic and Sports Museum in Doha, and chairman of Qatar’s oldest sports club, Al Ahli SC.

Opposite: Doha, as seen from the Corniche, the waterfront promenade that will be the epicentre of World Cup action, with massive screens for fans

MOVING THE GOALPOSTS

This year, the world’s biggest sporting event will be held in the smallest country ever to host it. Qatar is 11 times smaller than the state of New York, with a population a third the size of London’s. It has never before qualified for the FIFA World Cup, so why would it want the honour? And what can the teams and fans expect when they get there?

Words JANE STOCKDALE and TOM GUISE Photography JANE STOCKDALE

Qatar football

Driving along Qatar’s Al Khor Coastal Road is an exercise in contradiction. On this expressway carved through the desert, temperatures exceed 40°C (real feel: 50°C), yet breaking up the featureless terrain are palm trees and landscaped gardens. What seems to be a megalithic Arabian tent in the distance reveals itself to be a stadium, Al Bayt. The speed limit is 120kph, yet everything else here is moving at breakneck speed.

A century ago, this tiny (just 11,490sq-km) peninsular nation on the Persian Gulf had a fragile economy built on pearl hunting, then in 1940 oil was discovered. Today, it’s one of the world’s richest countries, with the fourth highest GDP per capita. Most of that is held by the 300,000-odd Qataris who make up just 11 per cent of the 2.9million population. Qatar is ruled by a hereditary monarchy, with the Emir holding near-absolute authority. Little of this was general knowledge beyond those living in the Gulf nations and the multitude of expats drawn to Qatar thanks to its zero income-tax status. Until now.

This year, Qatar plays host to the 2022 FIFA World Cup; the first Muslim and Arab nation to do so. The first World Cup to be held in November and December. And with all the stadia within a 33sq-km radius, it offers fans the unique possibility of attending two matches in one day. But it’s also a World Cup of controversies, of labour ethics and human rights issues. As the world’s eyes focus on this fledgling international football nation, what will it find? What is the reality of football culture inside this country that visiting fans know so little about?

The answer lies at the end of the Al Khor Coastal Road, in the shimmering oasis that is Qatar’s capital, Doha…

The chairman

Opened to the public in March this year, the 3-2-1 Qatar Olympic and Sports Museum in Doha is testament to Qatar’s ambitions. Grandiose, technologically breathtaking and steeped in history, it’s actually two distinct constructs.

The first is a curved main auditorium flowing into the 46-year-old Khalifa International Stadium – home to the Qatar national football team, and where the country won the 11th Gulf Cup in 1992. It’s also one of the eight stadia that will stage this year’s World Cup.

The second is the entrance building, a spiralling glass tower segmented by five giant Olympic Rings anchored by

traditional lattice Jali screens. This hybrid of history and technology continues inside, where Michael Schumacher’s F1 car resides along with recreated Roman chariots, and Steffi Graf’s 1999 French Open tennis racquet shares space with wooden clubs used in Pahlevani, an ancient Iranian martial art combining gymnastics, calisthenics and music. There are video walls displaying local heroes such as four-time Dakar champion Nasser Al Attiyah, and a high-tech zone where visitors can don fitness-tracking wristbands and gauge their ‘physical literacy’ in tests such as pushing a Jeep out of sand. The gift shop sells football shirts, Olympic memorabilia, and coffee-table books such as French photographer Brigitte Lacombe’s Hey’Ya: Arab Women in Sport.

Here, The Red Bulletin also finds Abdulla Yousef Al Mulla, director of the museum and chairman of Qatar’s oldest sports club, Al Ahli SC, founded in 1950. In his youth, Abdulla played for the under-14s football team. “I only scored three goals,” he laughs. “But back in the 1970s, ’80’s, ’90s, my team provided the national [squad] with players in their starting line-up.”

Among Abdulla’s many esteemed titles – he’s also chief protocol officer in the Olympic Council of Asia – he was on the Qatar bidding committee for the World Cup. Abdulla wrote the official guidebook on welcoming VIPs to Qatar. This, he says, is a project that dates all the way back to 1978.

“It was the eighth Asian Games in Bangkok,” he recalls. “His Highness the Emir [of Qatar] gathered a board meeting. He said, ‘Why can we not host the Asian Games like Bangkok?’ Everyone said, ‘Your Highness, we can. But we have to build infrastructure, we need good venues, teams to compete.’

“From 1979 to 1998, we hosted an event for each [sporting] federation, starting with the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council], then the Arabs and Asia, then internationally with the first Qatar Open in 1993, when Boris Becker played. By 1998, [the Emir] issued a decree that Qatar was going to bid for the Asian Games 2006.” It won that bid.

The interview ends as Abdulla needs to attend another meeting, but he takes a moment for a few photos. As we depart through the museum entrance – fashioned in the style of a running track – diplomatic limousines bearing the flags of other nations await him.

Pictured: the coach of Qatar’s Paris Saint-Germain Academy talks tactics

“Qatar is a small country. Teammates become friends, brothers…”

Qatar football

The dream factory

Located next to the Khalifa International Stadium is the Aspire Academy, founded in 2004 to scout and develop world-class athletes. It features six outdoor pitches and – enclosed in the world’s largest football dome – an air-conditioned FIFA-approved pitch. It’s estimated to have cost more than $1.4 billion (£1.2bn) to build.

Former Crown Prince Jassim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani – who, in 2003, abdicated his position as heir apparent in favour of younger brother Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the current Emir – is its patron. Word is, Aspire was Jassim’s idea.

The academy is more than a soccer school. It’s a full education system with a sports science department that covers physiology, psychology, biochemistry, biomechanics, strength conditioning and nutrition. From an early age, inductees eat, sleep and study here. Alan Karimi, a former student, calls it “the national talent centre of Qatar. From the under12s to the under-20s [and beyond], it’s basically the national team of Qatar. They get scholarships to study and train like professional football players”.

That investment seems to be paying off. When Qatar beat Japan to win the Asian Cup in 2019, 70 per cent of the squad came through Aspire. “They grew up in the academy – they’d been playing together for more than 10 years,” Karimi says. The achievement can’t be overstated; Japan has a population of 125 million to draw from, 43 times that of Qatar. “It’s like Wales winning the Euros,” says Karimi. “You could say it’s a miracle.”

A miracle with plenty of wealth and ambition behind it. The academy has fewer than 200 students, but an estimated staff of more than 3,000 to cater for them. It doesn’t accept applicants, instead selecting them through what it calls a ‘nationwide talent identification programme’. In truth, that programme extends further, to a scouting network trialling teenage players as far afield as Asia, Africa and South America. Aspire calls the project “Football Dreams –a humanitarian project whose goal is to empower the youth of the world”. Between 2007 and 2014, it screened 3.5 million boys from 17 countries, with fewer than 20 scholarships awarded each year.

The programme has drawn international debate, largely due to a rule that allows non-citizens to become ‘naturalised’, meeting FIFA’s requirements that national players must have lived for

five continuous years in the country they represent from the age of 18. Of the 23man team that won the 2019 Asian Cup, five were not born in Qatar, and 17 didn’t have citizenship (in Qatar, citizenship is not granted at birth, but by decree of the Emir). As The Times pointed out in a June 2022 article, however, the same scrutiny could apply to other nations. “Fifteen members of the France side that won the 2018 World Cup had African roots,” it said. “Thirteen of England’s Euro 2020 squad could have represented another nation.”

Karimi, who was born in Iran and raised in New Zealand, but moved to Qatar as a teenager, sees the issue not as one of roots, but of family. “Qatar is a small country. Teammates become friends, brothers, hanging out with each other even outside of the field. The coach is like a father. It’s important not to change this culture of respect and family, but to develop it, through the coaches, the camps. It’s important to keep those qualities.”

On other matters of culture, Qatar has also drawn broad criticism – in particular its stance on LGBTQ+ rights. Same-sex marriage and civil partnerships are not

legally recognised, male homosexuality is punishable by prison – or even death by Sharia law (although there’s no evidence this has ever been enforced) – and campaigning for gay rights is forbidden. This May, it was reported that Pride flags may be confiscated at matches “to prevent altercations between spectators” and that some FIFA-recommended hotels weren’t accepting same-sex couples. FIFA countered by stating that hosts would welcome guests “in a non-discriminatory manner” or “face termination of contract”, and the Emir said all visitors would be welcomed, but he asked that they “respect our culture”.

Karimi’s take is similar: “You hear in the news that it’s such a closed-off country, but living here I’ve never seen such a thing. I know gay people in Qatar; I see them outside. No one bothers them. I don’t see police going after them. Every country has its own cultures – some things are accepted, some are not. Here in the Middle East, for example, you see people holding hands, hugging, but within reason. Public displays of affection… do them at home.”

The neighbourhood

A 20-minute drive south from Doha lies Al Wakrah. Just three per cent of Qatar’s population, around 88,000, live here, yet it’s the second largest city. It’s also the location of the Al Janoub Stadium, another of the World Cup venues and home ground to Al Wakrah SC, a team in the Qatar Stars League, the top division in football.

Former Spain and Arsenal player Santi Cazorla watches from the touchline at the Al Fereej Youth Tournament. Opposite: archive photos of Al Sadd SC

Aspire Academy is more than a soccer school. It’s a full education system

Qatar football

At a sports hall, a group of friends has gathered to play football indoors to avoid the afternoon’s 43°C heat. “From May to September, most teams play inside,” says one of them, Ali Al Salat. “We’re mates from high school and have been playing on the weekend for almost 15 years.”

These days, Al Salat is the head of media at the Qatar Football Association and media coordinator for the Qatar national team, but until the age of 20 he played for first-division team Al Arabi. Formed in 1952, it’s one of the country’s oldest clubs. “Some fans call them the ‘Liverpool of Qatar’,” he says, proudly.

“There’s local rivalry with [another team] Al Sadd that’s existed since we were

kids.” Al Sadd are current champions of the Qatar Stars League, having won it 16 times, making them the best team in Qatar. Al Arabi haven’t won the league in 25 years, but the rivalry still exists.

Al Salat is sporting his old Al Arabi club kit; his mates wear strips from local clubs, plus Arsenal, Real Madrid, Manchester United and Liverpool. After Qatari teams, the Premier League is most popular here, followed by La Liga. “We share the same passion, the same knowledge of football,” says Al Salat. “We’re the Asian Cup champions.”

Back in Doha, it’s early evening and the temperature is now an arid 34°C. The pitches at the Lusail Football Academy are packed with hundreds of young players representing local schools including Qatar’s Paris Saint-Germain Academy and Premier League Football Academy, here to compete in the Al Fereej Youth Tournament.

Despite being a community competition (Al Fereej means ‘neighbourhood’), each team has pro coaches from the likes of France, Uruguay and the UK. The ball goes out and is passed back in by none other than Santi Cazorla.

From 2008 to 2019, Cazorla was part of the Spain national squad. For six years, he played for Arsenal; he was named their Player of the Season in 2013. In his native country, he’d be mobbed; here, he’s just another dad on the sidelines, cheering on his son. “[Football in Qatar] is getting better,” says Cazorla, who now plays for Al Sadd. “They spent a lot of money signing good players, so every year it’s improving. It’s good for the country, for the players as well. It’s a nice country with good beaches and amazing new buildings.”

This is an understatement. Qatar’s transformation into a forward-facing country over the last decade has been incredible. In Doha, skyscrapers under construction are everywhere. But this rapid modernisation – which includes seven of the eight World Cup stadia, a new metro network, a sewage system and an airport – has drawn accusations of worker abuses including squalid living conditions, low pay, and dangerous exposure to extreme heat, as well as criticism of the Gulf region’s kafala (sponsorship) system, which prevents migrants from changing jobs or exiting

Players from the Lebanese team celebrate at the 2022 Red Bull Neymar Jr’s Five World Final at Education City, Doha

Almoez Ali, striker and captain of Qatar Stars League side Al Duhail

“It’s a dream to bring the World Cup to Qatar. Everyone wants to be part of this great competition”

Ceremonial Court, part of Doha’s stateof-the-art university complex, is usually reserved for lectures and graduations, but today it hosts a football tournament

“This is an opportunity to change what wasn’t right and make it better”

Qatar football

the country without their employer’s permission. In February 2021, The Guardian reported that more than 6,500 workers from South Asia had died in Qatar since 2010; 37 were working on the construction of stadia for the World Cup.

Under mounting pressure, Qatar introduced labour reforms in March 2021, including increasing the minimum wage from 750 riyals (£175) a month to 1000 riyals (£230), plus an allowance for food and accommodation, and the removal of the kafala system. The UN International Labour Organisation called the reforms “a new era for the Qatari labour market”. Nonetheless, scrutiny of Qatar’s work ethics is likely to dominate conversations during the World Cup and beyond.

“This is an opportunity to change what wasn’t right and make it better,” says Karimi, who is now sporting director of the Lusail Football Academy. “The World Cup has the power to do that. Football has that power. If you always say, ‘No, this country shouldn’t host it,’ you’re not giving a region a chance to develop.”

The local hero

Located on the western outskirts of Doha, Education City is a 12sq-km complex of state-of-the-art university campuses. At the centre is Ceremonial Court, a concrete-and-glass amphitheatre usually reserved for lectures and graduations. Today, however, it’s playing host to a five-a-side football contest: the Red Bull Neymar Jr’s Five World Final.

Following a postponement of almost a year due to the pandemic, the 57 teams who qualified from two years of national finals have gathered to decide who will face off in the mixed and women’s finals. The winners then go head-to-head against the player who gave the tournament its

name – Brazilian superstar striker Neymar Jr – and his team of friends. The stands are packed with those hoping for a glimpse of their famous host, who, as is customary in Brazilian etiquette, has yet to arrive. There is already a celebrity here, however: Almoez Ali.

Ali is the shining star of Qatari football, and the ultimate success story of the Aspire Academy, where he lived and trained after moving from his birthplace of Khartoum, Sudan, as a child. The captain of local first-division team Al Duhail, he was also a member of the victorious Qatar national squad at the 2019 Asian Cup and became the competition’s highest-ever scorer, with nine goals. At this year’s World Cup he will be Qatar’s talisman, its Neymar Jr.

The 26-year-old has also become an unfortunate focal point of the nation’s naturalisation programme. When Qatar defeated tournament hosts the United Arab Emirates 4-0 in the Asian Cup semifinals, to much acrimonious shoe-throwing from the crowd – a sign of protest in the

The Qatari women’s team, seen posing for a group photo, hope the World Cup will put the spotlight on women’s football in their country

All eight World Cup stadia are within 33km of central Doha

Pictured: the Saudi Arabia women’s football team have had an incredible year, with wins over the Seychelles, the Maldives and an Austrian club side

“We’re happy that as women we can now play football freely”

Brazilian superstar Neymar Jr soaks up the atmosphere pitch-side at the women’s final of his tournament

“A Qatar World Cup will have a key difference for us athletes: long journeys won’t be necessary”

Middle East; at the time, the UAE had severed diplomatic ties with Qatar over the latter’s growing friendship with Iran – the UAE accused Ali and a fellow Qatar player, Iraqi-born Bassam Al-Rawi, of being ineligible to play. Aged 22 during the tournament, Ali was too young to have met FIFA’s five-year requirement of national residency after the age of 18, even though he’d lived in Qatar most of his life. In 2020, CAS (the Court of Arbitration for Sport) ruled in Qatar’s favour. Ali’s sights are now on the next goal.

“It’s a dream to bring the World Cup to Qatar,” he says. “Everyone wants to be part of this great competition.” All across Doha are World Cup billboards featuring a towering image of Almoez Ali. Here though, he is able to relax and enjoy himself; in Qatar, people don’t intrude on others, even celebrities. “I say to myself, ‘Alhamdulillah, the dream has come true.’ We’re ready to play in the World Cup.”

The change makers

Also here at Education City are players from the Saudi Arabia women’s national football team, who have had an amazing year so far. In February, they defeated the Seychelles 2-0 in a friendly. Four days later, they did the same to the Maldives. Then, in August, they beat Austrian club side Pinzgau Saalfelden 6-1. What makes this more profound was that these were their first-ever international matches.

Women’s sports have struggled to exist in the second-largest Arab nation. The

Customarily, Qatar fans are quiet at football matches

first attempt to create a FIFA-approved Saudi national women’s team in 2008 was banned by law; it wasn’t until 2020 that an amateur women’s football league was formed. Then, in 2021, German former player Monika Staab, who’d coached FFC Frankfurt for 11 years and led them to victory in the 2002 UEFA Women’s Cup, was elected manager. This year’s matches were intended to build international competitive experience; they proved a triumph in far more ways. The Saudi Arabian Football Federation has now drawn up a roadmap to enter them into the FIFA Women’s World Cup within the decade.

“I cried with happiness,” says midfielder Dalia Abu Laban of what it felt like to play for Saudi Arabia in that first game. She’s here to represent her nation in Neymar Jr’s Five. “We’re happy that as women we can now play football freely, and we wish to become even more professional.”

Shahad Saleh is also here to play. It’s just a six-hour drive from the Saudi capital of Riyadh, but for her this journey transcends geographical distance. “I feel like I’ve travelled the world,” she says. “I’m seeing all types of culture, talking to everybody. I’m at the beach, I’m

playing with girls or boys and having fun. It’s a new experience.”

Qatari women’s football has its own storied history. Its national team debuted in the 2010 Women’s Football Cup Arabia, but after crashing out in the group stages, then losing the 2014 West Asian Football Federation Women’s Championship, the team was unranked by FIFA and stopped competing for almost two years. Sanae Karmass, one of their current players, believes Qatar hosting the World Cup also brings visibility to women’s football.

“It shows that the culture is open and they’re actually supporting us,” she says.

“There’s now a league for women, more clubs have a women’s team, and they’re communicating about women football players in this country. We want to develop that even more.”

Cardelle Dunne is from London, but as a teacher living and working in Qatar, she’s playing for the country in the Neymar Jr’s Five finals. “We’ve had big tournaments [in Qatar], although it’s probably hidden away because of cultural sensitivity,” she says. “But there’s enough sport going around. We are here.”

The superstar

After two days of competition, it all comes down to penalty shoot-outs: Brazil vs Brazil for the women’s final, and Netherlands vs Brazil in the mixed category. A special court has been constructed for these matches, with two stories of packed spectator stands. The atmosphere is electric. Neymar Jr is here, watching with his mates to see who they will face in the ‘Super Final’. This is the first time the contest final has been held outside the superstar player’s homeland.

“It’s a beautiful country, and very hot,” he says. “But also due to human warmth. The arena, the audience, the atmosphere, everything was really good.” Customarily, Qatar fans are quiet at football matches, but here the noise from the international crowd is deafening. “A Qatar World Cup will have a key difference for us athletes: long journeys [between venues] won’t be necessary,” he says. “We’ll have more time to prepare. I hope to put another star on our shirts.”

As Neymar Jr and his team stride out to play, hundreds of smartphones are raised. Fans break past security guards to invade the pitch. One Brazil player stops to take a selfie with his national hero. “It will be crazy,” says Neymar Jr in parting. “I hope it’s a perfect event.”

Brazil made a clean sweep at the Neymar Jr’s Five World Final, with victories for both the women’s and the mixed teams

Justine Dupont

Big-wave surfer

At the centre of the episode on the groundbreaking French surfer is a horrific 2018 crash Dupont had at Jaws, the legendary and monstrous break on Maui’s North Shore.

The episode explores how Dupont processes this setback — and how she centres herself for a hardfought comeback.

“To do what Justine does, you sometimes have to override the instinct for survival,” Chin says. “Justine is really cognisant that there are other young women looking up to her, and that has so much meaning for how she carries herself and what she does.”

Life on the edge

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

Words PETER FLAX Photography JIMMY CHIN

“In the adventure sports realm, the line between transcendence and tragedy can be pretty thin.”

So says Jimmy Chin, an elite outdoor athlete and content creator who has spent his career documenting the contours of that line. Chin and his wife, Chai Vasarhelyi – who together co-directed the Oscar-winning 2018 documentary Free Solo –have teamed up again, executiveproducing a new 10-part series that provides an intimate study of world-class adventurers confronting and reacting to the most impactful moments in their lives.

Each episode of Edge of the Unknown with Jimmy Chin takes a deep dive with one athlete, viscerally recounting an existential inflection point in his or her career and giving viewers remarkable insight into the individual’s process and humanity. “Often when you watch the very best athletes, the ones who are true masters of their craft, it can be hard to access that they’re actually human and they’re vulnerable,” Chin says. But here viewers have a front-row seat as these athletes confront legitimate life-or-death moments. You see a big-mountain snowboarder overtaken by an avalanche, a bigwave surfer battered and broken in violent waters, an Arctic explorer being stalked by a polar bear, an

elite climber having a heart attack high in the Himalayas. But this isn’t tragedy porn – it’s a thoughtful and intimate look at the process and mentality of these top performers.

“People love to watch athletes do incredible things – ride or ski the perfect line, surf the biggest wave, grab the biggest air – but that stuff doesn’t come without some serious sacrifice,” Chin says. “You must have such deep commitment and intention to do these things, and here’s a glimpse of what it really takes to get there. I don’t think people really understand what the level of commitment is.”

Chin, who has climbed Everest and been on high-risk expeditions around the globe, wanted the series to wrestle with the tough questions these athletes have to ask themselves. “When the stakes are that high, you better be pretty clear on the intention in which you live your life,” he says. “The athletes we feature have the highs of transcendence, but they also have the lows of failures and these highly consequential moments in which they have to think deeply about how they want to live their lives.”

Here, Chin shares his insights on many of the sportspeople and adventurers featured in his new series, and the life-or-death inflection points they faced.

Edge of the Unknown with Jimmy Chin is available to watch now on Disney+; jimmychin.com

Travis Rice Snowboarder

There’s a moving and intimate scene in this episode where Rice climbs into a helicopter after somehow surviving a heavy avalanche in Alaska. You can feel the quiet agony of the moment. “If you’re a professional mountain athlete, when you get caught in an avalanche it’s a very clear mark that you’ve made a miscalculation,” says Chin, who has been caught in an avalanche himself.

“And professional athletes are not supposed to make mistakes. But we do.” The episode goes on to explore how Rice processes this consequential error – and ultimately comes back from it. Part of it is questioning his entire approach to riding. “Those self-reflective questions are important, because when the stakes are that high you better be pretty clear on the intention in which you live your life,” says Chin.

“If a pro mountain athlete is caught in an avalanche, there’s been a clear miscalculation”

Sarah McNair-Landry

Polar explorer

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

“Polar bears are different from most bears. They hunt. They will actually stalk you”

Conrad Anker Alpinist and climber

Anker is a mountaineering legend, but this episode takes a deep dive into a scary moment in his life: a 2016 expedition on an unclimbed face in the Himalayas, where Anker, then 54, had a heart attack at 20,000ft (6,100m). On his own, Anker downclimbed to get medical attention. “He’s so unbelievably tough, it’s mind-blowing,” says Chin of his longtime friend. “In that scene, we don’t have to say how badass Conrad is – we just have to show a guy who has the wherewithal to selfrescue off a 22,000ft [6,888m] Himalayan peak while having a heart attack and dragging himself back to base camp. That makes climbing Everest without supplemental oxygen seem casual.” Later in the episode, Anker talks openly about reframing the kinds of adventures he pursues. “This is stuff top athletes often don’t want to explore,” Chin says. “The hard shit.”

Kayaker

In a breathtaking, critical scene in this episode, the Spanish kayaker is, by all accounts, dead.

Going over a rugged 50ft (15m) waterfall in Chiapas, Mexico, Serrasolses is knocked unconscious and pushed underwater, and ultimately he requires CPR from his expedition partners. That, says Chin, is a reminder of “how important it is to have the right partners on an expedition”. And in the aftermath, the kayaker, who has a wife and children, must reckon with some existential questions about his passion for the extreme sport.

“Gerd faces a nearly impossible decision between the passion that gives him life and his family obligations,” Chin says. “That decision is never as simple as it seems if you’re judging from afar.”

Gerd Serrasolses

Jimmy Chin

“Gerd faces a decision between the passion that gives him life and his family obligations”

Angel Collinson

Big-mountain skier

“Mother Nature – mountains, the ocean – can humble the greatest athletes,” says Chin, describing the episode centred on his “great friend” Angel Collinson. “At the level they’re playing at, you can’t hide from yourself. You have to be really honest with yourself. And that kind of honesty is hard.” In the episode, the hugely talented skier has a catastrophic fall – tumbling 1,000ft [300m] down a steep Alaskan mountain

– setting off a process of reflection that changes her professional arc. “There are different kinds of bravery,” Chin observes. “Angel had that awareness to say, ‘You know what, I’m going to take this moment, and this inflection point in my career and life, and do something different.’ That’s brave and courageous.”

“At the level these athletes are playing at, you can’t hide from yourself. You have to be really honest”

Will Gadd

Ice and rock climber

This episode documents Gadd’s audacious attempt to ascend Helmcken Falls, a frozen 463ft (140m) waterfall in British Columbia. To put it lightly, the climb is an ordeal that tests his skill and fortitude. At one point, his life hangs in the balance of a carabiner that has become unclipped. “Will has been so prolific,” says Chin. “The longevity of his career has been incredible. He’s an absolute master of the craft. He’s doing things that are not just unbelievably physically challenging — the logistics of what he’s trying to do requires a lifetime of experience.” Chin says this and other episodes provide a window into the process of the masters. “Even the great masters never feel like they perfect their craft. There’s always another level to go. And only the true masters can see that next level. Their horizon is so different. It’s kind of infinite.”

Jimmy Chin

Enhance,

and experience your best life

LECOEUR TOM

Frolla, a lean, youthful, 47-year-old Monegasque, is imparting the above words of wisdom as we stand on the roof of his boat, The Pirate of the Abyss, in a secluded cove off Cape Martin in the south of France. In the distance can be seen the famous skyline of Monaco, its hillsides covered with five-star hotels and luxury apartments. Here, however, there is nothing but a craggy coastline and a series of buoys bobbing on the surface of a steel-grey sea on an overcast day. Frolla moored these buoys many years ago, the ropes beneath them stretching down to a seabed 16-20m below, and is prepping our group of students to descend them. If apnea diving is one of the most beautiful schools of life, Pierre Frolla is one of apnea’s best teachers.

In 2004, Frolla broke the world record for no-limit freediving – where

In competition it was mainly a team sport, so Frolla combined that with individual depth records. Then, in 2007, he experienced another career-changing incident. While Frolla was prepping for a dive in Monaco, one of his best friends, Loïc Leferme, another former world record holder, was doing the same in Villefranche-sur-Mer, 30 minutes down the coast. “My team cancelled because of the weather,” Frolla recalls. “But Loïc’s team were more protected by the wind and decided to dive.” Leferme never resurfaced. He was 36 years old.

“I decided to stop deep training and competition,” says Frolla. “We are guides for beginners; we invented all the safety systems and the first competitions. All my work would be discredited if I took the risk. I decided to focus on education, water safety, the environment and movies. I now run one of the biggest schools, where we teach how to meet the beauty of the ocean and save people from drowning.”

In the water, Frolla’s team are explaining the process for descending feet first, crossing your legs over the ropes, and lowering yourself hand over hand. Unsurprisingly, for a sport called apnea, holding your breath is key. “This is chemical,” he explains. “When there’s not enough oxygen in your body, you die. But you can stay for a long time consuming the oxygen you have in your lungs. There is the greed to inhale and the need to inhale. Greed you can control until you arrive at the need. But when you need O2, then it is time to stop.”

divers attempt to go as deep as possible – reaching a depth of 123m. It was the competitive pinnacle of a sporting life that began in judo, a discipline in which he hoped to represent Monaco at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. However, after picking up a shoulder injury in a competition in 1995, Frolla was forced to make a career change. “I’d already dived a lot, but I had a body made for fighting,” he explains. “Freediving requires not struggling; the sea is much stronger. One must ‘become water’ in order to descend. The pressure is such that at the bottom of the sea one must learn to submit.”

At the time, freediving was, says Frolla, the realm of “hedonists, snorkellers or spear fishermen”.

The day began with a yoga sun salutation at dawn. “It’s a way to mix muscular and breathing warm-up with meditation,” he explained on the beach as we transitioned from a downward dog to a cobra. “I’ve changed some of the skills to be closer to what freedivers need.” In particular, the inhalation and exhalation stages are reversed. This is key to apnea: when you breathe in, you raise rather than lower the diaphragm. This makes the lungs feel relaxed even when they’re full. Frolla says he now breathes like this all the time, even out of water.

He began training students as far back as 1996, but opened his first school in 1999. “It looked more like a garage for teen rockers: sofas, fridges, drums, a punching bag and a weight bench. We stored diving equipment and even our boat in there.” He personally designed The Pirate of the Abyss in

“In freediving, when we’re at the bottom, if we want to breathe we have no choice but to go up. To give up is to die. This is what makes deep apnea diving one of the most beautiful schools of life”

Pierre Frolla, former world-champion freediver

VENTURE Travel

2019. It took 11 months to build, and now it’s filled to its 36-person capacity every day. Being in Monaco, Frolla has had a few high-profile students. He refuses to name names, but one, he says, was a princess – Frolla is an ambassador of the Princess Charlene of Monaco Foundation, which educates children on the prevention of drowning – and his most famous is a prince (Albert II, Prince of Monaco, was a witness at Frolla’s 2015 wedding, which took place underwater. “He’s a very good diver. Very alert about small things like the hippocampus”).

I’m having trouble descending. Holding my breath isn’t the problem, but equalising – pinching the nose and making the middle ear ‘pop’ to reduce painful pressure – is proving difficult. Unable to proceed beyond eight metres, I surface. “Some are able to equalise easily, some have to work hard,” Frolla tells me. “Patience is the way.” He admits

Frolla shows Tom Guise how to equalise his ears beneath the surface near Monaco. Opposite: the apnea diver talks to students aboard his boat The Pirate of the Abyss

“Patience is the way. The quest for great depth must be done metre by metre”

Frolla teaches how to breathe “backwards”. He describes this as “hard training, easy war”

to hitting walls even in his own equalisation. “The quest for great depth must be done metre by metre.”

Elsewhere in this liquid classroom, there’s a buzz of activity. I dive below the surface to see what’s happening. One of the other students, Shane, is descending headfirst – nine metres, 10, 11… He gets to the bottom, 16m deep, and stands briefly on the seabed before ascending gracefully. Breaking the surface to resounding cheers, Shane explains what it felt like. “As I was coming up,” he says, “I was bathed in this shaft of light. It was an almost religious experience.”

“As we dive, we develop an ability to feel things in an extreme way,” says Frolla. “It develops our senses. We know exactly how many seconds we’ve been underwater, how deep we are, how much battery we have left. It’s kinaesthetic, echinodermic. This is instinct.”

Tom Guise dived with Pierre Frolla at the Monegasque Marine Academy in Monaco; academiemonegasquedelamer.com

Travel

Vital seconds

Pierre Frolla’s diving watch

“An error at a depth of more than 100m means certain death,” says Frolla. For this reason, his equipment must be reliable, and his requirements for a wristwatch are simple: “Quick readability underwater, light on the wrist, resistance to shocks and pressure.” As an ambassador for Swiss watch brand Hamilton, Frolla wears its 300m-water-resistant Khaki Navy Frogman Automatic, from a lineage of watches that began on the wrists of the US Navy’s WWII mine-clearing underwater demolition units. It features an illuminated index and hands, screw-down crown, and a shock-, temperatureand magnetic-resistant silicon escapement. hamilton.com

Deeper dive

How to hit rock bottom, Frolla style

Preparation

By taking your mind off your breath, you can focus on equalisation and descending. This is why Frolla performs a sun salutation before each dive. “Relaxation is essential for great depth,” he says.

Equalisation

This is pushing air through the eustachian tubes that connect the throat to the middle ear, restoring their pressure. And it’s hard to do at depth. “Imagine that to open a door you must be totally relaxed,” says Frolla. “This is how to understand equalisation.”

Elevation

Skilled divers can descend headfirst, but this increases pressure to the head. When starting out, try feet first. “It’s easier to equalise the ears,” says Frolla. “That’s why we do it in ‘no limits’.”

Evaluation

Knowing your limits is essential in apnea, even on no-limits dives. “You cannot commit if you are not sure of coming back,” cautions Frolla. “The best diver in the world is the oldest one.”

Collaboration

“The most important lesson is: never dive alone, always with a buddy.”

“Divers develop an ability to feel things in an extreme way”

Frolla’s school teaches freediving and ocean safety. “It’s impossible for me to imagine dying under the sea,” he says

VENTURE Equipment

The upgrade: Road bike

Buying a brand-new bike can be expensive, particularly if you already own a serviceable steed. Rather than scratching the n+1 itch, invest your money in improving its components instead. If a better, faster and more comfortable ride aren’t enough reasons, it’ll work out cheaper than starting from scratch, too.

SADDLE

Are you sitting comfortably? If not, it’s probably time to switch your saddle. Opting for a cut-out model like Syncros’ Belcarra V 1.0 could relieve pressure downstairs, keeping your private parts pain-free. syncros.com

MECH

Size matters, particularly when it comes to derailleur cages and pulley wheels. Bigger equals better and can reduce chain friction, improving efficiency in the process. Pound for pound, absoluteBLACK’s HOLLOWcage and its full ceramic bearings might put the marginal in marginal gains, but it’s a must if no stones are to be left unturned. absoluteblack.cc

WHEELS

Upgrading a set of stock wheels will make the most noticeable difference to any bike. Not only will rims be lighter and more aerodynamic, but aftermarket hubs make riding a lot smoother. It’s also a good opportunity to go tubeless, which allows tyres to be run at lower pressures, boosting grip and comfort without the risks of a puncture. Mavic’s 1,440g Cosmic SLR 45 Disc wheels pair carbon-fibre rims with fast and durable aluminium-bodied hubs. mavic.com

BAR

Part of a bike’s cockpit, handlebars are a vital component when piloting your way down fast descents or navigating turbulent tarmac. A flared set (with drops that bend outwards), such as ENVE’s SES AR, will improve handling confidence without sacrificing aerodynamics. enve.com

PEDALS

Clip-in pedals (confusingly known as clipless) provide a much more efficient power transfer from body to bike than standard flat ones. But be warned: only clipping out when coming to a stop will prevent you from ending up on the floor. Shimano’s highperformance Dura-Ace range is the apex of road-cycling pedals, with a lightweight build and unrivalled powertransfer-boosting rigidity. bike.shimano.com

TYRES

Tyres are your bike’s only contact point with the ground. They impact your grip, rolling resistance, comfort, and – if they get a flat – can cut an outing short. So it’s important to pick a set that, while still fast, are durable and flexible enough to handle the odd pothole. For a relatively small outlay, Schwalbe’s Pro One TLEs add speed and control without sacrificing their other jobs. schwalbe.com

VENTURE Equipment

POWER METER

If you want to turn your bike into a gym-on-wheels, installing a power meter is the way to go. Incorporated into pedals – or, in the case of the Stages Cycling G3, the crank arm – the sensor uses strain gauges to measure force, providing live feedback of how hard you’re cycling, which is crucial data when completing high-intensity interval training or pacing efforts in races. It’ll instantly make your bike look pro, too. stagescycling.com

LIGHT

Getting lit isn’t just for after dark. Exposure Lights’ 350-lumens

BOOST DayBright front light cuts through distractions even on busy streets. The accompanying rear (shown) brightens when braking, or dims if there’s a rider in your slipstream. exposure-use.com

BAR TAPE

Trusted by professional cycling teams, this 3mm-thick PRO Sport Control Team tape has an extra gel layer to boost comfort and control on longer rides. And if it’s good enough for the rigours of the Tour de France… pro-bikegear.com

SEATPOST

Swapping your seatpost isn’t the sexiest upgrade, but it’s great for shaving weight, leaving less bike to carry up inclines. Weighing just 199g, the PRO Vibe Carbon seatpost will have you riding on air. pro-bikegear.com

Hitting that sweet spot

Keep tabs on your blood glucose – it’s the icing on the cake of a precision workout

“We were on a highway with vehicles going past at 60mph [96kph],” recalls Kabir Rachure, “and I was losing my balance every second.”

Eight days into the 2019 Race Across America (RAAM), one of the world’s longest endurance cycling events, the ultra-distance athlete had begun experiencing hallucinations so severe that he forgot how to ride a bike.

It took the cyclist from Navi Mumbai, India, three days to snap out of it, spurred on by the threat of not completing the race within the 12-day cutoff. On reaching the finish in Annapolis, Maryland, 11 days, 22 hours and 43 minutes after setting off from Oceanside, California, 4,940km to the west, he wasn’t happy.

So Rachure began hunting for marginal gains. He installed a power meter on his bike to track his training; sleep data was pored over to assess his recovery. Then, in December last year, Rachure added the Ultrahuman M1 to his armoury… and his arm. A fitness tracker with a needle that pierces the skin, the M1 sends real-time blood-sugar – otherwise known as blood glucose – readings to his smartphone, unlocking data on the effects of exercise, rest and nutrition.

When Rachure returned to RAAM this June, he shaved more than 11 hours off his 2019 time, coming third in his age category – the first Asian to make the podium in the event’s 40-year history. And,

just as significantly, he wasn’t plagued by previous problems. “I had good strength, didn’t hallucinate, with no soreness or fatigue,” says Rachure, 31.

Here’s how he used glucose monitoring to bypass the bitter taste of defeat…

Running on empty

Workout fuelling strategies are a minefield even for pro athletes. Rachure never paid attention to pre-training nutrition until the M1 showed his glucose levels were simply too low before a ride. “I began

having an energy drink, gels, peanut butter, coffee,” he says. He noticed a difference immediately. “I could now finish all the training sessions, hanging in there even on pretty hard intervals.”

The right stuff

At RAAM 2019, Rachure’s go-to food after a sleep break was pizza, but data showed that while his body was digesting the meal, there was a three-hour dip in his glucose levels.

“I had pizza five or six times and the data was similar,” he notes. Every person’s metabolism responds differently to the same diet, but glucose monitoring allows you to find what works and what doesn’t. It’s also a great excuse to test different foods in the name of fitness.

Stay hungry

RAAM riders must consume 10,000 to 12,000 calories per day, but it’s important to drip-feed rather than binge.

“If you overload, your body will feel lethargic, and if you under-fuel you’re going to feel weak,” says Rachure. He used glucose monitoring to maintain optimal blood sugar levels, leaving him constantly hungry but never starved.

“It’s like in F1 – they manage [the car’s] fuel so it gives them a performance boost.”

Listen to your heart

Biohacking your health is no longer the preserve of science fiction, but it’s important to remember who’s in charge. “It’s like having a coach who’s sitting on your arm 24/7, but how you’re feeling has to take the upper hand,” says Rachure. “Even if the data shows that I’m 99-per-cent recovered, I know my body better than anything else.”

Follow Kabir Rachure on Instagram: @the_limited_one. For more info on the Ultrahuman M1, go to ultrahuman.com

“Manage your fuel right and it boosts performance”

Kabir Rachure, endurance cyclist

HONE

Get piste

This skiing wearable adds data to your downhill runs and helps you improve at every turn

Jamie Grant was hundreds of kilometres from the nearest black run while completing his PhD in Financial Economics at Imperial College London, but that didn’t stop him from dreaming of powdery slopes.

A keen skier, Grant was exasperated with the trial and error involved when honing his technique during his limited downtime in the Alps each year. So, while writing his thesis on how machine learning could be applied to financial markets, he began to wonder if the theory could also benefit his first love.

Enter Carv, the world’s first digital ski coach – a device that uses AI to teach those who have graduated from the nursery slopes but plateaued in their progress. The wearable uses an insoleshaped boot insert with sensors to capture motion and pressure, as well as an accelerometer (to measure speed) and gyroscope (to measure tilt).

The logging of lines isn’t just for après-ski analysis. Carv seamlessly syncs with a smartphone app to compare your technique with data from some of the world’s best skiing instructors, providing real-time audio coaching mid-run, and advice on how to improve.

Originally launched on Kickstarter in February 2016, Carv exceeded its initial crowdfunding goal fivefold. But if you want to get your hands on the device for this winter’s season, you’ll have to join the queue. Like all visits to the slopes, though, it’ll be worth the wait. getcarv.com

VENTURE Fitness

Carv is built to withstand the impact of a hard day’s skiing. A specially designed clip attaches the battery pack to the strap of your boot to keep it secure on the slopes

Each Carv insert contains 36 pressure sensors and a motion sensor, which take 20 readings a second. This data is synced with a smartphone app where it can be analysed

VENTURE How To

Futureproof your life

Fearful of what’s to come? According to these oracles, destiny lies in your hands

The climate crisis, big tech’s hunger for personal data, the spiralling cost of living – it’s easy to succumb to depressing and dystopian forecasts. But what if you could craft a reality where your wildest dreams come true? The writers of the book A Brief History of a Perfect Future detail how to do just that. Tim Andrews is a strategist specialising in emerging technologies, and Chunka Mui and Paul B Carroll are co-founders of business strategy consultancy Future Histories Group; together, they suggest that instead of speculating on what might happen, we should start again from scratch.

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it,” explains Carroll. A reporter and editor at The Wall Street Journal for almost 17 years,

the 65-year-old has “hung out with Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Michael Dell” – innovators with a solid track record for successfully speculating on the next big thing – but he warns it’s not an exact science. “In 2007, I opined in private that Apple was going

to screw up the iPhone because they knew computers and not phones,” he admits. “Man, was I wrong.”

For Carroll, that was a lesson on the long game. “It’s not about focusing on where you are today and how to incrementally march forward from there,” he says. “It’s about looking onwards 10 years or more and saying, ‘This is my vision.’”

Here are his tips on how to transform your tomorrow…

Study history

“If you’re thinking 30 years into the future, first look 30 years into the past,” says Carroll. Gazing backwards might not seem very forwardthinking, but it can open the mind to what’s achievable. “In computing power, for instance, you can see that in 1980 a gigabyte of memory

cost around $300,000 [close to £700,000 at the time], while 30 years later it was a fraction of a dollar. People have a hard time dealing with exponential change – they tend to think in a linear way – but by looking at examples, you see how you’re free to do all kinds of things.”

Catch a ride

Achieving your destiny may seem an intangible dream, but the trick isn’t so much mapping out your future as placing yourself in the path of opportunity. “If you want to be married in 20 years, then you have to meet somebody,” Carroll says. “My younger daughter is an introvert and she’s been working from home, so she’s joined the gym and is doing other things socially just to make sure she gets out of her bubble.”

Know your limitations

“There’s an Einstein line: ‘We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them,’” says Carroll. In other words, actioning change requires changing your actions. But we must also accept when we’re not the right person for the task. “You might see that you’re not a confrontational person. Accept that and don’t assume that the next time you’re in a situation requiring confrontation that you’re suddenly going to step up and be someone you’re not.”

Prepare for the worst

It might sound a bit negative, but facing all eventualities is key to nurturing a better reality. “There certainly are dystopian futures out there, and I’d say that some of them are more likely,” says Carroll. “But if you can see all the little things that can go wrong, you can be prepared and maybe avoid them.”

A Brief History of a Perfect Future: Inventing the World We Can Proudly Leave Our Kids by 2050 is out now; perfectfuturebook.com

“You need to look onwards and say, ‘This is my vision’”

Paul B Carroll, strategy consultant

VENTURE Gaming

G R E A T

V O C A B

G A M E S A V O I

Combo up

The most common consonants in the English language are R, T, N, S, L and C, but Carrol says to think in pairs, like ST, CL, SK or TW. “Think what consonant sounds naturally go together, and which vowels occur with each other. Their placement is largely to do with how we make sounds.” And don’t overlook double consonants – LL is the most common.

Be social

B R A I N

D R A I N D

Peak and spell

Solve word puzzles and save your brain

Last autumn, Brooklyn-based software engineer Josh Wardle created a game for his girlfriend. The couple had been enjoying The New York Times’ spelling games and crosswords during lockdown, so he chose to make a webbased word puzzle. The idea was simple: guess a daily fiveletter word in six attempts. Correctly identified letters were highlighted by green (right letter, right location) yellow (right letter, wrong location) tiles. The name Wardle gave his game was a twist on his own: Wordle The rest you know. Within three months of its release in October last year, Wordle had more than two million daily players, its iconic blocks filling social feeds as users shared their (spoiler-free) results. “Wordle got us thinking about linguistics –it’s brilliant,” says Dr Gareth

Carrol, an author and senior lecturer in psycholinguistics at the University of Birmingham. “Language’s change is hugely driven by culture and technology.”

Indeed it is. After The New York Times (NYT) bought the game from Wardle in January (for an undisclosed sevenfigure sum) it also launched

WordleBot, a companion tool that rates your performance and advises how you could have played better.

But if you’re looking for a more organic approach to improving your wordplay, the eminently human Dr Carrol is on hand. And with Wordle now a fully analogue board game, too, it’s time to tune up our most organic word computer: the human brain.

Start strong

According to WordleBot’s calculation of probable subsequent guesses – the tool considers only 4,500 words as potential Wordle solutions – the opener most likely to result in success is SLATE. However, Dr Carrol prefers PLANE, STRIM or DOUGH. “Those cover all the vowels and a good number of consonants without repetition,” he explains.

When NYT took over Wordle, it caused outrage by removing answers such as SLAVE, LYNCH and WENCH. The backlash wasn’t about censorship, but because it created two versions with different daily answers (Wordle is basically a webpage, and some users were playing the older version saved to their desktop). For Carrol, it’s all part of the ongoing relationship of vocabulary and culture: “Language’s evolution is a map of our social history. It’s constantly evolving.”

Brain train

At the age of eight, the average child learns around 6-7 words a day. An adult English speaker has an active vocabulary of about 20,000 words, with a passive vocabulary double that. “Language is the sum total of everything you’ve ever heard and experienced,” says Carrol. “But by middle age it’s fairly fixed.” That’s where games like Wordle come in. A 2014 study by the University of Santiago de Compostela of 326 people over the age of 50 observed that those with a higher vocabulary could better tap into their ‘cognitive reserve’ – the brain’s capacity to compensate for impairment. “There’s nothing in our lives that’s not affected by the words we use,” says Carrol. Wordle: The Party Game is out now; wordlethepartygame.com. Jumping Sharks and Dropping Mics: Modern Idioms and Where They Come From by Gareth Carrol is available at johnhuntpublishing.com

“Language’s change is hugely driven by culture and technology”

Gareth Carrol, linguistics expert

Calendar

28 to 30 October

TOMORROW’S GHOSTS FESTIVAL

Hallowe’en is close, meaning dark, spectral forms with ashen faces will soon haunt your neighbourhood. Especially if you live in Whitby. The Yorkshire seaside town has rock-solid Gothic cred – Bram Stoker chose it as Dracula’s first port of call in his famous novel – and now it’ll host three days of goth rock. The festival is headlined by Fields of the Nephilim and The Loveless (fronted by Marc Almond) and partnered with The Sophie Lancaster Foundation, which aims to stamp out hatred, prejudice and intolerance. Whitby Pavilion; tomorrowsghostsfestival.co.uk

October

RED BULL STRAIGHT RHYTHM

Huntington Beach, California, is know as ‘Surf City’ with good reason — a perfect storm of North Pacific winter swells and the summer hurricane season generates excellent yearround surf conditions along the 15.3km coastline. Now, it’s set to experience altogether different waves: 32 riders on two-stroke motorbikes racing in head-to-head showdowns on an 800m course carved out of the sand, with supercross-style jumps and obstacles. No turns, no laps, just straight rhythm. Those looking for twists can enjoy the Moto Beach Classic flat-track race running alongside it. Watch it on Red Bull TV. redbull.com

October to 27 November

RICHARD THE SECOND

Tangle is an English touring theatre company that champions African Caribbean artistic excellence. Its latest production, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s history play, stars an exclusively Black cast led by LAMDA alumnus Daniel Rock and South African actress Lebogang Fisher, with an original score of Zimbabwean song and music played on mbira and marimbas by John Pfumojena. Nationwide; tangletheatre.co.uk

October to 4 May SCIENCE FICTION

In this exhibition, billed as the Science Museum’s most ambitious yet, visitors travel on a spaceship created by Oscarwinning SFX studio Framestore, linking science fiction and fact via iconic sci-fi and space objects. There are also evening music performances, and the presentation of the Arthur C Clarke Award for best sci-fi novel on Oct 26. London; sciencemuseum.org.uk

October onwards THE BEAMS

London’s music scene has experienced deep cuts of the wrong kind this year with the closure of two warehouse spaces: The Drumsheds and Printworks. But the beat goes on at this new 5,100sq-m venue – a former Tate & Lyle factory – with Maceo Plex and Richie Hawtin among those lined up. London; thebeamslondon.com

SWITZERLAND WINTER 22/23

Where adventure is a lifestyle

Hop on a train from the gateway of Geneva Airport and you can watch the world whizz by your window as lush Swiss lakes turn to mighty mountain ranges, and alpine pastures erupt into 4,000m peaks.

In the valley of Valais, the Region Dents du Midi, gateway to Les Portes du Soleil ski area, awaits. The UNESCO-protected glaciers of the Aletsch Arena lie beyond, as do the freeriding haven of Nendaz, the snow parks of Saas-Fee, and the ancient mountain spas of Leukerbad.

Continue on to the Bernese Oberland and the lakes return. Interlaken is sandwiched between Lake Thun and Brienz, which reflect the mountains back at you as you paddle through them. The wider region of the Bernese Oberland is home to the iconic peaks of the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau.

Alpine history has been written in the Swiss Alps over and over again, from Alfred Wills’ ascent of the

Wetterhorn (above Grindelwald) in 1854 to the opening of the Jungfrau Railway in 1912.

Today, the Switzerland Tourism sustainability initiative –Swisstainable – rewards those who arrive by rail rather than aeroplane, with deals on lift passes and more. And, inspired by Brit Lucy Walker, who in 1871 became the first female mountaineer to summit the Matterhorn – wearing a long flannel skirt, no less – they’ve also launched the 100% Women Peak Challenge, empowering more women to pursue mountaineering in Switzerland.

Barriers to the outdoors are broken down in Switzerland. The mountains are open to all. Switzerland reminds us that we’re never truly apart from nature. We’re a part of it.

Valais Region

Home to 34 ski areas, 45 summits above 4,000m, 2,000km of slopes, and the iconic spike of the Matterhorn mountain, Valais is one of the world’s most remarkable ski regions.

The Region Dents du Midi is the gateway to Les Portes du Soleil and its 600km of slopes. It’s made up of six charming villages: Champéry, Morgins, Les Crosets, Troistorrents, Champoussin and Val-d’Illiez. The area forms the Swiss side of Les Portes du Soleil, a ski area encompassing 12 resorts between Mont Blanc in France and Lake Geneva.

Further into Valais, you’ll find Nendaz-Veysonnaz, hidden gems full of cliff-dropping, powder-puffing terrain –

Piste summit: Valais is one of the world’s most remarkable ski regions

FACT BOX

Region Dents du Midi

Elevation: 767m–3,257m

Total piste distance: 600km

Longest run: 10km

Difficulty: 12% green (34 slopes), 42% blue (119), 35% red (101), 11% black (32)

Lifts: 209 Info: regiondentsdumidi.ch

Nendaz-Veysonnaz

Elevation: 1,350m–3,330m

Total piste distance: 410km

Longest run: 7.6km

Difficulty: 33% blue (24 slopes), 53% red (39), 14% black (10), and seven yellow slopes (freetracks) Lifts: 80 Info: nendaz.ch; veysonnaz.ch

Aletsch Arena

Elevation: 1,845–2,869m

Total piste distance: 104km

Longest run: 4.6km

Difficulty: 40% blue (42km), 48% red (50km), 12% black (12km), and 15km ski routes

Lifts: 35 Info: aletscharena.ch/en

Saas-Fee/Saastal

Elevation: 1,500–3,600m

Total piste distance: 150km

Longest run: 9km

Difficulty: 30% blue (45km), 50% red (75km), 20% black (30km) Lifts: 36 Info: saas-fee.ch

Leukerbad

Elevation: 1,411m–2,610m

Total piste distance: 53.5km

Longest run: 11km

Difficulty: 7% blue (3.5km), 57% red (27km), 36% black (17km), and 6km ski routes

Lifts: 14 Info: leukerbad.ch

Brig-Simplon

without the crowds. The area caters for all abilities, but excels in freeriding fun. With more than 400km of pistes, it’s the biggest ski resort solely in Switzerland.

The 18 4,000m peaks of Saas-Fee/ Saastal offer high alpine beauty, and activities from the Valley Run, which drops more than 1,800m in one 9km ski run, to winter via-ferrata routes. Snowshoe on the Fee glacier, or watch the sunrise over the Mischabel massif from 3,500m above sea level in the world’s highest revolving restaurant.

Further north is another site renowned for its glacial landscape. At the Jungfrau-Aletsch UNESCO World Heritage Site, you’ll find the 20km-long Aletsch Glacier, the largest in the Alps. It’s also home

to the Aletsch Arena, a car-free resort with views of the Matterhorn.

Now, take a deep breath. A full 3.9 million litres of 51°C water gush from the thermal springs in Leukerbad, each day. A go-to for centuries, the baths at this ancient spa will bring your legs back to life after skiing Leukerbad’s black runs.

Near the Italian border, you’ll find Brig-Simplon. The high plateau of Simplon Pass was impassable during winter until the 20th century. Now, it’s a site not only for ski touring but for snowkiting. There’s a snowkiting school on the Simplon Pass, while nearby Staldhorn and Spitzhorli are great for ski touring. To ensure the best Valais experience possible, go to visitvalais.ch/shop

Elevation: 520m–2,536m

Total piste distance: 34km

Longest run: 15km

Difficulty: Rosswald Brig: 33% blue (3km), 22% red (2km), 45% black (4km), and 7km ski routes. Rothwald/ Wasenalp (Simplon Pass): 20% blue (5km), 60% red (15km), 20% black (5km) black

Lifts: 8 Info: brig-simplon.ch

Bernese Oberland (Jungfrau Region and Interlaken)

There are few places on our fine planet with mountains as remarkable as those in the Bernese Oberland. The colossal peaks of Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau dominate the Interlaken and Jungfrau Region – an area that has been at the centre of skiing and mountaineering for more than 200 years.

The 4,158m-high Jungfrau was first climbed in 1811, an ascent that kickstarted tourism in the Swiss Alps. Almost 150 years on, Austrian mountaineer and author Heinrich Harrer wrote The White Spider, his legendary book describing the first successful ascent of the North Face of the Eiger in 1938.

In 1922, British skier and mountaineer Sir Arnold Lunn organised the first ski slalom race in the village of Mürren in 1922, while the first men’s World Cup downhill took place in Wengen eight years later. The region now draws 30,000 spectators every year for the FIS World Cup’s Lauberhorn races.

It’s fair to say that the InterlakenJungfrau Region is a place where alpine history is made. Don’t let the intensity of that history put you off, though. The region may have backdropped some of the most gnarly mountaineering scenes since the birth of climbing, but when you’ve been in tourism for this long, you learn to accommodate skiers and winter enthusiasts of all levels, shapes and sizes. After all, no one starts climbing by attempting to summit the Eiger, right?

The resorts of Grindelwald and Wengen are linked and great for beginners and intermediate skiers. Wengen is also home to the aforementioned 4.5km Lauberhorn – the experts’ choice, and the longest downhill World Cup race on the circuit. There’s tough skiing in Mürren, too, including the 14.9km Schilthorn to Lauterbrunnen run.

The Jungfrau Winnercard ski pass is one of the smartest cards in Switzerland. As well as granting access to the lifts around the mountain, it shows you what altitudes you’ve reached, how fast you’ve been skiing, and – if you find yourself in the right place – it’ll snap pictures or take videos of you on the slopes.

It’s hard to beat skiing on slopes looking onto the Mordwand – that legendary 1,800m North Face of the Eiger. Look carefully and you’ll spot an escape point halfway up the face, put there for those who start the climb but can’t complete it. The escape point also doubles as a viewpoint for tourists en route to the Jungfraujoch–Top of Europe view.

On that note, there are some ski resorts where the add-ons – the extra stuff you can do when not on skis – are a bit half-baked. This is certainly not the case in Interlaken. The journey up to the Top of Europe is one of the most remarkable experiences that the Alps offer. Jump on the Jungfrau Railway and you’ll climb 9km to the highest railway station in Europe, providing views as good as you’ll get anywhere on planet Earth. On a clear day, you look out from the Top of Europe viewpoint over to the Aletsch Glacier.

Mix things up by taking out a velogemel, a bike-sledge hybrid that has been used in Grindelwald for generations. Then, after the sun is set, head to the Niederhorn, where you can eat fondue in a cosy mountain restaurant and finish off your night by sledding beneath the stars.

Back in Interlaken, the aptly named Winterlaken card is your pass to a world of winter adventure. It gives you access to the Eiger Express cablecar and free public transport, plus discounts on a ski pass, rental and local activities.

When the skiing is done above Interlaken, a huge and unique range of activities await. Head out on a snowshoe hike above Aeschi to see the beautiful Lake Thun (where you can also go for a tranquil winter cruise), or snowshoe on the Lombachalp, an idyllic and tranquil site of snowy moorland. Alternatively, you could gaze down on it all from above on a paragliding adventure.

On Lake Brienz, you can paddle out for a winter kayaking session in crisp, fresh air, with reflections of the mountains bouncing back from the surface. There are also Jetboat tours on site, or, for something particularly special, jump into the HotTug – an electric boat that doubles as a hot tub, heated to 38°C, that you can steer around the lake.

DAVID BIRRI, MIKE KAUFMANN, LORENZ

RICHARD

run:

38% blue (101km), 48% red (128km), 14% black (37km)

54

jungfrauregion.swiss; interlaken.ch/en

Clockwise from top: the Top of Europe; kayaking on Lake Brienz; paragliding in Interlaken

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Ahard leg day can be tough on your lower half. Not only will you feel the burn while you push yourself to your physical limits during the session, but the after-effects can sometimes be experienced for days at a time – whether that’s annoying aches, swelling that can’t be shifted, or DOMS that don’t disappear.

Recovery is always touted as the silver bullet that will help you overcome the worst post-exercise pains, but common methods aren’t always convenient. Stretching has

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Adventure philosophy from BRENDAN LEONARD

“I used to love survival stories when I was a kid – human against nature; a person using only their wits to stay alive in the wilderness against all odds after a shipwreck or a plane crash or something like that. Now that I’m an adult I still love a good survival story, and sometimes I think about trying to write one myself in the same vein as some of my favourite books from when I was a kid. But where would it take place, this contemporary survival story that would capture the hearts and imaginations of dozens of readers? Probably an IKEA store where the narrator becomes hopelessly lost while trying to shop for a lamp and realises that the store, and the café, have closed for the night. That’s relatable.”

The next issue of THE RED BULLETIN is out on November 8

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BEYOND THE ORDINARY