Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot

Kenya’s Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot won the 114th edition of the Boston Marathon in record time on the 19^th of April (read news article).

How Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot is different from other athletes is that he is considered to be a true marathoner” who rarely races other distances. Also, he has finished fifth or better in all four marathons he has entered.

Aged 21, Cheruiyot’s international debut was at the 2008 Frankfurt Marathon. Since he was not experienced, he had to purchase his own way and turn in a time under 2:14:00 to be reimbursed. He proceeded to surprise everyone, including himself, winning in the race with a course record 2:07:21!

ArcelorMittal Orbit

In an ambitious project for building another towering landmark in the London skyline, Mayor Boris Johnson and LNMittal unveiled the design of what will be the London 2012 Olympics chief visitor attraction, a 120m tall steel tower people can climb up, one that’s already being called a ‘drunken’ Eiffel Tower. It will be rather clunkily, but correctly christened the ArcelorMittal Orbit. The winning design for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic sculpture, its conceived by Turner Prize winning artist, Anish Kapoor.

The new icon will stand on the Olympic site in East London, and probably be the first landmark you can identify from the plane if you’re flying in from the east after 2012.

Of the £19.2 million cost of the project, ArcelorMittal will fund £16 million, with the rest coming from London Development Agency.

Read more here.

Yokozuna

Yokozuna  is the highest rank in sumo. The name literally means “horizontal rope” and comes from the most visible symbol of their rank, the rope (tsuna) worn around the waist. The rope is similar to the shimenawa used to mark off sacred areas in Shinto, and like shimenawa serves to purify and mark off its content. The rope, which may weigh up to 20 kilograms, is not used during the matches themselves, but is worn during the yokozuna’s dohyo-iri ring entrance ceremony.

In modern sumo, the qualifications that an ōzeki must satisfy to be promoted are that he has enough power, skill and dignity/grace to qualify. There are no absolute criteria, nor is there a set quota: there have been periods with no wrestlers at yokozuna rank, and there have been periods with up to four simultaneously.

The power and skill aspects are usually considered with reference to recent tournament performance. The de facto standard is to win two consecutive championships as ozeki or an equivalent performance. In the case where the “equivalent performance” criterion is used the wrestler’s record over the previous three tournaments is taken into account with an expectation at least one tournament victory and two runner up performances, with none of the three records falling below twelve wins. Thus a consistent high level of performance is required. Winning two tournaments with a poor performance between them is not usually sufficient. The rules are not set in stone and hence the Yokozuna Deliberation Council and Sumo Association can interpret the criteria more leniently or strictly and also take other factors, such as total number of tournament victories, and the quality of the wins and whether the losses show any bad vulnerabilities in reaching their conclusion.

The birth of the rank of yokozuna is unclear, and there are two competing legends. According to one, a 9th-century wrestler named Hajikami tied a shimenawa around his waist as a handicap and dared any to touch it, creating sumo as we know it in the process. According to the other, legendary wrestler Akashi Shiganosuke tied the shimenawa around his waist in 1630 as a sign of respect when visiting the Emperor, and was posthumously awarded the title for the first time. There is little supporting evidence for either theory — in fact, it is not even certain that Akashi was a historical figure — but it is known that by November 1789, yokozuna starting from the fourth yokozuna Tanikaze Kajinosuke and the fifth yokozuna Onogawa Kisaburō were depicted in ukiyo-e prints as wearing the shimenawa. These two wrestlers were both awarded yokozuna licences by the prominent Yoshida family.

Click here to read more.

Olympic mascots

According to Wiki, since the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France the Olympic Games have had a mascot. The first major mascot in the Olympic Games was Misha in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. Misha was used extensively during the opening and closing ceremonies, had a TV animated cartoon and appeared on several merchandise products. Nowadays, most of the merchandise aimed at young people focuses on the mascots, rather than the Olympic flag or organization logos.

Before 1992, most Olympic mascots were created based on an animal unique to the host countries. Since then, human or invented figures have been used, and often more than one mascot – the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympic Games had four mascots; the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games had three and the 2004 Athens Olympic Games had two. Click here for a complete list of mascots that have been used over the years.

What are the different types of football?

Was watching this episode of “Friends” a few days back where all of them play football. In India, by football however we refer to a different game altogether than what they were playing! Was curious to find out what football actually refers to.

According to wikipedia, Football is the word given to a number of similar team sports, all of which involve (to varying degrees) kicking a ball in an attempt to score a goal. The most popular of these sports worldwide is association football, more commonly known as just “football” or “soccer”. The English language word “football” is also applied to “gridiron football” (a name associated with the North American sports, especially American football and Canadian football), Australian football, Gaelic football, rugby football (rugby league and rugby union), and related games.

These games involve:

• Two teams of usually between 11 and 18 players; some variations that have fewer players (five or more per team) are also popular
• a clearly defined area in which to play the game
• scoring goals and/or points, by moving the ball to an opposing team’s end of the field and either into a goal area, or over a line
• goals and/or points resulting from players putting the ball between two goalposts
• the goal and/or line being defended by the opposing team
• players being required to move the ball—depending on the code—by kicking, carrying and/or hand passing the ball; and 
• players using only their body to move the ball.