RickMcCharles.com

Inspiring.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

(via Sport At Its Best)

Via The Olympic Games on Facebook.

related – Norway’s wheelchair curling team continues tradition of wearing colourful pants

Update. NBC pulled this excellent video. I was surprised to see that CBC linked to it. That link is no longer working, either.

=== original post:

This pre-Olympic fluff piece aired in the States Feb. 12th.

It’s gone viral since, one of the many positives about Canada hosting the Winter Games.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube (6min).

related – Tom Brokaw video a U.S. ‘love letter’ to Canada

Thanks Rockin’

Last week I roomed with former Navy Seal, Actor, Model and Personal Fitness Trainer Cliff Parks.

He’d rather watch a Lakers NBA game on TV (without Kobe) than the Winter Olympics. When I asked Cliff what goofy Olympic sport was the “least cool” his answer was definitive … CURLING.

What! … Who else thinks chick magnet Olympic Champion Kevin Martin isn’t cool?

…
And what about the Norwegian fashion statement. A highlight of the Games. Their pants Facebook page has hundreds of thousands of fans.

…

Cliff simply doesn’t understand curling. The Onion explains it:

… DOYLESTOWN, PA—After three hours of watching Canada take on Denmark in women’s curling Friday, regulars at the Cargo Grill in suburban Pennsylvania felt they had the rules and traditions of the sport sufficiently sussed out. “We basically think it’s like horseshoes but with ice,” bar patron Jim Comito said of the 500-year old sport. “The middle part of the bull’s-eye thing is worth two points unless they both get their pot-looking thing in the middle. Tommy said they use the brooms to clear little ice particles out of the way, but I still think it’s a static electricity thing.” By the tenth end, the entire bar felt they had enough information at their disposal to chant “Curl! Curl! Curl!” at the television.

Bar Thinks They Have Curling Figured Out

Curling not cool … Gosh golly, Cliff. Get with the 19th century!

Clara Hughes has won the most Olympic medals of any Canadian woman, all time, tied with skating team mate Cindy Klassen.

But Clara won them in both Summer and Winter Olympics. In fact, she’s the only woman from any nation who has won more than one medal in both Summer and Winter. Amazing!

What’s next?

Clara plans future Ocean kayak adventures with her husband Peter Guzman.

Here’s my vote: X-C Snowboarding

Get PHLAT, dude. Funny.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

(via The Outside Blog)

Highlights video.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Featuring Eddie the Eagle.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

Vancouver2010.com

On the insistence of my Adventure Racing buddy, Dave Adlard, I bought a book.

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen

A fantastic read, even for non-runners. The author, Christopher McDougall, (video) is a master story teller. I was gripped by this true life story.

Full of incredible characters, amazing athletic achievements, cutting-edge science, and, most of all, pure inspiration, Born to Run is an epic adventure that began with one simple question: Why does my foot hurt? In search of an answer, Christopher McDougall sets off to find a tribe of the world’s greatest distance runners and learn their secrets, and in the process shows us that everything we thought we knew about running is wrong. …

It’s available on Audible.com, as well as in a Kindle edition.

Get it!

I listened to this book immediately after Dan Brown’s entertaining The Lost Symbol (my review).

It was crystal clear that Dan Brown is a hack compared with by Christopher Mcdougall.

Why is that?

I believe Brown is an old school author. Mcdougall an author of the future,

Mcdougall is a journalist, writing primarily magazine articles. This is his first book.

A magazine article must be instantly engaging. Otherwise the reader will flip ahead to the next story.

Christopher Mcdougall reminds me of Jon Krakauer, another magazine scribe turned author.

Bottom line: get Born to Run.

I guess it was … destiny.

Click PLAY or watch a Nike commercial on YouTube.