#TeamTennessee has high aspirations for what sport they would compete in to bring home the gold. USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee staffers Joe Rexrode, Geoff Calkins and Andrew Nelles will be covering the 2018 Winter Olympics from PyeongChang. Ayrika Whitney/USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee
Raise your hand if you remember the old “Saturday Night Live” sketch with Steve Martin and Dan Aykroyd about the Festrunk brothers from Czechoslovakia (like I said, it’s old). Their catchphrase was: “We’re two wild and crazy guys!” If you didn’t raise your hand, check YouTube. Good 1970s stuff. (more…)
Can’t make it to the Olympic Games this year but still want to stay up-to-date on what happens outside the competition? These eight Instagram accounts are must-follows for behind-the-scenes shots and Korean culture. And don’t forget to follow the official Olympics Instagram to see the heart of the action.
In 2014, the International Olympic Committee launched an artists-in-residence program to bring arts back into the Olympic Games. This year’s artists are all former Olympians. Roald Bradstock competed in the 1984 and 1988 Olympics for England as a javelin thrower. He’s now a full-time artist, and for his residency, he’ll be working on 16 collaborative large-scale paintings representing the Games. Every morning of the Olympics, he plans to set up a blank canvas in the Olympic Village and invite competing athletes to paint whatever they want.
Athletes from around the world have gathered in PyeongChang, South Korea, to kick off the 2018 Winter Olympics. Among the men and women competing are four current and former athletes charged with a special mission: to bring art to the Olympic Village.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced this week that it has selected four athletes to serve as Olympic artists in residence for this year’s winter games. Greek-American distance runner Alexi Pappas, British javelin thrower Roald Bradstock, American biathlete Lanny Barnes, and Swiss fencer Jean-Blaise Evéquoz, each of whom are artists who have competed in the Olympics at least once, will collaborate on two projects throughout the duration of the games. (more…)
They have taken part in the Olympic Games at least once as athletes and they are artists. In PyeongChang, they will not be in contention for a medal, but they will bring the Olympic values to life through art and by coming together with athletes in the Olympic Village. Olympians Alexi Pappas (10 km runner), Roald Bradstock (javelin thrower), Lanny Barnes (biathlete) and Jean-Blaise Evequoz (fencer) are the “Olympian artists” at the XXIII Olympic Winter Games. (more…)
‘Art of the Olympians’ is a platform where Olympians and Paralympians can show their creative side, express themselves and document their involvement in the arts.
By IPC
British Olympic track and field athlete Roald Bradstock has brought together dozens of Olympians and Paralympians through his project ‘Art of the Olympians’ (AOTO), creating a virtual and physical platform where they can show their creative side, express themselves, showcase their work and document their involvement in the arts.
Are we fighting a losing battle trying to stop athletes taking performance enhancing drugs? Is cheating just so much a part of “our” collective genetic makeup that it can never be eradicated from sport? Is the only option to throw more money at it, and make the offenders criminals and put them in prison, or is there an alternative, albeit extreme option?
What if we went the other direction, and did a 180, and created an entirely new “genre” in the sports world, where it would be not only legal to take PEDs, but you would actually be encouraged to take them?
We have the Olympic and Paralympic Games for abled and disabled athletes. Why not add another section for enabled and enhanced athletes? Creating Super-Olympics would give those individual athletes and state sponsored programs that want to cheat a stage and an outlet. Could this be the solution? Maybe, just maybe, these “cheats”, be it individuals or statewide programs, would then self-purge themselves and move to the new platform, a sand box created especially for them, where they could go and play. Then the decks would be cleared and our current system could be cleaned up. (more…)
“To the victor go the spoils” is a well-known phrase first uttered by a New York Senator in 1831. Simply put, it means the winner gets the prize. But in the sports world determining a winner can be sometimes be challenging.
You would think that the person crossing the finish line first or the team scoring the most points is the winner, right, seems kind of a no brainer. They’re the ones that stand on top of the podium and receive the bouquet of flowers, get their medals, trophy, jacket or jersey and hear their national anthem played. Of course, they are the champions. That’s why we have competitions and why we have an award ceremony afterwards, so we can (more…)
Roald Bradstock competes in a record setting 8th Olympic Trials aged 50 in Birmingham, England on June 23rd, 2012. He smashes the World Masters Record for “the over 50” and comes second. The following day, on June 24th, 2012, Roald has a little chat with John Inverdale live on BBC
Fifty-year-old Roald Bradstock wins javelin silver at Aviva Trials
Performance artist throws 72.78m
Andy Bull in Birmingham
The Observer, Saturday 23 June 2012 11.33 EDT
Roald Bradstock celebrates his javelin throw during the men’s final at the Aviva 2012 UK Olympic Trials and Championship at Alexander Stadium. Photograph: Stu Forster/Getty Images
It was not hard to pick out Roald Bradstock at the Aviva Trials. He was the 50-year-old performance artist wearing a tracksuit top from the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, over the top of a kit emblazoned with the Union Jack that he had hand-painted. It helped, too, that he threw 72.78m. That was good enough to win him a silver medal behind 27-year-old Lee Doran, from Sheffield, and made him the oldest man to win a medal at the championships since 1936. (more…)