This ain't Mark Roberts' first rodeo.
The British nudist who hopped onto an Olympic ice rink at PyeongChang in a pink tutu and a monkey-faced codpiece (strategically covering his junk, of course) has a long history of streaking. For 25 years now, Roberts has run bare (partially or completely) at hundreds of international sport events, including Super Bowls. Yahoo News reports that Roberts has performed his stunts at 562 events in 22 countries.
With the message "Peace + Love" scrawled on his chest, the pony-tailed dad-of-three jumped over the rink's barrier Friday morning after the Men’s 1,000-meter Speed Skating event, slipping and sliding on the ice:
Here's a revealing (heh) interview with Roberts from 2001:
And here's a 2008 interview with him and then his mother (who admits dropping him on his head as a baby):
As my pal jessiejessup quipped, "Not all heroes wear capes."
screengrab via Watch Life Read the rest “Serial streaker crashed Olympic ice in a pink tutu and a monkey-faced codpiece”
"The most feared weapon of any dictatorship is satire," says Howard, the Australian who impersonated Kim Jong-un waving a United Korea flag in front of North Korean cheerleaders at the Olympics yesterday. He was rewarded with a none-too-happy response.
According to the impersonator, his stunt got him a kick in the shin and angry shouting by North Korean "tough guys." He was then detained by South Korean police, for his own safety, and wasn't allowed to leave until after the game had finished.
Via Mashable, where you can read more details. Read the rest “Man who impersonated Kim Jong-un at Olympics kicked in the shin and detained”
If only it were true. Chicago's ABC affiliate WLS-TV featured the graphic seen above during a story about the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang. From the
Chicago Tribune:
Jayme Nicholas, a spokesperson for the ABC affiliate in Chicago, told Inc. that the goof was the result of a mix-up. The graphic was created for a different “satirical piece” put together on Friday by sports anchor Mark Giangreco in which viewers were encouraged to invent their own Olympic sports, but it was mistakenly also used for the serious news story read on Saturday by weekend anchor Mark Rivera, Nicholas said.
Read the rest “Contrary to Chicago TV news, P.F. Chang's is not hosting the Winter Olympics”
The International Olympic Committee took the unprecedented step of announcing the 2024 and 2028 Olympic host cities (Paris and LA), because both cities were bidding unopposed, and LA had to be bribed with a $1.8B "grant" from the IOC to agree to host the games. Read the rest “No one wants to host the Olympics”
What did Lochte say after his teammates told the police what really happened?
"...and I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you medaling kids!"
(bbfan23 via r/jokes)
US swimmer Lochte, Brazil police differ on robbery story (CNN) Read the rest “What did Lochte say after his teammates told the police what really happened?”
Matt Stutzman was born without arms, but that has not stopped him from becoming an excellent archer. It's amazing to watch him do everyday tasks like drive and answer his smartphone, too. Read the rest “Paralympian archer with no arms demonstrates technique”
Since 1896, the 100m dash remains the best thing at Olympic track & field apart from the weapons-throwing events. Usain Bolt dominates now, but would he have dominated then? Yes, of course he would have: by several seconds! (Not included: Ben Johnson's steroid-fueled 9.79s win at the '88 Games, for which he was disqualified. Bolt beat it in 2008 and 2012's race, and other athletes have outside the Olympics) Read the rest “Animation of every Olympic 100m dash winner racing one another”
Japanese Pole vaulter Hiroki Ogita touched the bar with both his legs and his penis, placing him 21st in the qualifying rounds for pole vaulting with a penis. Read the rest “Olympic pole vaulter foiled by own penis”
Longtime Boing Boing video collaborator Eric Mittleman shares with us a new project he's been working with, The Youth Baller Network, which you can subscribe to here. Read the rest “'Play like a girl' should be a term of respect”
On Tuesday, the Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre's diving pool turned green. Yesterday, the water polo pool followed suit. Various reasons have been, er, floated, depending on who is doing the blaming, I mean explaining:
• It's a change in alkalinity, says Mario Andrada of the Rio 2016 local organizing committee. "We expect the color to be back to blue soon," he said. "...There is absolutely no risk to the athletes or anybody."
• No, actually heat and still air caused an algae bloom, according to the Olympic organizing committee.
• More likely, says FINA, the International Swimming Federation, is that the water tanks "ran out some of the chemicals used in the water treatment process."
(CNN) Read the rest “Another Olympic pool turned green”
My first exposure to fencing was on Happy Days. (Video evidence below.) This Vox video above explains the sport much better.
Read the rest “What is fencing all about?”
"Wife of a Bears' lineman wins a bronze medal today in Rio Olympics," The Chicago Tribune reported Sunday. Sadly, the headline writers were unable to figure out her name before Tweet time, but they eventually did and later credited the wifehood (and the medal) to "Corey Cogdell-Unrein, the wife of Bears lineman Mitch Unrein." Read the rest “Important man's wife wins Olympic medal”
They've "expressly prohibited" turning anything from the Olympics into "animated formats such as animated GIFs (i.e. GIFV), GFY, WebM, or short video formats such as Vines." Read the rest “International Olympic Committee bans GIFs”
On Reddit, Nephelus notes the shambolic and rather menacing state of the forthcoming Olympics in Rio. In honor of Zika, the disease that will spread like crazy once the tourists show up, they created this striking new logo. Read the rest “New logo for the Rio Olympics”
The US Olympics Committee has sent a letter to companies that sponsor athletes but don't sponsor the games, warning them that mentioning the Olympics in social media is a trademark violation. Read the rest “Olympics to companies: mentioning "Olympics" in social media is a trademark violation”
In Brazil, racial discrimination against darker-skinned people is rife; and the famous unequal society is especially tilted against black Brazilians, who are subjected to horrific summary executions by police in the favelas (squatter neighborhoods). Read the rest “Black Lives Matter in Rio, too”
In "The Oxford Olympics Study 2016: Cost and Cost Overrun at the Games," three researchers from the University of Oxford's Said Business School examine the cost estimates and actual costs of every Olympic games since 1960, and finds that they are the most likely of all megaprojects to exceed their estimates, and also exceed those estimates by the largest amount of any megaproject. Read the rest “It's official: the Olympics result in the worst budget overruns of any megaproject”
