Ultralighters choose thin layers of man-made fibre for clothing; never cotton, which never dries. Talking of which, there’s nothing worse than chafing and now that rugby players wear Lycra under shorts, it’s acceptable to admit that wearing them on long hikes is essential.

Read Will Robinson’s advice on hiking in the UK before heading out as well though,

I have hiked and camped in the Loch Hourn region of northwest Scotland, and trainers, a poncho and the shelter of a nylon sheet are not appropriate for this wet and windy region. Boots, lightweight full waterproofs and a tent are required to hike in comfort and safety.

Rolling down that hill (in a transparent inflated ball).

In the end Sven Göran Eriksson just had to go — after five years in England he still couldn’t speak English. Teachers like Michael Owen, Rio Ferdinand and David Beckham couldn’t have helped though.

Jeg vet ikke hva Gorm Andersen i Dagbladet tar eller om det var sikten som ødela for ham i regnværet i Helsinki — faktum er i alle fall at Andreas Thorkildsen tok på seg den hvite Adidas-lua før 85- og 86-meters kastene kom. Gorm må være den eneste som så at han tok på lua etter at han skaffet seg en ny mesterskapsmedalje (billedteksten fra artikkelen om Thorkildsens sølv i Dagbladet. Gorm fortsetter slurvet med

Da sølvet ble sikret kom også den velkjenta lua på plass, den han dro på seg også da OL-gullet var i boks.

Begge setningene sier at lua kom på etter at sølvet var sikret og det er jo feil. Den lua Andreas brukte i OL var forøvrig svart …

Sportsidene var alltid bedre i VG når jeg bodde hjemme i Norge og det ser fremdeles ut til å være tilfelle. Kristian Holli skriver

Sørlendingen startet med to greie kast på henholdsvis 78,36 og 81,52 meter, før han tok på seg den karakteristiske luen og klinte til med 83,41. Det ga ham ledelsen, men gleden var kortvarig.

Andreas Thorkildsen put on his beanie-hat before securing his silver-medal, not after as a journalist tries to spin a story on in Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet (this evening’s javelin event at the world athletics championships in Helsinki).

I see that Tiger Woods and the other pros are blaming club technology for their failure at the Open Golf (thisislondon):

Players at the top of their profession are saying something needs to be done. These players believe that with old equipment the gap between them and the slightly lesser player was wider than it is with new equipment.

So basically — it’s unfair that all players have access to the same modern kit? Not that golf is a real sport anyway — I am totally with Mark Twain on golf.

One solution to Tiger’s problem is to let everyone play with and carry their own antique kit (so we might see some real athletes): a minimum age of 30 years and 2kgs for each club should be suitable. If this can’t be arranged then let all players use this £64.99 golf club set from Argos. I mean how much golf-pro-killing-technology can you put in a 65 quid set? While we are at it: rip down the fences on the private golf clubs around London. Go on be a real golf punk and let the 65-quid blokes and ladettes have a go(lf).

Apologies to my increasing number of friends and colleagues who play golf — but I prefer a good swim or game of poker.

The British still prefer to use cars instead of bicycles (The Guardian, regreq). No wonder this government cycling initiative fails, the big cities in England are no-go areas for cyclists.

Two simple actions to help us use our bikes (I have just started using mine a little after leaving it in storage for six years):

1. Make it legal to use your bike on pavements. Fining kids for riding on the pavement is the wrong idea. Instead I suggest using the simple rule from home in Norway: allow cyclists to choose if they want to ride on the road or on the pavement — if you are riding on the pavement you behave like a pedestrian, if you use the bike on the road you follow the normal traffic rules.
2. Make it legal to ride bikes in parks. Remove the No Cycling and Cycling Prohibited signs round the London parks and more people will get on their bikes.

We might be going down, but at least next season we will have some
hot kit.

According to Ananova the new home shirt, designed by Diadora, includes a logo on the shoulder which changes colour to show the increase of physical effort and body temperature. It looks quite nice as well. Several teams will use the new shirt, among them AS Roma and Dinamo Moscow. Diadora claims that:

As the minutes pass, with the increase of physical effort and body temperature, the “One of Eleven” logo changes colour and stands out more. Thus each player becomes more visible to his companions and team playing uses this to good advantage.

It might be an advantage for the team — but also

• a gift for the fans: luxury players will be identified by “science” [well maybe not a gift at 40 quid]
• you can check how exciting a game is by looking on the terraces for clusters of fans in replica kit
• the new kit will provide free information for the other team’s players (“he must be knackered by the look of those dots on his shoulder”).

Maybe each team will have kit with unique colour coding — even changing the coding mid-season to confuse the opposition. And get the (gullible) fans to buy a second set.

The most irritating thing about David Beckham is not his OK/Hello/Hola celebrity lifestyle, his excellent right foot, his looks or his millions. What really annoys me is his insistence on saying you know at least once in every sentence (he shares this with many footballers). David was interviewed after the Real Madrid vs Bayern Munich game this week. He answered 5 questions and managed to squeeze in 19 you know’s in his 5 answers.

Alain Robert is not the first human spider to climb tall buildings: George Willig, “Spider Dan” Goodwin and the more obscure Tony Deutchler did climbs in the 80’s and 90’s.

Even further back there are stories about Bill Strother doing a climb in 1921 in Augusta and Jack Williams doing climbs in 1917 and 1918.

The sculpturist Enrique Alferez also did some climbing to support himself:

Passionate, opinionated and extroverted, Alfrez made a strong impression on all who met him. He led a remarkable life and many of his adventures have become legend. The facts themselves are dramatic enough. Early on he was taken into the band of infamous Mexican Revolutionary Pancho Villa. In Chicago he earned a living climbing the Wrigley Building wearing a pair of tennis shoes to raise and lower the flag. He was mistakenly declared dead in Mexico in the late 1930s; his obituary was published in New Orleans and he was mourned in the French Quarter.

The parkour are following in the footsteps of the greatest urban athlete of them all: climber Alain Robert - The Man Spider. His website is full of charming English like:

Is he out the law?

It is very difficult to obtain authorizations to climb a tower with naked hands, then to each one of its rises, Alain is taken along to the police station. Because of the mobilization of the police officers to the foot of the tower, a handrail must be written.

In France, Alain climbed nearly 20 buildings and the object only one complaint was which did not come to anything. By chauvinism or respect for the performance, the French font has sympathy to our man spider. But it is not the case in the other countries and Alain Robert knows the time of a few hours or a few days the prisons of the whole world.

We did swing around lampposts and climb roofs in the town when I was a kid - but that’s where we stopped. The kids from Lisses south of Paris did not stop - they continued to hone their skills and so invented the sport of free-running:
moving around the urban landscape as it was a combination of an army obstacle course and a ballet stage.

The Guardian presents href=”http://sport.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0%2C10488%2C1026383%2C00.html”>Sebastian
Foucan in a recent article. Foucan and David Belle (of the brilliant href=”http://www.le-parkour.com/rushhour.ram” title=”rush hour video
download”>BBC advert showing free-running [RealPlayer download] are the stars and founders of “parkeur”.

The French websites dedicated to the sport are almost like obstacle
courses themselves - the unofficial parkeur
site is slightly better than href=”http://www.parkour.com”>parkour.com (annoying music alert on both).
London-based urbanfreeflow’s site
is designed in a way truer to the spirit of the sport.

Forget surfing, this is fresher and there is no need for a wetsuit (just a
pair of good shoes).