I have some serious, serious gripes about the Olympics coverage and what they put,and don't put in the primetime slot (ping pong, shooting events, all the amazing events you've never heard of), but that being said I love the Olympics.
This article in WSJ today gave a history of the Javelin, which is one of the more ancient and technically evolving sports.
Javelins, remember, started out as spears that were meant to kill people. Barely a year passes when one doesn't. A 1950s innovation shifted weight from the tip to the middle and enabled East German Uwe Hohn to throw 104.80 meters in 1984, the all-time record. However, those javelins landed flat and skipped, or overshot the field and skewered the crowd. They were banned in 1986, and a fresh record book opened from scratch.
Three years later, Mr. Nemeth roughened the tail's surface, adding lift even if the nose, as the rules required, had to hit the ground first.
The world record holder at the time was Jan Zelezny, a Czech who threw 87.66 meters in 1987. "I convinced him to take my javelin into his hand," Mr. Nemeth says now. "It made him famous and it made me famous." But in 1991, the rough surface was banned.
Quickly, Mr. Nemeth came up with another design: a javelin wrapped in carbon fiber to reduce vibration. Mr. Zelezny threw a new world record with it. Then the carbon wrap was banned. Carbon is legal again today, but Mr. Zelezny's record was wiped off the books.
Spearing the crowd. Sweet. However, the usually factually correct (though horribly Republican and slanted) paper missed the historically largest advance in the sport ofJavelin... by a little guy called Wormser.
2 comments:
Do you know that Jill is a champion shotputter? I realize it's not the javelin but that's the closest I can get to anything commentworthy in this area.
Ask her about it. She won't volunteer this sort of information.
sweet! i will ask her. My roommate ryan posted this one. i love the video...
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