World champion Craig Alexander recorded the first sub-eight-hour Ironman-distance triathlon of his career on Saturday at the inaugural Ironman Melbourne. Alexander, 38, became the oldest man to win the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii last November, and in the process set a course record of 8:03:56. On Saturday, he exited the swim leg five minutes behind leader Clayton Fettell. After a strong bike leg put him in the lead with New Zealand's Cameron Brown, Alexander recorded the faste... Read More
Filmmaker James Cameron became the first person to complete a solo submarine dive to the ocean's deepest point on Monday near Guam. Cameron descended nearly seven miles to the Mariana Trench in a custom-built sub called Deepsea Challenger. He had hoped to spend several hours gathering scientific data on the ocean floor but was forced to surface when a hydraulic system controlling the sub's mechanical arm failed. Cameron said he saw very few lifeforms. "It was bleak," he said. "It looked like t... Read More
A team of three climbers on March 10 completed the first-ever winter ascent of the Evolution Traverse, a nine-peak, eight-mile route in California's Sierra Nevada range. Shay Har-Noy, Ben Horne, and Konstantin Stoletov, who climb together as members of the group PullHarder, climbed over seven days and spent several nights sleeping in exposed terrain. Temperatures dropped as low as -7 Farenheit and wind speeds topped out at 90 miles per hour.
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A Dutch man who posted a video of himself "flying" with paraglider-like wings has admitted that the video was a hoax. Floris Kaayk, an animation artist and filmmaker, starred in the video as "Jarno Smeets," a man who claimed to have invented a wingsuit that allowed him to fly by flapping his arms. The video quickly went viral, garnering more than 9 million views. Doubts about the video's veracity arose after the engineering institutions "Smeets" claimed to belong to said they didn't know him. ... Read More
The French Cycling Federation (FFC) has preliminarily selected 53-year-old Jeannie Longo, who is fighting allegations of performance enhancing drug use, for the 2012 London Olympics. In November, the FFC cleared Longo of doping violations after she missed three out-of-competition drug tests. Three months later, French police arrested Longo's husband, Patrice Ciprelli, for buying the blood booster EPO. FFC spokeswoman Isabelle Gautheron said on Tuesday that Ciprelli's arrest should not affect h... Read More