Word: rider
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...that all walks of life endure together. After a traditional breakfast of fish and salad, and a quick game or charades with my host family (in lieu of a conversation), I leave the house for the hour-long commute to Waseda University. While I am generally the most conspicuous rider, I find that I am the one who tends to stare at others, as the Tokyo metro is a central convergence of lifestyles...
...just any pony, but Teddy, a pint-sized fighter who was rocking the equestrian world. Karen O'Connor's story had all the elements: a 50-year-old baby boomer shooting for gold, an undersized competitor taking on the big horses, and a touching relationship between, not just a rider and her horse, but a rider and her pony! The NBC suits were jumping in their suites...
...emotionally devastating, but O'Connor the athlete had to move on. She saddled another horse, a thoroughbred named Mandiba, to continue her Olympic quest. Then she suffered a more common form of sports heartbreak. On July 15, the U.S. Equestrian Federation named its five riders for the eventing team. Eventing is the triathlon of equestrian, a competition that combines dressage (the so-called "horse ballet" in which the rider guides the horse through a series of movements), cross-country riding and show jumping. O'Connor, a two-time Olympic medalist and one of the most decorated riders...
...eventing, each rider competes on the same horse through the four-day competition. Five selectors decide the Olympic team over an 18-month vetting period. It's a somewhat subjective process: eventing can't have win-and-in pre-Olympic trials because if the horses exerts too much energy before the Games, they might be spent for Beijing. The equine body can't bounce back like Michael Phelps...
...race was the brainchild of Henri Desgrange, a Parisian magazine editor who launched it in 1903 with 60 riders in a bid to boost circulation. It worked: Tour coverage helped Desgrange's magazine boom, and the race soon became more popular than he could have dreamed. With fans lining the roads to see riders up close, by the 1920s the Tour included more than 100 cyclists from throughout Europe. But as the competition grew fiercer and the race more commercialized, champagne and nicotine gave way to more effective--and insidious--performance boosters. In 1967, British rider Tom Simpson died midrace...