MA

GA

ZIN

E

07

SNowBoARDINGTHE WORLD’S TOUGHEST TRICK

RALLY DRIVINGTHE DEADLIEST MOTOR RACE ON EARTH

ARCHERYSHARP-SHOOTING SEOUL SISTERS

SoCCERTHE NEW LEAGUES THREATENING THE OLD WORLD ORDER

POPart This stunning photo by Laurence Griffiths shows the Populous-designed London Olympic Stadium in all its glory during the opening ceremony for the 2012 Olympic Games.

POP VIDEO... See the best of London 2012.

POPULOUS MAGAZINE //

Tel: +44 (0) 20 8874 7666Email: popmag@populous.comWeb: www.populous.com

Editor-in-chief: Rod SheardEditorial team: Nick Reynolds Tom Jones Patricia Fernandez

Populous magazine is published by:Alma Media InternationalLondon, United KingdomTel: +44 (0) 20 8944 1155Email: info@almamedia.co.ukWeb: www.almamedia.co.uk Publisher: Tony Richardson tony@almamedia.co.ukEditor: Dominic Bliss dominic@almamedia.co.ukArt direction and design: Deep www.deep.co.uk

Images: Getty Images; Corbis; Red Bull; Tevis Cup; Dakar Rally; Sporting Kansas City / Alastair Tutton; Adidas; Nike; Evian Masters; Roxy; Le Coq Sportif; Fila Golf; Helena Perez Garcia. © Alma Media International Ltd 2012

All material is strictly copyright and all rights are reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without the written permission of Alma Media International is strictly forbidden. The greatest care has been taken to ensure the accuracy of information in this magazine at the time of going to press, but we accept no responsibility for omissions or errors. The views expressed in this magazine are not necessarily those of Alma Media International or Populous.

WELCOME //2

ISSUE SEVENPopulous magazine is sent to our clients and friends around the sporting world.

HELLO

PEFC/16-44-002

I really believe this is the most diverse issue of Populous magazine we’ve  ever produced, and one that reflects the variety of sport and entertainment across the world. We have features on soccer, rugby, golf,  motor sport, swimming, equestrian sport, surfing, archery,

Australian rules football, snowboarding and stand-up comedy. Even Pope John Paul II makes a brief appearance.

The most important aspects of our stories, as ever, are the human ones. Our focus is on people who are unusual, dedicated and enthralling.

We have a feature on the Dakar rally, the world’s most famous off-road motor race that has been forced to relocate from Africa to South America because of terrorist threats. Then there are the South Korean women who dominate world archery and whom I had the pleasure to watch winning gold medal in London. (I chanted “Ki Bo-bae” along with thousands of other fans.) There’s a theory their spectacular success is partly down to manual dexterity learned from centuries of preparing the Korean national dish.

In another article we discover that professional swimmers shave their body hair just hours before a race so that they feel the pool water more acutely. And we learn how the rugby players of the French Basque Country compete not only for glory on the pitch, but also to see who is the most fiercely Basque. Finally we find out why Aussie rules footballers on the tiny Pacific island of Nauru play on a phosphate rather than a grass surface. All these stories fascinate us and I am sure you will feel the same.

Enjoy reading,Rod Sheard

POPULOUS MAGAZINE // 3

ON targEt

4LEFt FIELD

The story behind the hand-held pixel tablets

brandished by spectators at the

Olympics opening ceremony. Plus

high-tech stadium Wi-Fi networks.

10PaCIFIC rULESThe bizarre story of

how Aussie Rules football became the national sport of the

tiny Pacific island of Nauru.

14NEW WOrLD

OrDErWill the world’s nascent soccer leagues (China’s,

UAE’s, Qatar’s, USA’s and Australia’s) ever be

as significant as the Old World soccer

leagues which have taken decades to grow?

6SEOUL SIStErS

Why do South Korean women totally

dominate golf and archery? Is it down to

their psyche, their culture, even possibly their national dish?

12IN a SPIN

The double cork 1260 is the most extreme of all snowboard tricks. We pay tribute to its best practitioner, Olympic

medallist Shaun White.

18tHE HUMaN tOrPEDOESIn their quest for speed, swimmers

analyse everything from technique,

costume type, pool design and body hair. Roger Guttridge, from

Swimming Times, investigates.

20BaSQUE IN

gLOryThe French Basque

Country sees one of the fiercest local rivalries in European rugby – that between Biarritz and Bayonne. Eurosport commentator Gavin

Mortimer finds out just how fierce.

26DESErt StOrMFatal crashes, killed spectators, terrorists, and extreme desert

conditions…the Dakar rally is like no other motor race on Earth.

But why has it relocated to South

America?

32WILD & WEStErN

Racing long-distance across rugged terrain, endurance riding sees man and horse tested right to their physical

limits. Champion rider Jeremy Reynolds

explains how.

24FUNNy MONEy

Not long ago, stand-up comics were lucky to be performing to a

handful of people in a dingy club. Nowadays, the top acts are filling massive arenas and

earning millions. Why the change in fortune?

30ON tHE SaME WaVELENgtH

Years of riding waves have taught Populous’s Bindi Perkins that, just like architects, surfers need to be completely

at one with their environment.

36POP HIStOry

The day Pope John Paul II visited the

Populous-designed Trans World Dome,

in St. Louis.

LEFT FIELD //04

ThE archITEcTurE anD TEchnoLogy oF pubLIc vEnuEs Is EvoLvIng FasTEr Than EvEr. hErE wE brIng you somE oF ThE mosT ExcITIng IDEas oF ThE nEar, anD somETImEs DIsTanT, FuTurE.

LEFTFIELD //

The human video screenIn the old days sports fans blew whistles and brandished rattles. Things were vastly more sophisticated at the opening and closing ceremonies for the London Olympics and Paralympics. Here fans showed their support with hand-held pixel tablets that they raised in unison to create a stadium-wide video screen.

With every one of the 70,500 spectators given their own tablet to wave, it was impressive stuff. The devices, built by LED technology company Tait Technologies, measured around 13cm by 13cm and weighed 0.5kgs. Each featured nine pixel lights arranged in a square. The tablets were housed in a plastic holder at the base of each seat and connected to the stadium’s central computer system via cables in the spectators’ seats.

During the ceremonies, the tablet lights were programmed to display a variety of colours, allowing organisers to create enormous video

images around the stadium, just as if each light was a pixel in a huge TV screen.

The video content transmitted to each screen was developed by digital media company Crystal CG and featured animations as varied as ocean waves, the Union Jack, a pinball machine, a stereo graphic equaliser and a computer-generated image of the birth of the Internet.

“The audience literally became part of the action,” explained Will Case, creative director at Crystal CG who calls the new medium “landscape video”. “No longer limited by large flat screens, we were presented with the challenge of creating animations to bring the stage and the spectators together. We delivered. The live audience and those watching at home were drawn into the action. We are witnessing the death of the traditional video screen. This will transform the way event content is presented in future, becoming a more immersive experience.”

The head of Tait Technologies, Frederic Opsomer, said that the “assembly of dispersed LED pixels to form very large video images” is not a radically new technology. “But never before has it been done on such a scale, and with such organic animation.”

So what next? Both Crystal CG and Tait Technologies remain tight-lipped about which venues might use their tablets in the future. But one can easily imagine the FIFA World Cup, the Super Bowl or stadium rock concerts from the likes of U2 or Madonna getting involved.

With such a powerful medium, there’s enormous potential for commercial sponsors, too. Although Crystal CG believes advertising messages would kill any creativity. “It would be awful if a stadium was to splash Coca Cola across the screens,” says Case. “Spectators would hate that. They’d then get all cynical about the technology.”

“We are witnessing the

death of the traditional

video screen. This will

transform the way

event content is

presented in future.”

Will Case, Creative

direCtor at Crystal CG.

Rihanna, Jay-Z and Coldplay’s Chris Martin are accompanied by pixel tablets at London’s Olympic Stadium.

popuLous magaZInE // 05

The social network

Huge crowds and mobile phones don’t mix. Things get particularly problematic when it comes to sports stadia. With 60,000 fans crammed together, trying to make phone calls, send text messages, photos and emails and surf the Internet, inevitably the network gets overloaded and fails to function properly. There is now a solution, however, with several sports venues choosing to install their own dedicated Wi-Fi networks.

One of the most impressive to date is Livestrong Sporting Park, in Kansas City, home ground of Major League Soccer team, Sporting Kansas City. When the 18,500-capacity venue opened in June 2011, one of the features was a high-density Wi-Fi network that targets each stand with its own dedicated bandwidth and thereby eliminates mobile phone congestion.

The system, designed by communications company Cisco, and known as Cisco Connected Stadium Wi-Fi, allows fans to access all their normal smartphone functions, but also to interact with digital services generated by the stadium. For example, they can watch action replays, predict match scores, compete in quizzes, order food and drink direct to their seats,

order merchandise and tickets for future events, and navigate their way around the venue. In exchange, the stadium owners can target fans with promotions and adverts.

“We want Livestrong Sporting Park to be truly a living lab for technology,” said Robb Heineman, CEO of Sporting Kansas City. “The real growth opportunity in our sport segment is that 18 to 30 [year-old] category of people walking around with smartphones that want to have a more customised experience. We want to make sure they connect with our building in a different way. The stadium is almost a [TV] channel.”

Other sports stadia and entertainment venues around the world have launched similar systems. For the 2012/2013 season, Real Madrid’s Bernabéu stadium will also offer Cisco Connected Stadium Wi-Fi. California-based computer company Ruckus Wireless are big players in this domain, too. They have installed networks in many sports venues including the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, in California, the 350-acre Saratoga Race Course in New York State, the Time Warner Cable Arena in North Carolina and the Circuit des 24 Heures, home of the 24 Hours of Le Mans motor race in France.

Wi-Fi benefits stadium owners as well as fans. Apart from the enormous potential for merchandise, ticket and refreshment sales, stadium Wi-Fi can also be used to coordinate venue services such as security, heating, lighting and spectator access.

So why is this technology only now just starting to take off? After all, smartphones have been around for ages. It seems stadium managers are finally realising that if they don’t offer free Wi-Fi then ticket sales risk tumbling. It’s no good simply offering live sport. If fans can’t access the same extra features they can at home – such as action replays, social media, commentary, gambling etc – then they may start eschewing the live sport experience.

“We are finding the younger generation aren’t going to games or concerts because they don’t want to be disconnected from their phone,” Cisco’s Annabelle Pinto told SportBusiness International magazine. “Fans are now demanding that their phone works because they have paid a lot of money to be there, and I think the sports and entertainment industry realises this is not just a ‘nice-to-have’, it’s a ‘must-have’.”

Fans enjoy soccer and Wi-Fi service at Kansas City’s Livestrong Sporting Park.

Golf and archery //

South Korean women totally dominate golf and archery, two SportS that require preciSion and touch. But how exactly do they oBliterate all their opponentS? iS it their pSyche, their culture, even poSSiBly Something to do with their national diSh? Ben cove inveStigateS.

golf and archery // seoul sisters06

South Korean stars So Yeon Ryu (left) and Ki Bo-bae.

populouS magaZine // 07

Like so many seminal moments in sporting history, Se Ri Pak’s victory at the 1998 US Women’s Open came entirely by

surprise. Just 20 years old and relatively unknown on the world stage, she miraculously chipped out of a water hazard on the final hole to clinch her maiden major title, and inadvertently change the tapestry of women’s golf forever.

The first exponent of the sport’s subsequent ‘Asian invasion,’ Pak, from South Korea, has since won five more major titles and in 2007 became the youngest ever inductee into the prestigious LPGA Hall Of Fame. But more than that, it’s her impact as a trailblazer for an era-defining new generation that has been most significant.

“Before Pak’s success, Koreans were emerging with tiny tip toes,” says Dong Wook Kim of the Korean Golf Association. “Her breakthrough put the nation on the map with a huge footprint that paved the way for an incredible shift of power.”

Indeed, back then, Pak was one of only three Korean women in the world’s top 100. The ensuing decade has seen an influx of her compatriots following in her footsteps – today more than a third of the planet’s elite are from South Korea.

Just this summer, Na Yeon Choi ran away with the 2012 US Women’s Open at Blackwolf Run, Wisconsin, beating fellow Korean Amy Yang into second place. In doing so, Choi became the fourth different Korean woman to achieve the sport’s most illustrious prize in the last five years.

While Choi was wrapping up victory on one side of the Atlantic, another batch of dominant South Korean sportswomen were accomplishing an historic triumph at the London Olympics, but with bows and arrows, rather than golf clubs. South Korea has now won the team gold medal at seven Olympiads in a row. The names change and the Games change, but their arrows never falter. Their record – 13 of 14 women’s golds since 1984 – constitutes a level of dominance that could justifiably earn them the accolade of greatest Olympic team ever.

“Korea’s supremacy has been good for our sport,” says Didier Mieville, director at World Archery, the sport’s governing body. “They’ve taken archery to new levels, and it has spurred the other nations on.”

There are many theories as to how and why this single nation of 50 million inhabitants has become such a force in these two particular precision sports. The more bizarre among them suggest the techniques of golf and archery are similar to certain cultural predispositions developed through past generations in Korea.

golf and archery // seoul sisters08

“Beginners will spend an

entire year just learning how

to hold the bow correctly.

they will not be permitted

to shoot arrows until their

control over the bow

becomes second nature.”

DiDier Mieville, Director of WorlD Archery.

For starters, each sport requires heightened dexterity of hand, a trait Korean women are said to possess due to traditional methods of making the national dish, kimchi. They may spend many hours at a time tenderly squeezing, churning and coating hot pepper paste over cabbage leaves. They’ll then set about eating their handiwork with Korean chopsticks, the customary utensil that is short, cumbersome, made of steel and exceptionally difficult to master, thereby promoting nimbleness and sensitivity in their fingers.

“People talk about these myths, but you can’t prove whether it makes a difference to their sporting performance,” says Mieville. “If you ask the coaches – and I often do – they’ll just put it down to hard work.”

Hard work is something of an understatement. The Koreans take sporting preparation – and their quest for perfection – to unprecedented levels. “The uncanny success of Korean women in these sports is a dividend of their inexhaustible practising,” explains Professor Eui Hang Shin, a sociologist who has studied this phenomenon throughout the 21st Century. “Koreans believe that with enough disciplined practice there is nothing that any chosen subject cannot perfect.”

Sports like golf and archery are ideal for this notion as they consist of single-motion techniques, each displayed in a closed

Ki Bo-bae on her way to gold at the London Olympics.

environment with limited outside influence. This means success is not so much dependent on natural ability, but rather the repetition of an intricate mechanical formula and mental strength. And, in a culture that places an emphasis on automated excellence – and where preparation is seen as the ultimate antidote to pressure – it’s Korea’s meticulous, monotonous work ethic that ultimately reigns supreme.

“Many other top golfers on the tour are envious of our players’ work ethic,” says the Korean Golf Association’s Dong Wook Kim. “They are the first to get on the range in the practice days of tour events, and the last to leave.”

Trailblazing star Se Ri Pak is a pertinent example of this. Her swing is robotic, almost hypnotic in its execution, the result of years of extreme dedication. “When I was younger, I’d often practise for seven hours in the evenings,” she has admitted. “I cannot sleep if I feel I need to perfect something, so I would be on the driving range until midnight.”

Nocturnal practice sessions might baffle most aspiring teenagers, but Professor Shin insists this is the norm in Korea. “This is a society that places immense value on higher education, and because of its Confucian roots, an examination-heavy life is instilled from the get-go. Kids wake up early in the morning to begin studying before school. They get home at 5pm for dinner, go to cram school by 6pm

and may not sleep at night if they feel the need to revise something from a class that day.”

Such a rigorous regime for children is all but unheard of in the West, but does begin to explain the single-mindedness and unwavering commitment that serves as a platform for Korea’s world-beating archers and golfers.

On golf’s LPGA Tour, some Koreans are likened to Iron Byron, the industry standard ball-testing machine: no emotion, no quirks, just recurring, methodical automation. Similar principles exist in archery. “Korean coaches promote the most intricate and detailed of learning processes,” explains Mieville. “For example, beginners will spend an entire year just learning how to hold the bow correctly. They will not be permitted to shoot arrows until their control over the bow becomes second nature. It’s a long, arduous process, but it obviously works. Once they’re at the elite level, the thorough training regime only continues. In the run-up to the London Olympics, coaches simulated noisy competitions during a baseball match in Korea so that the athletes could get used to the distractions of shooting in front of a lot fans.”

There are other factors, according to Professor Shin, who cites the prevalence of a strong father-daughter relationship in many top female athletes. “Like in the case of [American] tennis’ Williams sisters, the influence of Korean fathers is a determinant. In Korea a more stable and long-standing family structure means stronger relationships are harnessed. Parents are obeyed.”

As if to illustrate this point, Pak again serves as a prototype. In regard to movies and boyfriends, her father once said to her: “That can come later. Ten years from now, maybe. Right now it’s golf practice.”

In reality, there’s no doubt that an amalgamation of factors has caused these most unexpected, and all-conquering, of Asian invasions. It remains to be seen whether or not South Korea’s current dominance will subside over time, as many of their successful coaches migrate to other parts of the world, each preaching the worth of exhaustive training principles.

But with a combination of ingrained diligence, faultless execution – and perhaps even a helping hand from their ancient culinary traditions – these dextrous Korean women are not about to relinquish their global sporting strongholds any day soon.

Populous is designing the main stadium for the Incheon 2014 Asian Games in South Korea.

“in the run- up to the london

olympics, coaches simulated

noisy competitions during a

baseball match in Korea so

that the athletes could get

used to the distractions of

shooting in front of a lot fans.”

DiDier Mieville, Director of WorlD Archery.

populouS magaZine // 09

So Yeon Ryu.

Chella Choi competing in the USA.

POP VIDEO... Watch South Korea’s Ki Bo-bae competing in the London 2012 Final.

RULESPACIFIC

0 32 S, 166 55 E

AustrAliAn rules footbAll //

Nauru is a speck of aN islaNd iN the middle of the pacific oceaN whose NatioNal stadium (riGht) has a phosphate dust pitch. so how oN earth has australiaN rules football maNaGed to become the NatioNal sport?

australiaN rules football // PACIFIC rules10

32

360/12

p

180/30

“The playing ground has spotted grass, covered mainly with loose gravel and phosphate dirt and dust,” explains Rayong Itsimaera, secretary of sports for the Nauru government. “It is situated very close to the phosphate processing and storage bins. When phosphate loading is in operation the ground is always covered in phosphate dust, even during games.”

In charge of the sport is governing body AFL Nauru whose offices are adjacent to Linkbelt Oval. Their motto is “The hard men of football”. And when you see the players’ crunching tackles onto the phosphate pitch surface you quickly understand why.

Populous has worked on several major AFL stadia including the MCG in Melbourne and Metricon Stadium in Gold Coast.

annual round-robin competition lasting 11 weeks. The island’s national side, the Chiefs, has punched well above its weight in international competitions.

Unlike any other Australian rules football pitch, Linkbelt Oval is made not of grass but phosphate, a chemical used as an agricultural fertiliser. It’s all down to the phosphate mining industry that formed the basis of the Nauruan economy throughout the 20th Century.

At one point, during the late 1960s and early 1970s, the nation had the enviable honour of having a per-capita income higher than any other sovereign state on the planet. Now that phosphate reserves have been mined almost to depletion, the economical situation has worsened drastically. But there’s still enough small-scale mining to give the football pitch its distinctive grey hue.

populous maGaZiNe // 11

It may be Australian rules football but there’s not an Aussie to be seen anywhere. At just over eight square miles, the tiny

Pacific island of Nauru, in the South Pacific, is the world’s smallest republic, with a population of 9,000. A good proportion of those 9,000 play Australian rules football with all the fervour of their Australian cousins, 1800 miles to the southwest. In fact it’s their national game.

The sport was first introduced here in the 1930s by Nauruan schoolchildren attending secondary school in Australia. Included among those children was the future founding president of independent Nauru, Hammer DeRoburt.

Since then a national league has developed featuring six teams (Menaida Tigers, Panzer Saints, Blues, Ubenited Power, Boe Lions and Aces), all of whom compete on the same pitch, Linkbelt Oval, in an

The pitch is made not of grass

but phosphate, a chemical used

as an agricultural fertiliser. It’s

all down to the phosphate

mining industry that formed

the basis of the Nauruan

economy in the 20th Century.

POP VIDEO... See Nauru’s Australian Rules football team in action.

through the air. There are four variations of the trick, with just slight differences between each.

Only top professional snowboarders can pull it off with any degree of regularity. There are a mere handful who can do two back-to-back during the five-trick sequences they perform in half pipe competition runs.

One such man is Olympic half pipe champion Shaun White. At the Vancouver Olympics, in 2010, he had already secured gold medal in his first run down the pipe. It was during his victory run, showboating to the crowd, that he executed the double cork 1260. That must have really annoyed his rivals.

Populous is the stadium designer and masterplanner for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games.

POP VIDEO... Watch Shaun White do his double cork 1260 trick.

The double cork 1260 is the holy grail of snowboarding tricks. But you pay a heavy price if you get it wrong. Back in 2009, American

boarder Kevin Pearce got it very wrong indeed. Attempting the trick in a half pipe, he smashed his head and suffered an horrific brain injury.

Although he was wearing a helmet, it was so serious that many thought him unlikely to survive. He did eventually pull through but the damage he sustained put paid to his career as a professional snowboarder.

So what exactly is a double cork 1260, and what makes it the sport’s toughest and most dangerous stunt? To complete it successfully boarders need to ride out of one side of the pipe and perform two somersaults while rotating 1260 degrees across the horizontal plain. They must get high enough (at least three and a half metres) out of the pipe to execute the somersaults, without becoming disorientated by all the spinning

Snowboarding // in a spin12

SNOWBOARDING //

it’S called the double cork 1260, and it’S the moSt extreme of all Snowboard trickS. Shaun white iS one of the only SnowboarderS who can regularly execute it with aplomb. nick hutchingS, from men’S fitneSS magazine, payS tribute.

populouS magazine // 13

They must get high enough out

of the pipe to execute the

somersaults, without becoming

disorientated by all the spinning

through the air.

SOCCER // NEW WORLD ORDER14

The Old World’s Ryan Giggs and the New World’s Kim Dong Jin.

Soccer //

In chIna, Uae, Qatar, USa and aUStralIa, the naScent Soccer leagUeS are makIng a hUge ImpreSSIon. BUt wIll they ever Be aS SIgnIfIcant aS the old world Soccer leagUeS In england, germany, Italy and SpaIn whIch have taken decadeS to grow? Joe Boyle fIndS oUt.

POPULOUS MAGAZINE // 15

NEW

WORLD

ORDER

First, it was one or two experienced South Americans. The Africans started to follow, then even some weighty

European names. The drum-call of soccer outside its traditional powerbases began to beat a more insistent rhythm as countries in the Middle and Far East started flexing their economic muscle. As the global financial order started to shift, why wouldn’t soccer follow in its wake?

When Europe’s economies started to take a battering from the banking crisis in 2008, soccer at least suggested that certain elements of the world order remained intact. The Champions League and the Premier League affirmed a sense of European superiority. However, the awarding of the 2022 FIFA World Cup to Qatar gave a jolt to any such sense of complacency. The conservative forces in European soccer were left perplexed by the sophistication of the bid and the imagination of the Qatari offer. By contrast, many soccer supporters had long accepted that they were consumers of a global sport. The restrictions of geography and the old hierarchies of soccer politics were irrelevant.

Of course, there was an understandable anxiety as clubs were bought up by individuals from distant lands that appeared to have no heritage in the sport. But once investments started to pay dividends, fans quickly dropped any reservations they might originally have held. Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, for example,

was so impressive that most people soon overcame their disappointment at leaving the beautiful but outdated Highbury. Meanwhile, no set of supporters was happier than those of Manchester City who celebrated the success generated by the Abu Dhabi United Group’s largesse by donning the blue and white keffiyeh Arab headdress.

Whilst money from the Gulf was pouring into Europe (including Real Madrid, Olympiacos, Paris St Germain and others), what was coming back in the other direction was expertise. Qatar’s successful World Cup bid was overseen by Englishman Mike Lee, who has a track record with the Premier League and UEFA, and who worked on the successful London and Rio Olympic bids and campaigned successfully for rugby sevens to be included as an Olympic sport. Corporates, too, started to exert their substantial influence, with IMG, the vast sports marketing and consultancy group, amongst the most visible. Jeff Slack, senior vice president for soccer with IMG, has little doubt the game’s current expansion in these regions will continue apace as long as they get the right help.

“Soccer is becoming increasingly popular in parts of the world that are growing economically,” says Slack. “These are places that don’t necessarily have a history of the latest sports marketing techniques. There’s great enthusiasm and great metrics in terms of sponsorship and media, but a lack of expertise.” This explains why places such as China and the

Gulf states have turned to people with proven backgrounds in managing and marketing leagues, selling tickets and media rights and exploiting advances in media production.

Getting things right off the pitch may be easier than getting them right on the pitch. “The people love soccer,” says Slack. “Everyone can watch the Premier League, everyone can watch Barcelona play Madrid. But then you go to watch your local match and the level’s nowhere near that. That’s the challenge; this flight to quality. To address that they invest in people.”

So, money is being thrown at players and, bit by bit, top names are finding themselves playing in the most unexpected places. Okay, David Beckham in LA is a nice fit, but seeing Nicolas Anelka in Shanghai and Raul at Al Sadd provokes something of a double-take. Together with Samuel Eto’o at Anzhi Makhachkala and Brazilian Dario Conca at Guangzhou Evergrande, these players are amongst the top 20 highest-paid in the world. Great players they may be, but these clubs do not mark the pinnacle of their playing career. They’re here for the money, not the career progression.

Then again, throwing cash around doesn’t guarantee success, as the situation in India shows. Despite the availability of huge amounts of money, growing popularity in parts of the country and the glitz provided by some extraordinary advertising campaigns, it is proving difficult to establish

SOCCER // NEW WORLD ORDER16

Fans at Shanghai Shenhua FC (above) and Guangzhou Evergrande FC (right).

“For Bahrain and the UAE soccer is

about leverage, positioning, political

and commercial opportunity. For Qatar

it’s about building national identity.”

James m. Dorsey, soccer blogger

from singapore’s nanyang

Technological UniversiTy.

a league. A disastrous Indian attempt to buy into the Premier League added to the sense that India and soccer are still trying to get to know one other. Food and pharmaceutical giant Venky’s, perhaps inspired by what was happening at Manchester City, bought English club Blackburn Rovers in November 2010 with much loud talk. Eighteen unhappy months later, the team was relegated from the Premier League. Soccer and India, people like to say, just don’t fit. Talk of trying to create a league that replicates cricket’s IPL structure merely emphasises the fact that the sporting imprint left in India by the British Empire was not soccer but cricket.

However, if soccer in India is a comparatively new arrival, the same cannot be said of the Middle East where British colonialists helped to embed the sport well over a century ago. It’s impossible to ignore the political space that the sport has operated in ever since. “There is no soccer club in the Middle East and North Africa that has not been founded on political grounds,” says James M. Dorsey, senior fellow at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University and author of influential blog The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer. “They all have a political history.”

That political heritage has been most evident in Egypt, where soccer fans have been some of the most militant opponents of the armed forces. The lessons seem to have been observed elsewhere in the region. Exerting control over the soccer scene becomes a way of exerting control over potential political dissent. It’s also a way of sending messages to the rest of the world.

“If you look at the three nations in the Gulf that have invested heavily in the sport,” says Dorsey, “there’s a difference in the way they’re doing it. For Bahrain and the UAE it’s about leverage, positioning, political and commercial opportunity. For Qatar it’s about building national identity.”

The flourishing of the sport is therefore about more than just the personal vanity of wealthy individuals. Soccer has always been about more than that. It’s about history, politics, cultural identity. “In Qatar,” says Dorsey, “soccer fits into a strategy that includes Al Jazeera and Qatar Airlines. You’re building an identity, you’re building a brand. Whatever you think of those specific elements, they fit together. There is a logic to what is happening. To dismiss that as the vanity of one man is too simplistic.”

Populous has designed many soccer stadia worldwide including Wembley Stadium (UK), Arsenal FC’s Emirates Stadium (UK), Houston Dynamo’s BBVA Compass Stadium (USA) and Soccer City (South Africa).

SOccER’S NEW pOWERhOUSES?

Outside of Europe, new leagues are making their mark on world soccer. These are arguably the most important.

UAE: UAE pro-League

Leading club: Al Ain who won their tenth title in 2011/12.

Average league attendance (2011/12): 3,240

Marquee player: Asamoah Gyan. The 26-year-old striker from Ghana scored 22 goals in just 18 games in 2011/12 whilst on loan. He has now made his move permanent.

china: chinese Super League

Leading club: Despite relegation in 2010 following a match-fixing scandal, Guangzhou Evergrande won the CSL title in 2011/12, having earned promotion just the year before.

Average league attendance (2011): 17,651

Marquee player: Lucas Barrios. Paraguayan striker who has just started a four-year contract with Guangzhou. Aged just 26, his decision to leave Borussia Dortmund was a major coup for the Chinese league.

Qatar: Qatar Stars League

Leading club: Lekhwiya, formed in 2009 out of Qatar’s former police club, won their first title in 2010/11, a title they retained the following year.

Average league attendance (2010): 4,211

Marquee player: Nilmar. Brazilian striker left Spanish club Villarreal for Al-Rayyan Sports Club on a four-year-deal in July 2012 where he will join countrymen Alves and Tabata.

USA: Major Soccer League

Leading club: In 2011 Los Angeles Galaxy secured their first title since 2005, finally living up to their billing. So far, in the USA, no single side has established long-standing dominance.

Average league attendance (2011): 17,872

Marquee player: Landon Donovan. It’s hard to outshine David Beckham, but Donovan is a class act, averaging almost a goal every two games for his team.

Australia: A-League

Leading club: Too early to say as the league was only set up in 2005. central coast Mariners are current champions and together with Melbourne Victory have two titles.

Average league attendance (2011/12): 10,819

Marquee player: None, though Central Coast Mariners’ young Australian keeper Matthew Ryan has won the best young footballer award for the past two seasons.

POPULOUS MAGAZINE // 17

swimming // The human Torpedoes18

starting blocks

Placed between 0.5m and 0.75m above the water surface, these improve the benefit of the swimmer’s dive. Since the 2008 Olympics, FINA has allowed the use of blocks with adjustable back-plates to give swimmers a running track-style starting position and therefore more power on the take-off. Blocks also have handgrips to aid backstrokers who start in the water.

empty outside lanes

The modern Olympic pool has ten lanes but only eight are used, thus minimising disadvantage from waves for swimmers in lanes one and eight. Races are generally spearheaded by allocating the central lanes to the fastest qualifiers, which may in turn give them a psychological advantage. However finals are occasionally won by swimmers in outside lanes.

starts and turns

Power off the start, flight through the air and angle of entry into the water all affect a swimmer’s performance. And such is the advantage to be gained on the tumble turn by a strong push off the wall that swimmers almost invariably swim faster in 25-metre than 50-metre pools. In the case of the men’s 100m freestyle, the short-course (25m) world record is about two seconds quicker than the long-course (50m) record.

Water temperature

Optimum performance requires a temperature of 27°C. Any cooler and the body has to work harder to keep warm. Any warmer and it risks overheating. Air temperature is less critical and usually set between 25°C and 28°C, although competitive swimmers often complain that 28°C is too warm.

reduction of water movement

A fast pool has deeper water, a level pool floor and deck-level sides with overflow gutters. Greater depth reduces water disturbance. A level floor removes the problem of displaced water bouncing back from the shallow end to hamper the swimmer’s progress. Deck-level walls allow displaced water to flow over them rather than back into the pool in the form of waves. London’s Olympic pool is three metres deep throughout and designed to maximise these advantages.

Swimming //

Like sprinting, professionaL swimming races are often decided by mere 100ths of a second. no wonder swimmers anaLyse everything from technique, costume type, pooL design and body hair in their quest to gLide faster through the water. roger guttridge, from swimming times, investigates.

27°C

popuLous magaZine // 19

anti-wave ropes

These reduce the wash between lanes and are a standard feature of every competitive pool. FINA governing body rules permit the inflow and outflow of water “as long as no appreciable current or turbulence is created”.

deep swimming

Top swimmers are recommended to swim at least 0.7m below the surface after the start and each turn since they encounter less water disturbance at this depth. In freestyle, butterfly and backstroke, the rules allow swimmers to swim up to 15m underwater after the start and each turn. Breaststrokers can perform one complete stroke cycle before breaking the surface.

Flexibility

Flexibility exercises, yoga and even ballet feature in the 21st-Century swimmer’s training programme. Greater flexibility means better streamlining in the water.

shaving

Most swimmers shave their body hair a few hours before a big race. This reduces drag and psychologically improves their feel for the water.

swimsuit technology

In 2008 and 2009 more than 250 swimming world records were broken – far more than usual. It was thanks to the spectacular advances in swimsuit technology. By using up to 100 per cent polyurethane and covering most of the body, manufacturers were able to greatly reduce drag. Strategic compression also improved streamlining and body strength, and reduced fatigue. In 2010 FINA introduced a swathe of new rules designed to rein in the technology, including a return to textile costumes and reductions in body coverage, especially for men. Over the next two years a mere five individual world records fell.

slipstreaming

Swimmers are often seen swimming tight to the rope of an adjoining lane whose occupant is ahead of them. Even with anti-wave ropes, they can still benefit from swimming in the slipstream of a neighbour.

rugby union // basque in glory 20

Rugby union //

ArguAbly the most independent region of frAnce, the french bAsque country sees one of the fiercest locAl rivAlries in europeAn rugby – thAt between biArritz And bAyonne. rugby writer And eurosport commentAtor gAvin mortimer finds out just how fierce.

– wisely, he kept his counsel – but Lucien was grovelling and contrite after he’d calmed down. “I want to apologise to the whole rugby world,” he said after being banned from Biarritz matches for the rest of the season. “I’m disappointed in myself. It was unforgiveable behaviour.”

It was startling stuff, even by the standards of this corner of France where rugby is to its people what soccer is to Liverpool or cricket to Bangalore. In other words it’s far more than just a sport; it’s a way of life, an identity, a means of expression.

The towns of Biarritz and Bayonne are situated at heart of the Basque Country, a strongly independent region straddling the French-Spanish border at the western edge of the Pyrenees. Biarritz is the coastal resort,

There have been 101 Basque rugby derbies between Biarritz and Bayonne over the years. Arguably, none was more

extraordinary than last season’s 100th. Seven minutes into the match a well-dressed gentleman with grey hair and glasses ran on to the Biarritz pitch and launched a furious assault on one of the Bayonne flankers. For a second or two all the players stood and stared, unable to believe what they were seeing, before one of the Bayonne men came to his flanker’s rescue and bundled the intruder to the ground.

Said intruder was Lucien Harinordoquy, father of Biarritz and France No.8 Imanol Harinordoquy. God only knows what the son thought of his father’s behaviour

populous mAgAzine // 21

walls of Bayonne could almost be heard five miles away in Biarritz.

Despite the prank, Biarritz have continued to dominate their reluctant neighbour in recent seasons. They won the Amlin Challenge Cup [European rugby’s second tier competition] in the 2011-2012 season while Bayonne narrowly avoided relegation to the second division, Rugby Pro D2. And as for the matter of which club is the most Basque, Biarritz stole a march on Bayonne by hosting its 2005 European Cup quarter-final clash against Munster in San Sebastian, the city and Basque centre across the border in Spain. It was an inspired decision by the directors of Biarritz, not only financially but culturally, allowing them to brand themselves as the authentic Basque club.

introduced to the region by British wine traders – before being eclipsed by the likes of Béziers, Agen and Toulouse.

That all changed in the early years of the 21st Century when a combination of young, talented players and heavy financial investment propelled Biarritz to the top of French rugby. Three times – in 2002, 2005 and 2006 – they won the league title and they reached the final of the European Cup on two occasions.

Sacre bleu! How that made Bayonne’s blood boil. The Bayonnais have always regarded Biarritz as Basque pretenders with a touch of Parisian pretentiousness about them, what with their exclusive seawater therapy centres and luxury hotels. The Bayonnais, on the other hand, believe they represent the beating lifeblood of French Basque culture, and that they are the chief Basque centre on the north side of the border.

To see Biarritz lauded as the best Basque side was too much to bear for some Bayonne supporters. After the 2006 derby at Biarritz’s Parc des Sports Aguilera ground, a group of them stole the second Y from the sign on the main stand so that instead of declaring ‘Biarritz Olympique Pays Basque’ [Basque Country], it instead stated ‘Biarritz Olympique Pas Basque’ [Not Basque]. The laughter that reverberated around the old

playground of the rich and famous in the 1920s whose modern-day glamour continues to lure pleasure-seekers nearly a century later. Bayonne lies a few miles inland, and with its old timber-frame houses and impressive art museums and music festivals, it attracts tourists in search of something other than sun, sand and the Atlantic rollers that make Biarritz such a popular destination with young surfers.

Despite their proximity to each other, Biarritz and Bayonne have a mutual rancour often played out in the rivalry between their respective rugby teams Biarritz Olympique Pays Basque and Aviron Bayonnais. “It’s all about asserting local and regional identity through the game of rugby,” is how Serge Blanco explains it. “When Biarritz play Bayonne, it’s about who most represents the Basque Country.”

Blanco should know. One of the great full-backs in the history of rugby union, the Frenchman spent all his first-class career at Biarritz and is now the club’s president. His career spanned the 1970s and 1980s when neither Biarritz nor Bayonne got their hands on the Bouclier de Brennus, the imposing shield awarded to the winners of the French championship. Both clubs had enjoyed success in the first half of the century – in the years immediately after the sport had been

rugby union // basque in glory22

“it’s all about asserting local

and regional identity through

the game of rugby. When

biarritz play bayonne, it’s about

who most represents the

basque Country.”

French rugby legend

Serge blanco.

A Bayonne supporter brandishes the Basque flag.

Since then Biarritz have staged numerous high-profile matches at the San Sebastian stadium (home to Spanish football side Real Sociedad), with thousands of their fans waving the distinctive red, white and green Basque flags. The first derby match was in September 2009, a tense encounter that ended with Biarritz defeating Bayonne by 12 points to six. Present on that occasion was the former Bath and Gloucester full-back Iain Balshaw, a World Cup winner with England in 2003, who had joined Biarritz in August 2009.

“In the weeks before the match, that was the only thing people in Biarritz were talking about,” recalled Balshaw. “And afterwards it was as if we’d won the whole league. I was being stopped on the street and congratulated.”

Balshaw was also involved in that 100th Basque derby, the one where Lucien Harinordoquy got up to his shenanigans. Though Biarritz described the pitch invasion as “deplorable”, it won’t have diminished Harinordoquy Senior’s standing in the eyes of his fellow Basques. Acts of bravado – no matter how ill-advised – are a part of the culture; just look how many people run with the bulls in Pamplona.

And anyway, the Harinordoquy name carries with it a great deal of respect, even among Bayonne supporters. Imanol was the first French rugby international to retain his Basque Christian name into adult life, and in the ten years since his test match debut he has blossomed into the most distinguished player from the region. Fiercely aware of his heritage, Harinordoquy once declared: “I am French and Basque. There is no conflict. I am proud of both.”

Populous has designed major rugby venues worldwide including Aviva stadium in Dublin, Eden Park in Auckland and Skilled Park in Brisbane.

biarritz have staged numerous

high-profile matches in san

sebastian, the city and basque

centre across the border in

spain, allowing them to brand

themselves as the authentic

basque club.

asM Clermont auvergne

FC grenoble

stade Français Paris

union bordeaux

bègles

biarritz olympique

rC Toulonnais

su agen

stade Montois Castres olympique

Montpellier Hérault rugby

racing Métro

usa Perpignan

populous mAgAzine // 23

souTHWesT is besTThe southwest completely dominates top-level rugby in France. Just look at the location of the clubs in the country’s top league, the Top 14.

avironbayonnais

stade Toulousain

Biarritz’s Imanol Harinordoquy.

POP VIDEO... Watch Imanol Harinordoquy’s father defend his rugby star son in the Basque derby.

comedy // funny money24

In 1993, Rob Newman and David Baddiel, two comedians from a cult BBC TV show, played to a crowd of 12,000 at London’s

Wembley Arena. Dressed like rock stars and surrounded by screaming teenage girls, they rolled on stage atop skateboards as the living embodiment of the dictum that “comedy is the new rock ‘n’ roll”.

No comedy act in the UK had ever played in front of as many people. Now, two decades on, comedians play venues that size every week. Ricky Gervais plays to 20,000 people at London venues such as Wembley Arena and The O2, and Manchester’s G-Mex, before taking the same show to Madison Square Garden and the Hollywood Bowl in the US. Russell Howard and Michael McIntyre, meanwhile, sell out 30-date tours to similarly sized crowds every night. In America, the likes of Jeff Dunham, Dane Cook and Chris Rock can earn upwards of US$20 million a year by headlining the kind of venues usually frequented by Radiohead or AC/DC.

The reasons for this exponential growth in the live comedy sector are partly technological. The sonic and visual clarity required for mammoth arena dates would not have been available for the likes of Steve Martin or Billy Connolly in the 1970s. Mick Perrin, a comedy promoter of the Just For Laughs agency, remembers how Eddie Izzard’s first arena tour in 2003 pushed those boundaries.

“Ten years ago, I remember ringing up big venues to try and book Eddie and they’d just laugh down the phone,” he says. “Nobody had really tried a comedy tour on such a big scale before. Comedy requires intimacy, and the key logistical challenge was to make the experience as entertaining for someone at the back of the top row as it was for someone next to the stage.”

Thanks to the stage spectaculars pioneered by the likes of Pink Floyd and U2 over the past 20 years, big-scale promoters can now use contact microphones (enabling a stand-up to wander casually around the stage) and relay close-up images on giant 20-metre screens running alongside the stage, recreating a semblance of intimacy for those way back in the bargain seats.

“It doesn’t come cheap,” says Perrin. “For Eddie Izzard’s first big tour we needed a dozen trucks and a team of 45 to get the sound and

PoPULoUS mAGAZINe // 25

visuals sorted. But that provided the benchmark for other subsequent comedy tours.”

The cultural side of this explosion in stand-up comedy is more complex. The “comedy as rock ‘n’ roll” axiom actually has a long legacy. British comedians Peter Sellers and The Goons had hit records (produced by the Beatles’ sidekick George Martin), as did The Goodies and Monty Python. The latter even headlined the Hollywood Bowl in 1980. Not long after, the likes of Alexei Sayle and Rik Mayall would become fully-fledged youth culture icons. And, in America, a long line of comedians – from Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor to Bill Hicks – has tapped into a louche, hard-living counter-cultural psyche that has made them iconic among rock audiences.

What differentiates the new generation of successful comedians is that they are actually less “rock ‘n’ roll” than their antecedents. Instead of being confrontational, setting up clear boundaries between themselves and older generations, the current wave of stand-ups are more conciliatory, coming from a less tribal scene.

“Ironically, now it’s not the most obviously rock ‘n’ roll comics who are playing big venues,” says British comedian Stewart Lee. “The likes of Louis CK, Doug Stanhope or Jerry Sadowitz are too confrontational. It’s the more middle-of-the-road names like Peter Kay who are cleaning up.”

These TV-friendly comics have a multi-generational appeal. Where most rock acts tend to attract audiences inside a slim demographic, a successful TV comedian like Peter Kay or Sarah Millican can appeal to several generations, attracting teenagers as well as pensioners. It means that a premier league comedian can earn a lot more than a rock star. Millican earned more than $3 million in ticket and DVD sales last year; John Bishop and Jimmy Carr pocketed nearly $9.5 million; Peter Kay and Michael McIntyre more than $30 million. It suggests that comedy is not so much the new rock ‘n’ roll, but the new bubblegum pop.

“Comedy is now in its glam rock era,” says Mick Perrin. “We’re eagerly awaiting the punk revolution.”

Populous has designed over 50 entertainment venues and arenas including the world’s most popular, The O2 in London.

COMEDY//

Not LoNG AGo, StANd-UP comIcS were LUcky to be PerformING to A hANdfUL of PeoPLe IN A dINGy cLUb. NowAdAyS, the toP ActS Are fILLING mASSIve AreNAS ANd eArNING mILLIoNS. JohN LewIS dIScoverS how comedy hAS become “the New rock ‘N’ roLL”.

“Ironically, now it’s not the most

obviously rock ‘n’ roll comics who are

playing big venues. It’s the more

middle-of-the-road names like Peter

Kay (left) who are cleaning up.”

British comedian stewart Lee.

Rally dRiving // desert storm26

Rally dRiving //

Fatal crashes, killed spectators,

terrorists, and extreme desert

conditions…the dakar rally is like

no other motor race on earth. But

why has it relocated to south

america? Joe Boyle Finds out.

The Paris-Dakar Rally. It sounds so simple. You start in the French capital and end in the Senegalese equivalent. Only, you don’t. In fact,

not a single rev has rumbled on European or African soil since 2007. So don’t be fooled. There is nothing simple about The Dakar, as it’s now known. Rather, it’s a complex mesh of mishap and death, geography and politics. It’s also another example of that persistent human characteristic: the urge to test oneself in the most extreme circumstances and take on nature’s most inhospitable terrains.

The off-road rally left Paris for the first time on December 26, 1978. It was the brainchild of Frenchman Thierry Sabine who, a year earlier, had got lost in the deserts of Libya whilst competing in the Abidjan-Nice race. More amateurs, he decided, should experience the disorientation, adrenalin and fear that he felt in the North African dunes. Sabine’s experience of being lost didn’t deter the 170 adventurers, petrol heads and cranks who turned up at the Place du Trocadéro that day, some in cars, some on motorbikes. That first running seized the popular imagination so much that the following year the number of entrants had risen to 216. Trucks had also been added to the list of competing vehicles. By 2009, quad bikes had joined the cavalcade. Last year’s event featured 469 entrants in all.

By this point, the race had left its geographic origins behind. In fact, from 1995 onwards, Paris was rarely the start point. In time, Granada, Marseille, Barcelona and Lisbon, amongst others, waved the cars off. Dakar wasn’t always the ultimate destination

POPUlOUS MagaZinE // 27

Rally dRiving // desert storm28

It’s a complex mesh of

mishap and death,

geography and politics.

It’s an example of the urge

to test oneself in the most

extreme circumstances

and take on nature’s most

inhospitable terrains.

In 1999, 50 drivers were

ambushed by armed robbers in

mauritania. Vehicles, money

and fuel were taken and, as

they left, the gang leader

shouted: “see you next year!”.

either; Cairo, Cape Town and even Paris itself hosted the chequered flag. But the major rupture with its European and African roots came in 2009 when the rally moved to South America, since when Argentina, Chile and Peru have hosted different stages of the race.

Despite fears that the continental shift would undermine the rally’s appeal, the opposite seems to have happened. “The change of continent has given the rally a second life,” says Stéphane Peterhansel, the Frenchman who is the most successful competitor in the rally’s history. He has won six motorcycle titles (the first in 1991) and four in a car, the latest of which was in 2012. “Even if the philosophy has changed a bit, I think it has some fine years ahead,” he adds. “There are lots of other countries to discover.”

The move to South America was a consequence of the rally’s darker elements. If the process of becoming physically lost was the impetus behind Sabine’s initial idea, there had been an ongoing loss of innocence as well. Death had been ever present since its first running, when French motorcyclist Patrice Dodin died from head injuries following a crash in Niger. Since then, another 24 competitors have died, most recently in this

year’s race when Argentinean motorcyclist Jorge Martinez Boero crashed on the opening day. Perhaps more controversial have been the deaths of non-competitors, especially Africans caught up in fatal collisions. When four Africans died in 1988 it lead to outrage both in Africa and elsewhere. The Vatican denounced what it called a “vulgar display of power and wealth in places where men continue to die from hunger and thirst”.

The Vatican’s response was a part of a developing narrative that placed the rally in a wider political context. The start of the 2002 running witnessed a demonstration by France’s Green Party. They called the rally “a colonialism that needs to be eradicated,” no doubt influenced by the previous year’s race. Then, members of the Polisario Front independence movement called the decision to race though disputed parts of Western Sahara part of an attempted annexation of their territory. Military hardware poured across the desert as tension mounted.

If the guns remained silent that year, they had been used with greater menace in 1999, when 50 drivers were ambushed by armed robbers in Mauritania. Vehicles, money and fuel were taken and, as they left, the leader of the gang was reported to have shouted: “See you next year!” Increasingly, though, the threat of robbery was supplanted by the more fearsome threat of Al Qaeda-inspired terrorism. In 2008, the race was cancelled after terrorist attacks in Mauritania. From then on, crossing Africa was deemed no longer feasible. South America would be the rally’s new home.

“The atmosphere has changed,” says Peterhansel. “In Africa there was more a spirit of adventure. You were in areas where no one lived,

in the desert for hundreds of kilometres. Now, civilisation is never far away and spectators are always around. These are real fans of motorsport who come to cheer the drivers on. It’s more a race of speed, less an adventure.”

That spirit of adventure has been central to the rally’s appeal. It has been matched by a spirit of eccentricity most famously epitomised in 1981 by Thierry de Montcergé who bet he could race a Rolls Royce in the rally. Admittedly, the car was heavily adapted (the body was a polyester moulding) and Montecergé was disqualified after over-extensive repairs, but the bet was won as the Rolls crossed the finishing line.

If inappropriate vehicles continued to be thrown at the dunes, so too were seemingly inappropriate competitors. Mark Thatcher ruffled the usually implacable front of his mother, British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, by getting lost for six days in the 1982 race. Nicknamed ‘Thickie’ at school, Thatcher junior was eventually spotted by the Algerian air force and later admitted: “I did absolutely no preparation. Nothing. I did half a day’s testing and the day after that we were driving out of the Place de la Concorde.”

Thatcher may have been hapless, but he added to the rally’s mythology. Can that aura be retained in this age of growing professionalism? Peterhansel thinks it can. “It’s one of the only races in motor sport where there are amateurs and professionals on the same course,” he says. “The links with the old Dakar remain.”

Populous is currently creating a new motor racing circuit in Zarate, Argentina. It has also designed a Formula 1 street circuit for the proposed London Grand Prix.

dakar legend stéphane peterhansel.

POP VIDEO... See how the cars fared in the 2012 Dakar.

POPUlOUS MagaZinE // 29

Peru

chIle

ArgentInA

lima

Pisconazca

Arequipa

Arica

la serena

cordoba

copiapo

calama

The 2013 Dakar runs from January 5th to 20th, starting in Lima and continuing through Peru, Argentina and Chile, ending in the Chilean capital Santiago. What can competitors expect?

salta

san miguel de tucuman

santiago

Fiambala

la rioja

stage 1: lima to Pisco

Strings of dunes and indistinguishable valleys make this one of the hardest openings imaginable and could end a competitor’s race before it’s barely begun.

stage 4: nazca to Arequipa

Intense heat and soft sand will expose any weaknesses. Huge crowds are expected at the viewing stations as the racers start heading for mountain ranges.

stage 5: Arequipa to Arica

Passports are needed to cross from Peru into Chile. This stage establishes a link with the rally’s origins because of geographic challenges similar to those in Mauritania.

stage 10: cordoba to la rioja

A stage prone to extreme weather. In 2009, torrential rain forced organisers to reconfigure the route.

stage 11: la rioja to Fiambala

A technical stage where competitors need to negotiate soft, but stony sand and high temperatures. Staying hydrated is key.

stage 12: Fiambala to copiapo

A dramatic day that drops from 4,700m above sea level through multiple valleys, leaving Argentina and arriving near Chile’s Pacific coast.

stage 13: copiapo to la serena

Racers must confront the Atacama Desert, the driest desert in the world. It’s a vast, rainless strip of land 600 miles long, used by Hollywood for filming scenes set on Mars.

stage 14: la serena to santiago

The final day of the rally and a chance for more conventional rallying skills in a final dash for the finishing line.

pop star // On the same wavelength30

Friday mornings used to be surf mornings. At Populous’s Brisbane office, on the east coast of Australia, employees started a

surf club. Every Friday they would meet up at 5am for an hour of riding the waves, before heading back into town for the start of the working day.

“It’s the most invigorating way to prepare for work,” says Bindi Perkins, Populous’s marketing manager and one of the club’s founding members. “We always talk about getting that Friday club going again.”

If you love surfing, Brisbane is a good place to start. South of the city, on the Gold Coast, are big-wave beaches such as South Stradbroke Island, Greenmount, The Spit and Coolangatta. Head north, to the Sunshine Coast, and you hit Noosa, Coolum and Alexandra Headland. “It’s an hour either direction to a great surf beach,” Bindi says. “And Australia has the best surf beaches in the world, without a doubt.”

But then she’s understandably biased, having spent her formative years in the region. Her favourite surf spot of all is Happy Valley where, as a youngster, she used to surf with her siblings and parents. “That beach reminds me so much of growing up. It’s not really radical in terms of surfing. But I have great memories from there as a kid.”

Bindi’s first experience in the sport was at the age of nine on a body board, the shorter, lighter version of a surfboard. At 19 she bought her first full-length board. Over the next few years she gradually honed her technique.

But it wasn’t until her mid 20s, about five years ago, that she found that perfect communion with the waves that so many surfers talk about. “It was at Sunshine Beach,”

she remembers. “This was the moment it all clicked into place. I felt the wave pulling me, and the power of it beneath me. I stood up on the board. I felt that all-important connection with the wave.”

Working in architecture, Bindi feels there’s a similarity between the way surfers need to be constantly aware of the ocean and climate, and the way architects must respect the spiritual space (or genius loci) surrounding the buildings they design. “Architects look at the environment around them, and the cultural surroundings. Then they consider how this will impact on the building they are designing, and how the building itself will impact on its own surroundings. It’s similar with surfing: the waves, the beach, the board – they can all impact on the way you surf.”

Architecture has also made Bindi much more aware of the attention to detail in surfboard design. “When I first got into surfing, it seemed to me there were just long boards and short boards. But now that I’ve looked deeper into the sport, I’ve realised there’s so much intricacy in surfboard design. The length of the board, the width, the outline, the nose, the tail, the contours. They all have such an impact on the way the board works.”

She feels that architects, similarly, have to consider all the finer details of the buildings they design. “Especially in sports architecture,” she says, “where the public is moving around the building so much. You have to create something that works so well that it allows you to concentrate on what you are there for: the entertainment. One small change can make a massive difference to the whole building and the end-user’s experience of it.”

pop star //

Years of riding waves have taught populous’s Bindi perkins that, just like architects, surfers need to Be completelY at one with their environment.

“this was the moment it all

clicked into place. I felt the

wave pulling me, and the

power of it beneath me.

I stood up on the board.

I felt that all-important

connection with the wave.”

EquEstrian sport // wild & western32

popuLous MaGaZinE // 33

EquEstrian sport //

racinG LonG-distancE across ruGGEd tErrain, thE sport of EndurancE ridinG sEEs Man and horsE tEstEd riGht to thEir physicaL LiMits. doMinic BLiss MEEts onE of thE sport’s LEadinG LiGhts, JErEMy rEynoLds.

At the end of Hollywood Western movies the fictional hero inevitably gallops valiantly off into the sunset. In real life,

Jeremy Reynolds is one of those heroes. Except, his galloping doesn’t stop once the sun goes down. In fact, sometimes, he rides through the night. This 32-year-old horseman from California is one of the world’s most successful competitors in endurance riding, an equestrian sport that involves racing on horseback long-distance across rough, often mountainous terrain.

Three times he has won the Tevis Cup, arguably the world’s most famous – or infamous, depending on how you look at it – endurance ride. It’s a 100-mile race across the Rocky Mountains of California, following a particularly rugged section of an ancient native American route called the Western States Trail. To get an idea of just how rugged, check out some of the place names riders pass through: Cougar Rock, Last Chance, Devil’s Thumb, Volcano Creek, Ruck-a-Chucky Rapids, No Hands Bridge, Black Hole of Calcutta. The elevation is harsh, too, starting

“There are some other breeds with a bit more speed, but they won’t have the longevity.”

Originating from the Arabian Peninsula, and bred for centuries by Bedouin tribes as war horses, Arabians have evolved to have enormous stamina and to withstand harsh desert conditions.

They dominate other major endurance riding events around the world. After the Tevis Cup, there is the HH President’s Cup Endurance, in the United Arab Emirates, and the Tom Quilty Gold Cup, in Australia. In addition the FEI, the world governing body for equestrian sport, stages the FEI World Endurance Championships every two years, the latest in the UK, last August. Typically the strongest nations are UAE, France, Germany and Spain.

Outside of the Middle East, prize money is virtually non-existent, even for the top riders. Like his peers, Reynolds needs full-time employment. With his wife, also a former Tevis Cup winner, he works as a horse trainer, with

Over the years some horses have

perished, falling off cliffs along

the way. riders occasionally

cross the finishing line nursing

broken bones.

EquEstrian sport // wild & western34

POP VIDEO... Take a look at the amazing human and equine athletes competing for the Tevis Cup.

at 2,200 metres above sea level and dropping to just 215 metres at its lowest point, with temperatures ranging from below freezing to well over 40° Centigrade. Over the years some horses have perished, falling off cliffs along the way. So far no riders have lost their lives, although they occasionally cross the finishing line nursing broken bones.

The organisers describe their race as “challenging, technical and relentlessly demanding”, boasting that Time magazine hadn’t ranked it in the top 10 toughest endurance events in the world “for being a stroll in the park”.

But unlike those heroes of Hollywood Westerns who drive their steeds right to the physical limits – normally to outrun an armed posse – endurance riders are subject to very strict vet checkpoints during their races, with support crews ensuring both rider and mount are fully fed, watered and cooled off. Each horse stops regularly for a medical by a qualified vet who checks for injuries or signs of over-riding. Any reason for concern and the horse and its rider are disqualified. For this reason, riders who learn how to pace their steeds correctly, and understand equine physiology, often win races.

It was equine physiology that caused Reynolds to come unstuck in the latest Tevis Cup, in August 2012. Riding an Arabian mare called Cleopatrah, he was forced to pull out when she “spooked along the trail and got injured, requiring a few stitches”. The eventual winner was one Garrett Ford, on an Arabian gelding called The Fury.

Arabians are by far the most dominant breed when it comes to endurance riding, providing 49 out of 58 winners since the Tevis Cup was first held in 1955. “They don’t get tired like other breeds,” Reynolds explains.

popuLous MaGaZinE // 35

ranches in California and Florida, often selling Arabians destined for endurance riding. He admits that the publicity he receives from his success in the sport helps promote his business.

So just how does he achieve that success? His horses, many of them former flat racers, are trained for several seasons before entering long-distance competition. And Reynolds is something of an athlete himself. A fairly accomplished ultra-distance runner, he has competed in 50-mile and 100-mile foot races and knows exactly when to dismount during the Tevis Cup to run alongside his horse instead. “It’s a real benefit if I can give the horse a break,” he explains. While dismounted, he may travel slower than mounted competitors, but by resting his horse he gains more ground over them in the long run.

One section of the Tevis Cup involves a very hot and very steep climb up through a canyon. Reynolds always dismounts at the bottom, choosing to speed hike alongside his horse instead. “At the bottom I quickly get

passed by other riders,” he says. “But by the time I reach the top of the canyon I’ve then passed whoever passed me because their horse is by then so tired and has to walk so slow.” On his first Tevis Cup win, in 2004, he estimates that he ran or speed-hiked alongside his horse for about a quarter of the entire race.

Reynolds’ fitness in the saddle gives him an advantage, too. “I think I have an upper hand because some people get tired from endurance riding and I don’t at all. It really helps the horse if you can be an active rider, staying balanced and not slouching from being tired.”

This is, after all, a team sport. During competition Reynolds constantly reassures his horse, patting it, hugging it and whispering encouragement. The relationship and trust between the two team members is crucial. As the FEI points out: “It can take years for a combination to be ready to compete in a 100-mile ride. Endurance requires extensive preparation and a deep knowledge and understanding between horse and rider. In this way, the wellbeing of the horse can be maintained at all times.”

Nowhere is that more evident than during the nighttime sections of the Tevis Cup. As one of the organisers explains: “For many riders, the miles travelled after sundown are the highlight of the ride. The temperatures have cooled and the horses seem to be reinvigorated as they move closer to the finish. People aren’t talking much, and the sounds of the river can be heard below. Some riders find it to be a very spiritual experience.”

Populous has a long history of working in equestrian sport including Ascot (UK), Keeneland (USA) and Happy Valley (Hong Kong).

“it really helps the horse if you

can be an active rider, staying

balanced and not slouching

from being tired.”

Jeremy reynolds, three-times

tevis Cup winner.

Staged every year since 1955, the Tevis Cup is a 100-mile off-road equestrian race across the Californian Rocky Mountains along a section of an ancient native American route called the Western States Trail. The race runs from near Lake Tahoe to the town of Auburn, mainly along narrow mountain trails, starting at 2,200 metres above sea level, and dropping to 215 metres at its lowest point. Regular and very strict vet stops ensure horses are not pushed too hard. It’s quite normal for around half of the competitors to abandon before the end. The trophy is named in honour of Lloyd Tevis by his grandson Will Tevis, an early benefactor of the race.

Three-times Tevis Cup winner Jeremy Reynolds.

Where? TRANS WORLD DOME, ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI, USA

When? 27TH JANUARY 1999

HISTORY // the pope at the tranS WorLD DOME36

popULoUS in

hiStory

Pope John Paul II greets his congregation of 104,000.

It was billed as the largest indoor gathering America had ever witnessed. When over 104,000 people crammed into St. Louis’ Trans World Dome, there was little room left for the star of the show: Pope John Paul II.The pontiff was at the Populous-designed stadium (home of the St. Louis Rams, and now known as the Edward Jones Dome) to conduct a huge Catholic mass. And quite a mass it was. Three huge choirs, a full orchestra, lots of processions, hundreds of bishops and thousands of faithful worshippers, many of whom had been there since before sunrise. Later in the day the Pope whispered into the ear of the Missouri state governor, asking him to have mercy on a locally convicted murderer set to be executed that very day. Said murderer duly had his death sentence commuted to life without parole.

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THE TEAM // 37

RYDER CUPTo cElEbrATE THis yEAr’s rydEr cup wE bring you sTATs froM THE 85-yEAr-old

golfing coMpETiTion THAT THE TV coMMEnTATors nEVEr TEll you.

The Ryder Cup has tied only twice, most notably in 1969 when Jack Nicklaus sportingly conceded the decisive final putt to Tony Jacklin. 2 19 The age of the youngest ever

Ryder Cup player, Spain’s Sergio Garcia who debuted in 1999.

25 The most successful individual player in Ryder Cup history is Sir Nick Faldo who accrued 25 points over 11 appearances for Europe.

51The number of years since Europe had a playing captain at The Ryder Cup. It was Welshman Dai Rees who led what was then a GB & Ireland team in 1961. The last US playing captain was Arnold Palmer in 1975.213 The longest hole-in-one in Ryder

Cup history was achieved by Englishman Paul Casey whose ace came on the 213-yard 14th hole at The K Club, Ireland, in 2006. It was one of only six one-shot-wonders in the history of the competition.

900The total number of points competed for in Ryder Cup history. If the points from every Ryder Cup match were added up, the total score would be America 503 to Europe’s 397.

1.5 The amount, in US dollars, that this year’s hosting venue, Medinah Country Club, has spent on its greens. 620

The Ryder Cup is the most watched golf event in global TV history. 620 million people tuned in to watch the finale from Celtic Manor. At time of press the 2012 figures are still unconfirmed but are expected to have exceeded that figure.

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