Three one-thousandths of a second is less than 1/10th of a blink, less than 1/100th of a heartbeat. But if you’re a speedskater, 0.003 seconds can be the difference between gold and silver. So how are Olympics timekeepers able to get such ridiculous precision and accuracy? For the inside scoop, we talked to Omega’s Peter Hürzeler, head of Olympic timekeeping.
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The design and fabrication of artificial ice-climbing structures is an incredibly creative yet widely overlooked form of experimental architecture. The resulting constructions are often astonishing: ice-covered loops, ledges, branches, and towers reminiscent of the playful 1960s experiments of Archigram, yet serving as some of the most spatially interesting athletic venues in all of today’s professional sports.
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By now it’s hard to tell what’s true when it comes to reports about the infrastructural failings
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Every single moment of the Sochi Olympics is documented in minute detail. Here’s how the AP and Getty Images, two of the biggest photo agencies on the scene, get their incredible photos from the Olympics to the United States, faster than you can microwave a bag of popcorn.
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Bumpy. Dangerously fast as hell. And it looks like the luger will careen off the course at any given moment.Doubles luger Matthew Mortenson put on a helmet cam on a ride down the luge track in Sochi to show us what it’s like to go zooming down sloping slick ice on your back and while it looks like a fun roller coaster ride, it also looks like the chance of crashing is a solid 100%.
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Just because you’re warm, indoors, and out of shape, doesn’t mean you have to miss out on the best social networking fuckfest
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Heralded as "the world’s fastest speed skating suit," Under Armour’s all-in-one
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Snapped from the International Space Station 230 miles above all the events, this photo of the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, clearly reveals the massive new facilities including Fisht Stadium where the opening ceremonies were held. And if you look closely at the full-res image, you can even see the Olympic flame burning. [NASA]
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I’d watch more Winter Olympics sports if they had Imperial AT-AT walkers firing lasers at the athletes. Non-lethal lasers, that is. Or lethal. I’d watch anyway.
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Astronauts on board the International Space Station have been able to photograph Sochi at night, completely free of clouds. The result is this 600mm straight-down image that shows the Fisht Stadium—the bright white circle. That yellow dot is the Olympic Flame.
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