Photo by Mr. Kris

It’s gotten nary a mention in the global media, but South African economists have been warning of a likely World Cup-time jump in food prices since at least last year.

In December, Standard Bank economist Danelee van Dyk said that grocery stores and other retailers might take advantage of the influx of tourists to charge more.

“The World Cup will be the ground for them to start hiking prices and after the World Cup prices will go down, but not to the levels they were before,” she told South Africa’s Daily News.

While Van Dyk predicted only a minor rise in prices, South African gardener and blogger Sean Freeman said he didn’t think farmers would be able to up their production enough to feed the 450,000 visitors expected to come to South Africa for the tournament.

Photo by - Nahum -

“If nobody has prepared or planted to feed the additional half of a million plus mouths, where will that food come from? Are you prepared to pay 3 times the price for your bag of potatoes, rice or can of beans?” he wrote.

A serious problem?

In previous World Cups, a small increase in the price of food probably wouldn’t have been an issue: had the price of cornmeal gone up in Germany four years ago, I doubt anyone would have struggled because of it.

It’s different in South Africa, where an estimated half of the population lives in poverty. Social workers cited rising food prices as a major factor in a 30% increase in child abandonment in 2003. Even a minor increase in the cost of staple foods can have serious repercussions.

I’ll admit that I’m torn on this. The predicted price increase is part of a global shift, of which World Cup-related demand is just an exacerbating factor, so it’s not really within FIFA or the South African government’s power to prevent it. The tournament will bring money into the South African tourism industry, and FIFA already expects to take a loss on the Cup.

But hosting the World Cup is not a sure road to economic recovery. Very few township residents will even see a World Cup stadium, much less benefit from it. With FIFA banning vendors from using the World Cup name on merchandise, anyone who doesn’t work for one of the tournament’s official suppliers is pretty much out of the loop.

Shouldn’t it be the organizers’ responsibility to make sure they’re not leaving behind months of hard times for South Africa’s poorest?

Community Connection

Could the World Cup cause a food shortage in South Africa and its neighbors? Have the South African government and FIFA done enough to prepare? Tell us what you think in the comments section.

Photo: J9SK9’s

The University of South Carolina men’s basketball team had never defeated a number one-ranked opponent. So when the buzzer sounded on Tuesday’s 68-62 victory over Kentucky, South Carolina’s fans were elated.

Despite efforts made by security guards, students from South Carolina poured onto the court as the game neared its end, a violation of league rules which prohibit fans from entering the playing area.

Now, South Carolina is paying for the celebration with a $25,000 fine.

Photo: Aresauburn

This isn’t the first time South Carolina has had to pay up for having students storm the court. A similar incident occurred in February 2005 when the school beat third-ranked Kentucky. For that incident, the school was fined $5,000.

Because this week’s incident was the school’s second violation, the SEC slapped South Carolina with the $25,000 fine. According to SEC policy, a third violation in the next three years could cost $50,000.

As a person who went to a college that had a laughable football team two of the four years I was in school, I can appreciate the excitement and excessive celebration that South Carolina felt on Tuesday. The rule is obviously there for safety reasons: it’s easy for fights to break out when a large crowd gets emotional. Still, I’m not sure a large fine is enough to curb that enthusiasm.

The students at South Carolina are taking the fine in stride, collecting one-dollar bills to help pay for breaking the rules.

Community Connection:

College basketball teams aren’t the only ones being fined. The NBA recently banned Twitter and is fining anyone caught tweeting during game time.

What are your thoughts on all of these fines in basketball? Share your thoughts below.

Clark Mountain – Photo: Stan Shebs / feature photo: coyote05

With Chris Sharma just one move away from completing his hardest climb yet, it seems that sport climbing is about to take another step up.

Modern sport climbers like Sharma have done more than just about anyone to take sending to the next level. With their full-out approach to the activity and increased emphasis on technique, they’re constantly mastering gruesome new projects that would have been unimaginable 30 years ago.

Ranging from classic challenges to recent first ascents, these five sport lines are some of the hardest ever climbed.

1. Action Directe – 5.14d

This little 16-move line in the Bavarian forest is arguably the most important route in sport climbing’s history. When it was first climbed in 1991 by Wolfgang Gullich, Action Directe was the hardest route in the world. To this day, only 11 people have made it to the top.

What makes Action Directe so difficult is its style, which requires climbers to ascend portions of overhanging rock using only their arms and perform large, swinging moves off single-finger pockets. While in training, Gullich invented the first campus board in order to practice the upper-body technique necessary for the route.

2. Jumbo Love – 5.15b

Jumbo Love is a strong candidate for the world’s hardest climb. Originally set as three separate pitches, the route runs 250 feet up a nearly 45-degree overhang and includes some dozen moves off single-finger holds.

Chris Sharma, who made the first ascent of Jumbo Love in September 2008, regularly took 60-foot falls while working the route because the extreme difficulty forced him to skip bolts.

California’s Clark Mountain, where Jumbo Love is located, is also remote as all hell. Getting there means an hour-plus drive along poorly maintained dirt trails followed by a hike up the mountain itself, though it seems unlikely that anyone committed enough to work such a monster route would mind a little commute.

3. Mazawattee – 5.14c

Bolted into a crag near Montagu, South Africa, Mazawattee is the hardest sport route on the African continent. Set in the late 90s, the route puzzled local climbers for a full decade before 15-year-old Czech Adam Ondra sent it on his first attempt last July.

Ondra called the climb one of his favorites and described it as “pure endurance”.

4. Realization – 5.15a

Realization (known as Biographie among French climbers) is a 115-foot-high climb that runs up a limestone wall on France’s Montagne de Céuse.

Created in 1989 by French mountaineer Jean-Christophe Lafaille, Realization went over a decade without a successful ascent before Chris Sharma sent it in 2001.

5. Flat Mountain – 5.15a

Yuji Hirayama set Flat Mountain as a teenager in 1989, but shortly afterward moved to France. He didn’t seriously revisit the 100-foot route, located on his home crag near Tokyo, until returning to send it in 2003.

The most punishing part of the line is the last stretch, about two dozen moves’ worth of hard bouldering 80 feet in the air. At a tentative 5.15a, Flat Mountain is the hardest sport climb in Asia.

Hirayama named the route as a kind of private joke: “hirayama” is Japanese for “flat mountain”.

Community Connection

Inspired? Check out 5 Tips to Become a Better Rock Climber.

Photo by: Tim in Sydney

I’m fairly skilled at paying as little attention as possible to sports news. I know just enough about football to have an idea about which teams might end up in the Super Bowl. I’m aware of where the 2010 World Cup will be played, and I know that Tiger Woods’ career is as good as over.

But when it comes to coverage of the Olympic Games, I’m all over it like cliches in bad writing. I follow all the major sporting events, but I especially like underrated ones like curling and the biathlon.

Leading up to any Olympic Games, there is always plenty of media coverage (remember the pollution problems in China?). The Olympics are, in many ways, a short-lived sports soap opera that drops in, engulfs our lives for a few weeks, then leaves quickly and quietly. I admit, I love every minute of the drama.

Photo by:Lululemon Athletica

So goes the story in Vancouver, home of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

Last week, Whistler Ski Resort, the official alpine skiing venue for this year’s games, ran into financial problems and is scheduled to be auctioned off on February 19th. Though the owners of the property say it’s business as usual at Whistler, my guess is this has kept a few Olympic planners up at night thinking about back-up plans if the property goes bankrupt.

A more tangible problem for skiers is the lack of snow falling on the slopes. Cypress Mountain, located on Vancouver’s North Shore and site of the freestyle skiing and snowboarding events, has not had a particularly snowy season, and forecasters aren’t predicting any additional precipitation for the mountains prior to the Olympics.

So Plan B is in place: use straw and wood to build up courses, then cover the straw and wood with snow hauled in from other areas of the mountain. This could impact the ski cross and snowboard cross races because the technical nature of these sports relies on high jumps, which will be difficult to manipulate without natural snowfall.

But none of this matters if athletes don’t show up to compete, which is the situation a few skiers and snowboarders in Britain are facing. The British Ski and Snowboard Federation is also dealing with funding issues and could fold before the Olympic Games. This would leave 15 British athletes without membership in a federation, which is a requirement for Olympic athletes to compete. British Olympic officials are preparing a contigency plan for the athletes, but there is no guarantee the plan would satisfy the International Olympic Committee.

Community Connection:

There are two sides to every story. In addition to bringing athletes together from around the world, the Olympic Games in Vancouver also has a dark side.

If you’re headed to the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada, here are some hints on how to find free accommodations.

Photo by Andrew Turner

A quick Google search for “curling sport” will lead you to dozens of resources, many of which are Canadian.

Eastern Canada is pretty big on the curling scene, especially my province of Newfoundland and Labrador. During the 2006 winter Olympics, Memorial University shut down so we could watch Brad Gushue and his team of Newfoundlanders take home Canada’s first Olympic gold in men’s curling. The first medal for Newfoundland in any sport, we’ve since named a highway after the team.

Where does curling come from?

The origins of curling are muddled, but some people believe it’s one of the world’s oldest team sports. A painting by 16th-century Flemish artist, Peter Bruegel, shows a curling-like activity being played on ice. In 1540, a Scottish notary named John McQuhin recorded a sporting challenge between a monk in Paisley Abbey and a representative of the Abbot in which a rock was thrown along ice.

The first recognized curling clubs were established in Scotland. From there, the Scots spread the sport to wherever they immigrated, particularly colder countries like Canada, Sweden, Switzerland, and the USA.

Photo by Kenneth Hynek

It wasn’t until the first Olympic Winter Games in 1924 that international curling competition took place, with Great Britain taking the gold. Now, it’s normal for athletes from around the world to play.

The Basics

Teams are made up of four people, with each player throwing two stones per turn while teammates sweep the ice with brooms to direct the stones. The goal is for the team to get more stones closer to the center target than the opposing team. Two teams compete at one time, each team alternating their shots, with players in four different positions:

Lead: Throws first, sweeps all other team members’ shots.

Second: Throws second stone, sweeps all other team members’ shots.

Vice: Throws third stone, holds the brush for the Skip, and only sweeps the Lead and Second’s stones. This role is more difficult because there are more stones already thrown.

Skip (team captain): Throws last, holds brush for all other players, tells other players when to sweep, and watches the “curl” (direction) of the stones.

The two teams’ Skips direct the play for their teams, with team members throwing two stones at a time.

To begin, the lead delivers as the Second and Vice sweep, and the Skip watches the curl. The sweepers must judge how far the stone travels, all while the Skip hollers directions. When it is the Skip’s turn, the Vice takes the Skip’s position and the Lead and Second sweep.

When all stones are thrown, points are awarded for those closest to the target.

Every game ends with the opposing teams saying “good curling” to one another, followed by a handshake.

Confusing? Yeah, a little. But I can’t think of another sport where berating teammates and yelling “Harder! Faster!” is perfectly acceptable.

Community Connection

Headed to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver? Check out these free accommodations.

Photo: m.gifford

No wheels on the ground. Which is actually how many extreme unicyclists spend a lot of their time.

We should have seen it coming. First skateboards. Then mountain bikes. Now unicycles.

For someone like myself who can’t even ride a bicycle without both hands on the handlebars, the idea of unicycling—let alone extreme unicycling—is terrifying. But the pros make it look easy, and anyone interested in the sport of unicycling can find them all at this year’s Extreme Unicycling Championship, which will be held February 13 to February 15 in Cologne, Germany.

Competitors will be participating in street, trial and flatland unicycling.

Street unicycling requires riders to use ledges, handrails and stairs to perform tricks. Like street skating, good street unicycling requires technical precision, style and creativity. Trial unicylcing is focused on riding over obstacles and hopping. These are the unicyclists who jump onto high structures such as stacked palettes.

Flatland unicycling uses a combination of skills, and is akin to a dance off where two athletes compete against each other to put together the most intricate and interesting combination of tricks in a limited time.

There will be 150 participants at this year’s Extreme Unicycling Championship—some girls, but mainly guys—who will compete in age categories (juniors and seniors, seniors being anyone over 15 years old).

To give you a feel for the sport, here’s a video of Spencer Hochberg, who is currently ranked as the top flatland unicyclist in North America and is the second best flatland unicyclist in the world. He will be competing in the flatland category at the Extreme Unicycling Championships.

Community Connection:

If extreme sports are your thing, check out these 5 crazy gravity sport videos. You might also want to take up extreme skipping or extreme bowling.

There’s a certain, screwy logic to snow kayaking: kayaks are made to ride on water, right? Snow’s just frozen water, right?

You wouldn’t think it would work, but it does. It works so well, in fact, that the sport has its own world championships, which will be held this March in Austria.

The snow paddlers in this video from Broadband Sports shred so hard, you’d never know their boats were made for water. Still, the cliff jumps they hit look scary; even in powder, those landings must be harsh.

From all of us at Matador, have an extreme weekend!

Photo: N. Chrystine Olson

John wears his Washington Huskies best: purple and gold sweatshirt, matching baseball cap. He’s a big guy, looks like he played football a couple decades back, probably a lineman. At 1 on a Sunday afternoon in January you’d expect him to be watching the NFL Divisional Playoffs.

Instead his eyes focus on a lone man in feathers hovering precariously in mid-spin a few feet above the ice.

“He pulled it out!” John shouts, ‘it’ being the triple Axel the skater just landed. “Now thirty seconds of footwork, a couple of spins, and he’s on his way to the Olympics.”

This man knows his figure skating.

He is one of numerous, passionate ice skating fans in Spokane, Washington this January. Spokane calls itself Skate City for a very good reason: this is the second time in three years the US Figure Skating Championships have been held here. Tickets for this event went on sale a year ago for this important pre-Olympic competition. The top three competitors in four events: men’s and women’s singles, pairs and ice dancing, will represent the US in next month’s Winter Olympics in Vancouver.

Fan fests at the local mall are packed. The city’s largest sports arena fills each day with skating-obsessed fans anxious to watch death spirals, camel spins, triple jump combos, and the the most difficult aerial move in modern figure skating, the quad.

Evan Lysacek skates in 2004 – Photo: Vesperholly

I’ve opted to attend the men’s final. Figure skating is one of the few sports where women command more attention and higher ticket prices. By watching the guys, I can see incredible athletes at a knock-down rate. The current men’s world champion, Evan Lysacek, is American, something US women haven’t managed since 2006.

The world champ sits in second place after the short program, trailing Jeremy Abbott, reigning US champion, by a few points. Johnny Weir, the androgynous king of figure skating, is a close third. Any one of the “Big Three” could win.

It all depends on the free skate, four minutes of quad burning, cardiovascular hell requiring each skater to complete eight jumps, three spins and two step sequences. Don’t ask me about the intricacies of how it’s scored. The tax code is probably less complicated.

The most dynamic performance comes from 26-year-old Missourian Ryan Bradley. He’s steps into the rink dressed like a Jane Austen hero, a Mr. Darcy complete with ruffled shirt and period vest.

“He’s on fire!” cries John off my right shoulder. The crowd claps along to the classical music and gives Bradley a standing ovation.

His split technical and performance scores are high, moving him from sixth place to first. Still, the top men have yet to skate – if one of them bombs, an upset is entirely possible.

But the Big Three are also on fire. Abbott skates perfectly, nailing his quad plus eight other triples. The risk doesn’t pay out for Lysacek, who’s flubbed quad toe loop costs him points and visibly rattles him. Ryan’s charismatic and accomplished free skate gets him a place as an alternate on the Olympic squad. In the end, the finishing order doesn’t shift.

Some may have ended up lower on the podium than others, but the best boys on blades are heading over the border next month.

Community Connection

For all you figure skating freaks, Matador Trips has a guide to finding free accommodation for the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

Carstenz’ summit – Photo: Alfindra Primaldhi

Johnny Collinson isn’t your normal high schooler. His friends might be fretting about the SATs and finding a date for Friday night, but he’s had a tougher goal: climbing the seven summits—the highest peaks on each of the seven continents.

“I want to live life instead of watching it on TV,” he says.

On January 18, Collinson reached his goal and became the youngest person to climb all seven summits after completing the ascent of Vinson Massif, the highest peak in Antarctica at 16,067 feet.

Mountain climbing has been an integral part of Collinson’s entire life. He climbed his first mountain—Mt. Rainier—at age four and holds age records on many of the mountains that he climbed throughout his childhood. Though he’s had his eyes set on the world’s highest mountains for most of his life, his quest to summit all seven peaks began in January 2009 when he climbed Aconcagua, located in Argentina. From there, he summited Everest, Denali, Elbrus, Kilimanjaro, and Carstenz.

Though Collinson just broke the record, another young climber, Jordan Romeo, is gaining momentum to shatter it. Only 13 years old, Romeo only has Everest and Vinson left to summit, both of which he plans to climb in 2010.

The video below was created by Collinson before he summited all seven peaks, but it’s an inspiring look into the circumstances that propelled him to reach his record-breaking goal.

Community Connection:

Interested in climbing something more manageable? Here are 8 massive mountains that mortals can summit.

Climbers are enthusiastic people. What better way to hone some climbing talent than to set up a wall right in the comfort of your home? No matter the weather conditions, it’s always a great time to climb from inside a garage!

The following video follows the construction of a wall inside somebody’s home. Apparently, designing a good wall can cost as little as $400 with the right materials. Just ensure you have the handy know-how to take on such a plan, and follow instructions closely. Having a mattress present on the floor to cushion any nasty falls isn’t such a bad idea either.

Community Connection

Prefer to take your climbing outdoors? Check out these mountains to climb for big adventure.