Archive for the 'Travel and Sports' Category

Travel and Sports–Bronze Winner: Somewhere Along the Way

Sunday, March 2nd, 2008

By Rebecca L. Dougher
Shane beckons me from the opposite bank of the stream, arms outstretched.
“You can do it,” he shouts over the noise of the rapids. “Just try to land on this rock.”
“You’re out of your mind!” A hard second look at the slippery moss-covered stone isn’t reassuring. Still, it’s the only way: either jump, […]

Travel and Sports–Silver Winner: Going to (and Away from) the Dogs

Sunday, March 2nd, 2008

By Tom Bentley
Dogs. Man’s best friend, perhaps. Man-on-bicycle’s best friend? I don’t think so. All bicyclists face the occasional pursuing dog, and when an actual chase occurs, it’s easy to give in to blind fear, rather than employ any rational technique to disperse the dogs or the fear. But what if you lived in a […]

Travel and Sports–Gold Winner: The Ringer

Sunday, March 2nd, 2008

By Jennifer Williams
At low tide, the white sands of Mombasa’s northern beaches stretch nearly half a mile out to sea. The shore is framed by palm trees, run-down hotel buildings, and wooden stalls selling fried cassava chips and cold Coca-Cola; in the distance, the vivid blue of the Indian Ocean is flecked with the faded […]

Travel and Sports Category—Bronze Winner: The Cresta Run

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007

by Janet Forman
Tobogganing down the Cresta Run makes skydiving look like knitting.
“It’s a hell of a feeling,” sighs former racecar driver Gunter Sachs, “speed and courage mixed with exuberance.”
“It’s like flying loop de loops in a plane,” avows Raymond McKenzie, a strapping 38-year-old venture capitalist from Barbados. “At some points you think you’re airborne.”
Champion Cresta […]

Travel and Sports Category—Silver Winner: Getting Up to Speed

Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007

by Peter Mandel
How do the hungry drivers of NASCAR fuel up? With Ragu Rich & Meaty Spaghetti Sauce.
I snap off the TV. I flip past the magazine ads screaming about speed and about the men in helmets who achieve it.
I am sure that America’s top drivers burn calories thundering around tracks in sponsored […]

Travel and Sports Category—Gold Winner: Smackdown in Tijuana

Sunday, March 11th, 2007

by Jim Benning
It’s Friday night in a small Tijuana arena, the kind of rickety Mexican structure that can make you misty for American building-and-safety codes, and in the ring before me, masked wrestlers are smacking and flipping and generally abusing one another for my viewing pleasure.
Whap! The great Hijo del Santo goes down. That’s gotta […]

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