Man BASE Jumps 21K Feet From ‘Matterhorn of the Himalayas’

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Valery Rozov, soaring. The 47-year-old added to his impressive resume by jumping from the summit of Shivling. Photo: Denis Klero/Red Bull Content Pool


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First things first: Valery Rozov did not set a BASE jumping record when he leaped from the summit of Shivling, a 21,466-foot Himalayan mountain in India. That said, Rozov jumped from the summit of Shivling, a 21,466-foot Himalayan mountain in India. Record or no, it’s amazing.

The 47-year-old BASE — building, antenna, span, earth — jumper added to an impressive resume that includes leaping into the active volcano Kamtschatka and from Ulvetanna Peak in the Antarctic. Clearly the man knows no fear. He also apparently believes that anything truly worth doing is never easy. The 90-second jump followed a 30-day expedition that included a six-day ascent of the mountain in Uttarkashi, India.

After reaching the summit May 25 at precisely 1:30 p.m. and pausing to catch his breath, Rozov donned his wingsuit, turned on his camera and jumped from 21,062 feet. He reached a top speed of 120 mph before landing 7,217 feet further down the mountain, often called the “Matterhorn of the Himalayas.”

“This was my first project in the Himalayas,” the two-time skydiving world champion said in a statement. “We had a few difficulties along the way, so I am really pleased that we were able to complete the jump successfully.”

Red Bull, which provided the sacks of money needed to pull this off, called it “the most challenging BASE jump ever performed.” That may be, but it was not the “new world record” the energy drink colossus claimed Wednesday when it released the pics and video. The folks at Guinness World Records note the husband and wife team of Glenn Singleman and Heather Swan set the record in 2006 when they jumped 21,666 feet from Mount Meru in the Himalayas.

Rozov told CNN it was all a misunderstanding and said, “I don’t care if it is a record, or if it is not a record.” Red Bull has since stepped back, calling his jump “a breathtaking feat” that adds to Rozov’s “incredible career.”

Indeed.

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Online Tool Helps Athletes Track Performance From Inside Out

Track cyclist Sarah Hammer at the 2011 world championships, where she became the first woman to win three medals at a cycling world championship. Photo courtesy Sarah Hammer

To prepare for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, record-setting track cyclist Sarah Hammer has spent hours building endurance, honing form and tuning her body and bicycle for maximum efficiency. No detail is too small, even if it means looking within herself. An online tool allowed her to do just that, with surprising results: Hammer discovered she is deficient in vitamin D.

The four-time champion made the discovery through InsideTracker, a service triathletes Jarrod Shoemaker and Sarah Haskins and 50 other pro and college athletes use to monitor nutrition, boost performance and hasten recovery. The service, available to everyday athletes for as little as $49, uses a blood test to calculate your nutritional deficiencies and excesses and adjust your diet accordingly.

“Everyone wants to be on the top step of the podium,” said Andy Sparks, Hammer’s coach (and husband). “At this point, it comes down to small gains in as many areas as possible.”

InsideTracker starts with a survey of your fitness habits and goals. Then it’s off to a LabCorp clinic (they’re pretty much everywhere) to have blood drawn. A detailed online analysis offers nutritional recommendations based on as many as 20 biomarkers like glucose, folic acid and vitamin D. InsideTracker explains your current and ideal levels and how to achieve them, and suggests a diet tailored to your needs and preferences.

“You get metabolics and context for all of this information, quantifying the athlete in every dimension,” said Sky Christopherson, founder of the sports performance consulting firm Optimized Athlete. The tool has so impressed him that he’s added it to the training regimen of several clients, including Hammer.

Quantifying those dimensions can be eye-opening, Hammer said. She was surprised to find she needed more vitamin D, given how much time she spends outdoors and how much milk she drinks. Although vitamin D is readily produced when ultraviolet light hits the skin, Hammer realized she slathers herself in sunscreen when she’s outside.

“That was the big wow,” she said, “but I am also someone who runs a bit borderline on my cholesterol, so it’s something I have to watch. Even as a normal person, I want to change my values based off of my food.”

In the weeks since she’s started tracking her nutrition, Hammer said she spends 10 minutes outdoors each morning to boost her vitamin D level and has been less susceptible to illness.

“I think its helped in making sure that my body has what it needs,” she said. “It more becomes a good reminder of what we need to do and how we have control over our own bodies and what we put in.”

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Study Links Cycling to Increased Estrogen, But Chamois Cream (Probably) Isn’t the Problem

Photo: Ariel Zambelich / Wired

Male cyclists have long heard horror stories about hardcore riding wreaking havoc on their reproductive health, and a study by UCLA researchers introduces a new villain: chamois cream, and the possibility that it will give you big breasts.

Cue panic. But a closer look at the study by the UCLA School of Nursing finds the alarm some have sounded is premature, and a far more interesting point has been missed: This is the first study to find elevated levels of estradiol, the precursor to estrogen, in male athletes who weren’t doping.

Leah FitzGerald, the nurse scientist and assistant professor who led the study, and her team examined the levels of testosterone, estradiol and other hormones in the blood of 107 male cyclists, triathletes and recreational athletes age 18 to 60. They found the cyclists had twice as much estrogen as the triathletes and recreational athletes, and 50 percent more testosterone than the recreational athletes.

More surprising, they found those who used chamois cream containing paraben had levels comparable to premenopausal women. Of the 46 cyclists in the study, 48.5 percent used such creams, often applied to prevent chafing. The longer they did so, the higher their level of estradiol.

Too much estrogen can lead to gynecomastia, or overdevelopment of male breasts. That, of course, created a frenzy. Lost in the discussion, though, was the fact chamois cream is but one of many possibilities for the elevated estrogen, and the study was a small, preliminary look at hormone levels in cyclists. Much more work is needed to make a definitive assessment of what exactly is going on.

“The cyclists who used [paraben-containing] cream for more than four years, there seemed to be a higher level in those gentlemen,” FitzGerald said. “But you can’t say it’s cause and effect.”

What’s more, none of the cyclists in the study, published in the European Journal of Applied Physiology, showed any sign of gynecomastia, she said.

Although parabens are suspected of increasing estrogen, the correlation in this study was an afterthought. Far more important is the question of how hormonal changes might affect reproductive health in cyclists. This study is the first to find of elevated estradiol in male athletes, FitzGerald said. The study offers new avenues to explore but is far from definitive, said Steven Schrader, head of the reproductive health assessment team at the CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

“The results were interesting, a little confusing to us, and I don’t think there’s any strong recommendations or conclusions that can be drawn from it at this time,” he says. “It’s one of those studies that stimulates a lot of thought in regards to what was going on that was not expected.”

FitzGerald and Schrader agree the study is but a starting point. FitzGerald wants to examine the sperm level of cyclists and other athletes, and says her lab has yet to examine the genotypes of the men in this study.

And it’s worth noting that most chamois creams don’t contain parabens anyway. Those few that do are plainly labeled, said Michael Zerinskas, who runs Balm Co., an informational site about chamois creams and other athlete-targeted skin-care products. Stay away from anything containing propylparaben, methylparaben or any other paraben and you’ll be fine.

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Hitting the Sod With Segway Polo’s Second Most Famous Player

Victor Miller, quite possibly the world's second most famous Segway polo player. Photos: Sol Neelman/Wired

Steve Wozniak is the most famous Segway polo player in the world. After all, the sport’s world cup — yes, there is a World Cup of Segway Polo — is called the Woz Challenge Cup. The second most famous player may well be Victor Miller.

Who is Victor Miller, you ask? Seriously?

Miller wrote Friday the 13th. The first one. The good one. He wrote it in 1979 and says “I’m still dining out on it.” He also spent 25 years writing for soap operas like General Hospital and won three daytime Emmys for his work on All My Children.

He’s been playing Segway polo from the beginning. With the seventh annual Woz Challenge Cup starting today in Stockholm, we caught up with Miller to talk about the sport’s good ol’ days, which in Silicon Valley means 2004.

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The Art and Science of Hockey Ice

Nick Kryshak drives the Zamboni at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. Photo: Brandon Keim

NEWARK, New Jersey — Hockey is a game played by linebacker-sized men moving at vehicular speed on razor-sharp blades. Skaters will travel almost 200 miles in a single game, slicing, shredding and shaving a surface just 200 feet long, 85 feet wide and 1 inch thick.

The abuse the New Jersey Devils and Los Angeles Kings will heap upon their rinks during the Stanley Cup finals would pulverize a frozen lake, let alone the ice in your freezer. Yet the ice here at the Prudential Center will remain so smooth that a puck will slide over it with nary a untoward bounce.

Creating a rink suitable for the rigors of professional hockey is a feat of engineering, a lesson in chemistry and a work of art.

“It’s a living, breathing apparatus,” Nick Kryshak, the Devils’ official ice technician, said of the flawless polycrystal plane he’s created. “It’s not too hard, it’s not too chippy, it’s not too soft. Every little thing matters. You want that perfect consistency.”

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