How to train a perfect 10

Working on something I've discovered this amazing video from 1984 Olympic Games. It shows the battle for the Olympic gymnastics title between Ecaterina Szabo and Mary Lou Retton. As you will see it is not about physical and technical abilities, it about mind and heart strength. And the hero of this moment is Béla Károlyi, the unbelievable gymnastics coach who changed the face of this sport starting with Nadia Comaneci and her perfect 10.




And the first perfect 10




Béla Károlyi (born September 13, 1942) is a Romanian gymnastics coach. Born in Cluj, Károlyi and his wife, Márta emigrated to the United States in 1981 and both have dual citizenships for Romania and America. The Károlyis have coached both United States and Romanian Olympic teams to medal-winning success.
Among the gymnasts Béla and Marta Károlyi have trained are Nadia Comăneci (first 10), Mary Lou Retton, Betty Okino, Kerri Strug, Teodora Ungureanu, Kim Zmeskal, Kristie Phillips and Dominique Moceanu. In total, Károlyi has coached nine Olympic champions, fifteen world champions, sixteen European medalists and six U.S. national champions.

More about his story in this 1986 documentary.

DREAM BALL

From flemingdesign.com:
In poor, often war-torn countries, many kids can’t afford a soccer ball - and use plastic bags, coconuts, and rags to fashion their own sports equipment. Seoul design studio UnPlug Design has come up with an idea that gives more children in the Third World - countries like Tanzania, Rwanda, Somalia, and the Congo - the opportunity to play soccer and other games by creating balls the children themselves can assemble from relief and aid packages provided by organizations like the UN and Red Cross. By taking the paper or cardboard from an aid box and following the patterns on it kids can make their own soccer ball, handball, or baseball. These Dream Balls give kids a chance to play and, in the process, hope for a better life.

Via FutureBlog/Design Hotels http://futureblog.designhotels.com/
via LovelyPackage http://lovelypackage.com/dream-ball/







Photo and design by UnPlug Design

Sport England launches partnership with Facebook

Hope one day this kind of project to be a good example for all the companies and institutions from all over the world ( particulary in Romania) for learning how to use the power of social networking.



Sport England and Facebook have announced a new partnership that will transform the way sports bodies engage with participants as they deliver a lasting Olympic legacy of one million people playing more sport.

It’s the first long-term collaboration between Facebook and a government or public body in the U.K. – and will use the social networking site’s unrivalled influence to bring people together around sport in the run up to London 2012.

The partnership is worth up to £20 million, with Facebook providing an in-kind investment of £5 million a year until March 2013.

Students and young people who use Facebook are the first to benefit though a pilot scheme run by British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS) and six sports:

Table tennis
Squash and racketball
Badminton
Judo
Athletics
Volleyball.

The pilot has an ambitious target to get 12,000 students participating in sport in just four months. Sport England’s commercial team is already talking to a wide range of NGBs in order to expand the use of the Sport Hub.

Read more: http://www.sportengland.org.uk/about_us/our_news/facebook_launch.aspx

Photo : volleyball match by ~Karmel88

SPORT FOR SOCIAL CHANGE

I strongly believe that the power of sport can drive the social change, bringing us together for a great cause. Yesterday evening, at at Luz stadium in Lisbon, forty international football stars and over 65.000 spectators helped Haiti to hope for the future.





LISBON, Portugal—Kaka and Robert Pires were among the scorers in a charity game to raise money for victims of the Haiti earthquake.
More than two dozen current and retired international players pulled on jerseys for the annual Match against Poverty.
They also included France's Zinedine Zidane and Thierry Henry, and Portugal's Luis Figo. Romanian football legends Gheorghe Hagi and Gica Popescu have played again on an all-star team. The game was organized by the United Nations Development Program and Portuguese club Benfica, which hosted the game at its Stadium of Light on Monday.
Kaka and Zidane's team drew 3-3 with a selection of current and past Benfica players.
Proceeds from the game and associated activities were for relief and reconstruction efforts in Haiti. The amount raised was not immediately available.


© Copyright 2010 Associated Press/Daily Life