2DO Before I Die

Super Slo-Mo Surfing - BBC's 'South Pacific'

Beautiful - I don't know how these surfers stay on... 

Asleep At The Wheel - Nascar Racing

Man, I would have liked to seen that Save Mart 350 race a dozen years ago. Anyone who’s ever been to a stock car race can attest to the noise that’s created. I mean, you can’t hear shit for four hours other than the roar of those goddamn engines. Which makes it all the more amazing that I was able to spend the entire race sleeping in the bed of a pickup truck about 200 meters from the racetrack. Still, it’s not especially hard to figure out how to make my feat possible. One can sleep through just about anything if you deprive mind and body of rest long enough.

For those who might not be familiar with the finer points of NASCAR racing, as it’s called, it is the most popular from of auto racing in the States. Rather than formula one cars or some other type of super car, the cars being raced are Ford Tauruses, Dodge Chargers, Chevy Monte Carlos, etc. -- hence the 'stock' car designation. Of course, the bodies of the cars are the only things that resemble the real thing. Everything under the hood is 100% race car. There are about 40 cars in a race and the races run anywhere from 300 to 600 miles, depending on the track. You can guess how long the Save Mart 300 is.

That particular event was supposedly one hell of a race. Rusty Wallace over Mark Martin by a half a second... Being the inveterate sports fan and gambler that I am, the point of going up there was to watch the race. But there were other reasons for making the trip too. There was a total of about ten of us in two pickup trucks. None of us had ever been to an auto race above the county fair level. So we wanted to check out the scene, party as much as possible, and spend little to no money.

That was the heist aspect of the weekend. We resolved to spend no money getting into the race ground. We were going to sneak our way in there somehow, with plenty of beer and food to keep us going for the two days we were there. It isn’t like going to a baseball game. This is an all-weekend event, with a practice day, qualifying day, and race day. We went up the day before race day so we would have a night to drink in the scene and get a good feel for the NASCAR experience. (story continues)

Olympics - In Photos

Once again, The Big Picture has done a remarkable job of sourcing the best photos from around the world to tell a particular news story. In this case, it's the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics.

Click here for the full photo essay.

The Olympics Begin - How Hard Are The Events?

The Olympics start today, but how hard are the events involved?

The Guardian sent eight writers on crash courses in different sports - from shot put to high jump, gymnastics to BMX - to find out how tough it was...

Extract on the steeplechase:

"I am soaking wet from head to toe, and a spider is crawling up my arm. "There's a spider on me," I whine to my coach, Stella Bandu. "Deal with it," she snaps. "You're harsh," I say. She laughs. "Sometimes you need to be," she says. Steeplechase is a 3km race around a track, and involves clearing 28 hurdles as well as jumping into water. I reckon I could run 3km, at a push, and how hard can it be to jump over a few things along the way? Exhaustingly hard, as it turns out."

Extract on swimming:

"The Coach asks me to do a few warm-up lengths and then a two-length, timed sprint... The current 50m freestyle female record, 23.97 seconds, was set by Australian Libby Trickett in March. I do it in 27.44 seconds - which feels brilliant, until I realise that this pool is only 16m long, and I've only really done 32m. My time over 50m at that average speed would be just over 40 seconds. Not quite so great."

Link to full story here.

"Man on Wire" - A Tightrope Walk Between the Twin Towers

On August 7th 1974, a young French daredevil named Philippe Petit, 24, stepped out on a wire illegally rigged between New York's Twin Towers, then the world’s tallest buildings. He crossed the cable eight times in 45 minutes - 1,350 feet above the ground - he did so without a safety net. Spectators lined the streets to watch Petit that day, and newspapers called it “the artistic crime of the century.”

A new documentary film 'Man On Wire' chronicles Petit's attempt to "create a unique and magnificent spectacle." The film won this year's Jury and Audience Awards for world documentary at the Sundance Film Festival. An intriguing story about a man determined to succeed. Petit once said: ""When I see three oranges, I juggle; When I see two towers, I walk." Trailer below:

Cycling the Tour de France - How Hard Can It Be?

Rob Mackey, a 41-year-old Web journalist and novice cyclist, was determined to find out how difficult cycling a day of The Tour could be. Mackey signed up to ride L'Etape, the single stage of the Tour de France open to amateurs, but he says he did so "before he really thought it through..."

Mackey chronicled his experience training for the day, as well as L'Etape itself at a blog that can be found here.

Some employees at the BBC also attempted it - see their video at this link. Below is a teaser trailer for L'Etape.

6 Obscure Sports To Try This Summer

Tired of tennis? Bored with baseball? Mental Floss's Ethan Trex has a feature about six sports that we hadn't yet heard of, although they appear to be big(ish) in Finland, Israel, Singapore and various spots around the world. Below is a sneak peek of what's sure to be the Olympics' breakout sport in 2016 - Mountain Unicycling...!
For more, including videos of 'Underwater Hockey' and others, click here.

One Hundred Push-Ups

'Get in shape' is a popular goal on many lists of things to do. It's certainly been one of mine - for a while now...

So if you're like the team here at 2DO (sorry Chris) and struggling a bit, maybe here's an answer: OneHundredPushUps.com has just launched with a single purpose - it aims to train anyone to do one hundred push ups in only six weeks. All for free. There are a number of people taking the challenge - have a look here and see what you think. One..and a two...and a three...

"What I Talk About When I Talk About Running"

Is there a connection between running a marathon and writing a novel? Author Haruki Murakami has written some brilliant work in his career, including the novel 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle' -- less well known is that Murakami has run a marathon every year for the past twenty-three. In his latest work, a non-fiction book called "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running," Murakami explores the link between his need to write and his desire to run. An excerpt below:

"Most of what I know about writing I've learned through running every day. How much can I push myself? How much rest is appropriate - and how much is too much? How far can I take something and still keep it decent and consistent? When does it become narrow-minded and inflexible? How much should I be aware of the world outside, and how much should I focus on my inner world? To what extent should I be confident in my abilities, and when should I start doubting myself? I know that if I hadn't become a long-distance runner when I became a novelist, my work would have been vastly different." Read the full excerpt here.

Best sports photography of the week

The Guardian in the UK is running a selection of the best sporting photography from each week - covering events from around the world. Ranging from the inspiring to the downright painful, it's all worth a look here.

To the left is taken in Teahupoo, Tahiti, May 13: Portugal's Tiago Pires competes in the first round of the Billabong Pro Tahiti, part of the ASP world tour...