From "Death in the Afternoon"

Wed, Feb  11, 2009 - By Pete Vordenberg

From "Death in the Afternoon"

Final shots from Ramsau.  Words from Ernest Hemingway.

Liz Stephen.

One reason I like coaching is the effort in the work I see the athletes put in. I think this is also a big reason people who like to watch and follow these sorts of sports like them. While watching we know, especially those of us who race, raced or at least while out on our own sometimes dig down and see what is inside. We know what is happening below the surface of the race.

This quote is on the people of Castille, Spain who in his opinion and at least when Ernest Hemingway wrote this were big fans of bull fighting. This quote is from “Death in the Afternoon”.

“They think a great deal about death and when they have a religion they have one which believes that life is much shorter than death. Having this feeling they take an intelligent interest in death and when they can see it being given, avoided, refused and accepted in the afternoon for a nominal price of admission they pay their money and go to the bull ring…”

For me this feels true about watching a ski race or even a workout. And this one too, also from “Death in the Afternoon”:

“Now the essence of the greatest emotional appeal of bullfighting is the feeling of immortality that the bullfighter feels in the middle of a great faena (the work of the bull fight) and that he gives to the spectators. He is performing a work of art and he is playing with death, bringing it closer, closer, closer to himself… He gives you the feeling of his immortality, and, as you watch it, it becomes yours.”

Kris Freeman.

Morgan Arritola.

Chris Cook, Andy Newell, Garrott Kuzzy.

Torin Koos.

 

(vordenberg pics)