Sports : life magnified

In the Commonwealth Games trials, Jones bettered her 200 metre breast stroke mark a few months ago. This time she breaks her mark in the 100 metre breast stroke at the Commonwealth Games. CNN reports:

Jones set the first world record of the Games, shattering her previous mark by 0.62 seconds in the 100m breaststroke to clock one minute 05.09 seconds.

Who said breaking records and setting new standards was difficult?

Canadian Duff Gibson created history when he became the oldest individual gold medalist at the Winter Olympics at the age of 39 (Men’s skeleton title). He broke the record of Magnar Solberg who was 35 when he won his last gold. The oldest athlete to win it in a team event remains, as CNN reports:

The oldest Winter champion for any event is Jay O’Brien, who was 48 when he won four-man bobsleigh gold for the United States at the 1932 Games in Lake Placid.

At the summer games, Oscar Swahn was the part of the Running Deer shooting team at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics which won gold. . He was 64-years and 258-days old. Incidentally he is also the oldest olympian. As the official Olympic site reports:

After World War I, Swahn returned to the Olympics -at the age of 72. He won a silver medal in the running deer double-shot team event and also competed in the individual and team single-shot contests.

Steve Fossett has broken the record set by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager for the longest non-stop continuous flight despite power failure by flying 26,389.3 miles.

As BBC reports:

Generator failure as he descended to Kent prompted him to make a mayday call and divert to Bournemouth. On landing with limited visibility, two tyres burst, but Fossett was unhurt. He had planned to end his journey at Kent International Airport… He eclipsed the distance record set by Dick Rutan and Jeana Yeager, who logged 40,212km (24,987 miles) during a non-stop, non-refuelled trip around the globe in their Voyager aircraft in 1986.

BBC further informs that Fossett already has 109 records to his name! Adventurers like these who stretch boundaries have to be admired, appreciated and reverred.

Bravo Fossett!

Steve Fossett is attempting the world’s longest flight - 26,000 miles. Keep track of it here. BBC talks about the initial phase of the adventure and the records Fossett can break in the process.

Kajsa Bergqvist, two time world champion, broke the 14 year old world record of Heike Henkel by jumping 2.08 metres. Henkel was there in the crowd to see it as well!

The Aussie swimmer improves on her own world record becoming the third world record in the Australian Commonwealth Games trials.

Reports CNN:

Jones recorded a time of two minutes 20.54 seconds, fully 1.18 seconds faster than her previous record set at the 2005 world championships in Montreal, Canada. Libby Lenton set a women’s 100 meters freestyle world record of 53.42 seconds on Tuesday, wiping 0.10 seconds off the previous world record set by compatriot Jodie Henry at the 2004 Athens Olympics. Jade Edmistone lowered her 50m breaststroke world record to 30.31 seconds in Monday’s heats.