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Michael Phelps Races a Great White Shark
With 28 medals, Michael Phelps is the most decorated Olympian of all time. Considering all but 5 are gold, it's hard to find a worthy opponent for the swimmer. But Phelps may have met his match when he went head-to-head with a Great White for a Shark Week special. Okay, so it wasn't an actual Great White. Instead, a simulated version created using data from the real thing faced off against Phelps in a 100-meter race, ensuring no animals or humans were harmed in the process.
Paddleless Surfing with the Dock
In theory, it's a great idea — towing a massive plastic dock out into the waves to eliminate paddling out. In practice, it's extremely dangerous. Stab Magazine and a crew of Volcom surfers went to Bali to try it out, and despite the risk, everyone came out fine — and had a great time. Read more at Stab.
Freediving the World's Deepest Pool
Hotel Terme Millepini in Italy has a very special attraction: the world's deepest pool. Y-40 measures 131 deep or 40 meters. Guillaume Néry is a former world-record holding freediver, having gone over 350 feet with out any equipment. Guillaume takes a leisurely dive to the bottom of Y-40 in this impressive display.
A Bad Lip Reading of Mayweather Vs. McGregor
The mayhem that is Mayweather Vs. McGregor is in full effect with a worldwide press tour ending today in London. Before their face-off on August 26th, the two have faced off in a series of conferences and the verbal hits were predictably on fire. With two mouths like this, there's really only one thing to do — give them a bad lip reading.
Hidden Oil Patterns of Bowling Lanes
One of the most important things to a bowler is something you can't even see — the pattern of oil that protects the wood of the lane. The PBA uses specific patterns for tournaments, and correctly assessing the pattern can be the difference between winning and losing. Vox and Parker Bohn III look at oil patterns and how even an amateur like you can improve your game by understanding them.
How Table Tennis Balls are Made
The table tennis ball is a marvel of modern engineering. Seamless, perfectly round, and extremely light, the ball is capable of incredible feats in the hands of pro players. The International Table Tennis Federation traveled to the Double Happiness company in China to find out how the create their table tennis balls — but the most important part of the process is a company secret.
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Brooklinen Sheets
You're going to spend a third of your life in bed — given much thought to the sheets you've got on there lately? Brooklinen can help. They're a Brooklyn-based startup, founded by a husband and wife team, dedicated to getting you top-quality bedding without the luxury price tag. Woven from 100% long-staple cotton, Brooklinen sheets are crisp, cool, and get better with every use. Keep it classic with all-white sheets, or mix-and-match to customize things to look exactly the way you want. Shop the best sheets ever now.
Presented by Brooklinen.
Indochino Suits
Built with top quality components and thoughtful construction, you can't go wrong with a made to measure gray or blue suit from Indochino's Premium Collection. All their suit jackets are half canvassed, with fully fused fronts, for greater versatility and excellent shape for your body. Each jacket also features fully canvassed lapels, bullhorn buttons, lightweight shoulder pads and high-quality collar felts. Just choose your fabric, customize your suit, and submit your measurements. The result is an investment-quality suit that's far more attainable than bespoke options and fits better than off-the-rack options. You can wear them year round, and you get the most bang for your buck as each suit is under $400.
Presented by Indochino.
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The Science Behind Mayweather Vs. McGregor
With the worlds of UFC and Boxing colliding inside the ring, Mayweather Vs. McGregor is quickly becoming the fight of the century. Both competitors seem to match up pretty evenly as far as height and weight go, but who has the advantage? Before your place your bets let ESPN's Sport Science increase your odds with their methodical break down of both fighters.
Handshake Drills with Drake and Will Ferrell
What makes an NBA superstar? Being accurate from beyond the arc? Superb ball control? Defense? Hint — none of the above. It's all about the handshake. At the inaugural NBA awards, Drake and Will Ferrell opened the show with an intense session of handshake drills — and making fun of Raptors guard DeMar DeRozan's name.
Sneaker Shopping with Ric Flair
Back when the WWE was the WWF, there was one man at the top of the rope — 16-time world champion "Nature Boy" Ric Flair. Widely considered to be one of the best pro wrestlers ever, the Nature Boy had swag to match his success and attitude. Ric joined up with Complex for a trip to Stadium Goods for some new footwear.
Homemade Kart Racing
Somewhere in France, there are three guys riding downhill on homemade karts. With tire-shoe brakes at 50 MPH. This definitely falls under the "don't try this at home category", so we'll just have to be happy living vicariously from out much-safer office.
McGregor vs Mayweather
It's really happening — Floyd Mayweather, Jr. and Connor McGregor enter the ring on August 26, 2017 in Las Vegas. On one side, you have who is widely recognized to be one of the greatest pound-for-pound boxers in history with a 49-0 record. On the other, a mixed-martial artist with a killer instinct, lightning reflexes, and hands of stone. Already looking to be one of the biggest events in sports, McGregor-Mayweather might be the shot in the arm the flagging sport of boxing desperately needs.
Speed Flying the Mountains of Romania
Speedflying — a combination of paragliding and parachuting — offers one of the craziest ways to get from the top of a mountain to the bottom. Flying feet off the ground and carving twisting valleys, speed flying captures some of the most exciting footage in sports. Ride along with speed flyer Joseph Innes skimming the narrow mountain passes of Romania.
World's Largest Parkour Course
The Skyladder parkour course at Tianman Mountain in China is the largest parkour course in the world. As long as three football fields, the 999-step course has 45º incline and some long drops that would tax the fittest runner. Calen Chan ran the entire course and filmed it in the first person — with a GoPro in his mouth.
Drew Brees Trick Shots
Super Bowl winning quarterback Drew Brees has a pretty accurate arm — he's the NFL career leader in completion percentage, hitting his target over 66% of the time. The crew from Dude Perfect joined Brees in New Orleans for some insane trick shots, from the Saints practice field to the top row of the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.
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Rope-Free Climb Up El Capitan
Yosemite National Park's El Capitan has an elevation of 7,569 feet. As if ascending it's 3,000-foot wall wasn't challenging enough, profession rock climber Alex Honnold added another level of difficulty by making the climb solo without the safety of a rope. Not to anyone's surprise, he is the first person mad enough take this on and Jimmy Chin was there to capture it all.
Underdogs in Hockey vs Basketball
As subjective as sports analysis can be, statistics play a huge role in evaluating performance. With the advent of "moneyball" analytics, the age of the subjective talent scout has slowly given way to a more objective look at crunching numbers. But big data doesn't work in every sport — a prime example being the contrast between underdogs in professional hockey and basketball. Vox looks at how the numbers don't always add up in some pro sports.
Brian Shaw's 12,000 Calorie Diet
If you want to be the strongest person on the planet, you need to eat like it — and World's Strongest Man Brian Shaw does. The four-time champion works with a nutritionist to keep his body fueled for his extreme workouts, consuming over 12,000 calories each day. Brian takes you into his kitchen to show what it takes to eat like a giant.
Bowling a Perfect Game in 90 Seconds
Bowling is a thing of beauty. From President Nixon to The Big Lebowski, bowling is ingrained in the national conscious — it's the largest participatory sport in the US, one of the few remaining in-person social interactions and could arguably be called the real national pastime. Ben Ketola captures the art of the sport in spectacular fashion, albeit by himself. The bowler set a world record by bowling twelve straight strikes in just under 90 seconds.
Crossing the Street at the Boston Marathon
With over 26,000 thousand people running the streets of Boston during the Boston Marathon, getting across the street can be tricky. Fortunately, they have an simply elegant way of doing it. Watch the marathon race organizers it happen in this time lapse video.
360° Wingsuit Racing
If it moves, someone is going to see who can get across a line before someone else. In the skies above the Arizona desert, the Red Bull Aces fly through a floating slalom course in teams of four. This year, the races follow the action from 8,000 feet above the ground in 360° video.
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Mongolian Eagle Hunting
For thousands of years, the native peoples of the Eurasian steppes have practiced the art of hunting with eagles. In the winter months, the primary prey is foxes — the golden fur more visible against the snow-covered terrain. Entrepreneur Sam Cossman traveled to Mongolia to train with Kairat Khan, a Mongolian eagle master. During his time with Kairat, Sam realized that modern technology can't compete with an ancient mastery.
Rescuing Golf Balls
The 17th hole at the TPC Sawgrass course in Florida eats golf balls like no place else in America. Every year, hundreds disappear into the drink — never to be seen by their owners again. That is until Gordon Davis dives in to rescue all those balls from their watery par three graves.
Twitch 'n Ride
In true Red Bull fashion, they have combined two extremes for the ultimate thrill ride. Around 40 skiers are pulled around a snow-covered motocross track by some souped-up dirtbikes. Each race consists of 10-minute races plus two laps which equals about 17 minutes of carnage.
Death Match Wrestling
This is not the fake stuff. This is Deathmatch wrestling, where the blood is real, the pain is real, the barbed wire is real, and the shots to the face with steel chairs are real — and Matt "Bulldozer" Tremont is the undisputed champion. Entertainment at its most bloody and violent, Matt and his fellow wrestlers put their bodies to the test night after night for their fans.
Dream Ride 2
Mike Hopkins returns for another magical ride. With locations including Hawaii, Seattle, Revelstoke Mountain, and Abraham Lake, his dream sequence takes his mountain bike through fire and ice to capture the most incredible bike trail on Earth.
Skating Frozen Sand
Skating belongs in the city. Skating needs pavement and concrete and all the man-made architectural elements that make it so creative and spontaneous — except when it doesn't. Hermann Stene, Didrik Galasso, Henrik Lund, and Karsten Kleppan went north to the Norwegian coast to thrash mother nature's own skatepark: Frozen water and sand.
Skating Insane Concrete in Mexico
If you want the craziest concrete in the world, you have to head south of the border. Thrasher Magazine took their crew to Mexico to skate some of the most difficult terrain to be found. While the rest of us would be eating it repeatedly, these guys make it look easy.
Jetpack Skiing
If it can be done, doing it with a jetpack will make it better — and slightly more dangerous. Ski Cross World Champion Filip Flisar never misses a lunch with his mother and will use any means necessary to get there on time. In this case, it involves said jetpack and a shortcut through town.
