climbing

Norwegian climber Magnus Midtbo spends a day climbing with Alex Honnold on exposed routes, shot as a vlog. The video shows the stark contrast between Midtbo's visible nerves and Honnold's calm.

Chess player John Bartholomew plays opponents rated below 1000 on Chess.com and comments on optimal strategy and typical mistakes at that level. It is part of his Climbing the Rating Ladder series.

A CBS News (60 Minutes) profile of free solo climber Alex Honnold, who scales sheer rock faces without ropes. Lara Logan reports on his climbing and his apparent lack of fear, including his Half Dome ascent.

A short film of Alex Honnold free soloing El Sendero Luminoso, a 2,500-foot route in El Potrero Chico, Mexico, in a little over three hours with no rope. It was made by The North Face with climbing footage and music.

Hard Is Easy runs experiments to show that a correctly tied figure 8 knot is not hard to untie after loading. He shows how two knots that look similar can behave differently depending on how they are dressed.

Footage of British steeplejack Fred Dibnah climbing a chimney overhang at over fifty years old, without a harness. It is a short clip from his steeplejack work.

A POV video of climbers illegally scaling the 650 m Shanghai Tower while it was under construction, filmed on a helmet camera.

Onboard footage of Timo Bernhard driving the Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo to an all-time Nurburgring Nordschleife record lap of 5:19.

Skateboarding pioneer Rodney Mullen talks about how the open skate community and its environments drive the invention of new tricks out of pure passion. He draws parallels to collaboration and open source.

Archer Lars Andersen demonstrates fast, accurate shooting techniques he says he revived from historical art and texts, arguing Hollywood archery is not historical.

Climber Chris Warner talks at Google about his book on high altitude leadership and the 2007 K2 expedition, where eighteen climbers summited and two died.

Jon Bois tells the story of the 1904 St. Louis Olympic marathon, a chaotic race involving fraud, rat poison, brandy, feral dogs and near-deaths. It is an episode of his show Pretty Good.

David Epstein argues in this TED talk that improving athletic records owe much to technology, training and the selection of specialized body types, not just humans getting inherently better. He gives counter-intuitive examples across sports.

Mark Rober and Jabril build an app that uses machine learning to decode baseball sign sequences. The video also explains neural networks in a simple, accessible way.

John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment on the NCAA, arguing that the organization profits enormously from college athletes while insisting they remain unpaid amateurs. It covers the money in college sports, including big-school athletic spending, and the case for paying athletes.

Dr. Mark Cucuzzella of the Natural Running Center gives a short instructional video on natural running form. It describes the principles of good technique, including barefoot-style mechanics.

A Nike commercial in which Michael Jordan lists the shots he missed and games he lost, saying that repeated failure is the reason he succeeds.

In Top Gear's second part, racing driver Sabine Schmitz tries to lap the Nurburgring in a Ford Transit van in under ten minutes. She finishes just over the mark.

A 1970 demonstration of W. Timothy Gallwey, author of The Inner Game of Tennis, teaching a complete beginner to play tennis in about ten minutes. He chats with her, feeds balls and gives positive feedback instead of instruction.

Olympic track cyclist Robert Forstemann tries to pedal hard enough to power a 700 W toaster and toast a slice of bread. The film frames it as a comparison of how much energy people consume versus how much they can generate.

Joe Rogan interviews ultramarathon runner Courtney Dauwalter shortly after she won the Moab 240 in under 58 hours. She tells stories of enduring extreme fatigue and hallucinations.

Medlife Crisis examines why some elite endurance athletes die in their sleep, covering extremely slow heart rates and the effects of performance-enhancing drugs that thicken blood. It uses cyclist Marco Pantani as an example.

Victor Hugo Morales's famous radio commentary of Maradona's second goal against England at the 1986 World Cup. The emotional call is for many Argentines inseparable from the goal itself.

Laura Try recounts her 3,000-mile row across the Atlantic as part of a crew of four women in the 2018 Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge.

Onboard footage of Timo Bernhard setting the Nurburgring Nordschleife lap record of 5:19.546 in the Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo, beating Stefan Bellof's 35-year-old time. The car reaches 369 km/h.

A short GoPro film of Uli Emanuele's wingsuit BASE jump through a roughly 2 meter wide cave opening, after three years of preparation. It follows his climb to the exit point and the flight itself, shot on a HERO2 camera.

A one-minute clip of Diego Maradona's 'Hand of God' goal against England at the 1986 World Cup. It is part of a ClassicEngland series of unforgettable moments.

A GoPro-recorded flight of an RC glider setting a 548 mph dynamic soaring speed record at Parker Mountain, California, using only wind gradients.

Stuntman Gary Connery jumps from a helicopter at 2,400 feet in a wingsuit and lands without a parachute on a runway of stacked cardboard boxes, the first such landing.

Top Gear segment in which Richard Hammond drives a Renault R25 Formula 1 car around Silverstone for two laps. He struggles with the car's demands.

A two-minute video of an athlete sprinting against a London Underground Circle Line train between Mansion House and Cannon Street. It shows a runner keeping pace with and beating the train.

Stuff Made Here builds a powder-actuated baseball bat designed to hit a ball past Babe Ruth's record distance, with Smarter Every Day contributing. It covers the engineering of the explosive-assisted swing.

Danny MacAskill tries to destroy carbon fiber bike wheels by riding trials tricks through downtown Glasgow, including on bare rims on concrete.

Michael Jordan's 2009 Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame enshrinement speech, in which he thanks and also airs grievances about people who doubted him. It is known for his stories of using slights as motivation.

A one-minute skateboarding clip with a wreck in which a helmet likely prevented serious injury. It shows downhill longboarding without brakes.

A one-minute clip of Alexander Overwijk drawing a near-perfect freehand circle, one metre across, in under a second on a chalkboard. He is a repeat winner of the World Freehand Circle Drawing Championship.

A kiai master offers a 5000 dollar challenge that he can beat any MMA fighter, and his supposed energy techniques have no effect on the fighter.

A short clip of Romain Dumas and the all-electric VW I.D. R breaking the overall Pikes Peak hillclimb record with a 7:57 run, over 16 seconds faster than the previous best, with footage of the crowd's reaction.

A KUKA commercial staging a table tennis match between German star Timo Boll and a KUKA KR AGILUS industrial robot. It is a polished showcase of robot speed and precision.

A one-minute Telegraph news clip of Cristiano Ronaldo moving two Coca-Cola bottles aside at a Euro 2020 press conference and saying 'Drink water.' The moment went viral and drew praise from anti-obesity campaigners.