What is wrong with this picture?
Picture provided by alert reader and writer, Bob Ramsak-thanks, Bob!
Anyone who has been on the athletic circuit the past twenty years or so has run into the charming Mr. Chris Turner, the man behind the superb IAAF web site. Mr. Turner, is both charming and a bit eccentric at the same time. I do recall a time when Mr. Turner considered claiming a French whisky bar in Paris, due to it’s air conditioning, as part of the extended British empire for several nights. This was, mind you, early into his time managing the web site. Now, Mr. Turner writes until all hours of the evening, sometimes until the sun rises the next morning, reminding this writer of a very polite vampire.
Mr. Turner has an affinity for the javelin, and one has not spent a true evening with track geeks until one has heard Chris wax on about the superiority of the javelin throwers in Finland, but of course.
This past weekend showed how far Mr. Turner has slipped into well, athletic geekness, to use a current term. Please notice the picture shown above? This is Mr. Turner, sitting in Stuttgart, freezing his body parts off one by one, as he writes about the last important athletic meeting of 2009.
Chris reminds me of the American mailmen, who travel through snow, sleet, ice, rain, mud, and if in my yard, remnants of the spring flood, to deliver the mail. Mr. Turner has put up with the freezing conditions in Stuttgart to give you, the track geek, a bird’s eye view of the last great meet of the year.
Actually, we believe the reason that Mr. Turner dressed in such fashion was that he was considering petitioning the IOC to put outdoor track and field into the Winter Olympics. Face it, the Winter Olympics are quite boring, but consider this dear reader, if, we could take the great Finnish javelin throwers and have them, say, throw for accuracy at lugers? Sounds fun, does it not?
Well, I have digressed, but the picture above is Mr. Chris Turner, the newly titled commisar of javelin for the IAAF, considering how a track meet could be administered in the cold of winter. Good luck, Chris!
For anyone wishing to visit the athletics asylum in which I have been happily incarcerated in Monaco for the last six years, you’ll be pleased to hear that after the recent hot (Beijing) and cold (Stuttgart) shock treatment sessions that I have undergone this summer the warders say I’m now safe to receive guests! 🙂
By the way contrats to the press team in Stuttgart for getting my IQ correct when they labelled my press seat..see photo.
Larry, love the blog… what else can I say…:)