Sports Fact & Book Rec of the Day 2/16/2012

2/16/2002:
A pile-up mars the 1000-meter speed skating final at the Olympics in Salt Lake City. Top American Apolo Anton Ohno grabs the lead about 20 meters from the finish. With two laps to go, Li Jiajun of China tries to pass Ohno on the outside and makes contact. Then South Korean Ahn Hyun-Soo makes a move and clips Li. Ohno, Li, and Hyun-Soo all go down, allowing Steven Bradbury of Australia, who was last, to zip past the pile of skaters and win gold. Ohno picks himself up and scrambles across the finish line for the silver medal. He will win a gold medal in the 1500 meters in 2002 and the 500 meters in Italy in 2006 and capture a total of eight medals (two gold, three silver, and three bronze) from 2002 through 2010, a record for an American Winter Olympian.

Birthdays:
Bernie Geoffrion b. 1931
John McEnroe b. 1959
Kelly Tripucka b. 1959
Mark Price b. 1964
Jerome Bettis b. 1972

ENDURING CLASSIC

These 700 pages, the largest excerpt ever made available, comprise only a tenth of Thoreau’s two-million-word journal. Thoreau’s vigorous, beautiful writing is brought sharply into focus. The seeds of Walden are here, certainly, but this is above all the story of a brilliant man’s life, encompassed in a range of ideas and revelations that is nothing less than stunning. John Cage wrote, “Reading Thoreau’s Journal I discover any idea I’ve ever had worth its salt.”

THE JOURNAL OF HENRY DAVID THOREAU: 1837–1861; edited by Damion Searls (New York Review Books Classics, 2009)