Skiing - 1700's Style

Sick at home on the couch the past few days, I had tv as a companion. When I was not asleep I caught bits and pieces of interesting cooking shows, including a new favorite, New Scandinavian Cooking. I love the chef, Tina Nordstrom, who does a lot of cooking out in the open. Yesterday she was preparing pumpkin soup in a cauldron out on the ski slopes. She mentioned that though skiing goes way back in history, actually to 600BC in China, skiing became more than a utilitarian pursuit, a form of transportation, in the 18th Century. This caught my attention.

To backtrack a bit, the word ski comes from Old Norse, "skio" meaning stick of wood. In Norwegian the word is "vedski" meaning split wood, or "skigard" which means split-rail fence.

The first recorded skiing for enjoyment or competition came in the 1700's. This stems from the military use of skis where soldiers practiced by racing. This recording comes from 1767. The races also included target practice, similar to Olympic Nordic combine competitions now. In 1799 a French traveler, Jacques de la Tocnaye, visited Norway and wrote in his travel diary:

In winter, the mail is transported through the Filefiell mountain pass by a man on a kind of snow skates moving very quickly without being obstructed by snow drifts that would engulf both people and horses. People in this region move around like this. I've seen it repeatedly. It requires no more effort than what is needed to keep warm. The day will surely come when even those of other European nations are learning to take advantage of this convenient and cheap mode of transport.

        

When I was growing up, I learned to downhill ski along with my family. It was exhilarating! There was such a sense of freedom, and excitement. Later on, I took up Nordic cross country, which is much like Tocnave suggests, "moving around quickly unobstructed by snow drifts". Cross country gets you way back off the beaten path, and the scenery is quiet, peaceful, magical. I regret the change to snow boards these days. It's not quite the same, but all things change.

Needless to say, now I yearn for some pumpkin soup!

And by the way, the first known ski jumper was Olaf Rye, 1809!

Rolling down the River!

The River Thames has an interesting story. Named in Middle English "Temese", the word comes from the Celtic meaning "dark", "darkness", "dark grey". The longest river in England, it is 215 miles long, beginning in Glocestershire about 40 miles north and west of London, and flows through the Thames Valley, on through London in a west to east direction,  and eventually leading out the Thames Estuary. At this point, large ships make their way from the ocean and Channel between France and England all the way to London.

The Thames provided the major route from City of London (the original walled roman encampment) to Westminster during the 16th and 17th Centuries. At that time, the exclusive guild of watermen ferried Londoners back and forth to landings along the way. In 1715, Thomas Doggett was so grateful to the watermen for assisting him after a fall into the river, that he offered a rowing wager, a race between London Bridge and Cadogan Pier in Chelsea. Doggett was a famous Irish stage actor, well known by the ferry men for carting him up and down the river to various theatres, like taxi drivers of today, and to his home in Chelsea. 

The race he founded, still raced to this day, is called the Doggett's Coat and Badge, the oldest rowing race in the world. Up to six watermen compete for the honor, in a 4 miles / 5 furlong race passing under eleven bridges en route. The winning prize is the traditional watermen's orange coat with a silver badge added to the sleeve, which displays the white horse of the House of Hanover and Brunswich, along with the word "Liberty". The race always takes place at the beginning of August.

 

When Doggett died, in 1721, he left specific instructions for the race to continue until 1730, but by 1769 the Fishmonger's Company established further rules to ensure a fair competition. And so, the holding of the race continued to this day!

By the way, by the 18th century, the Thames was one of the world's busiest water highways, with London becoming a huge mercantile center, the biggest of the British Empire. All the traffic on the river began creating a problem for navigation upstream. Locks were created to help solve the problem. And another problem was the freezing of the river, especially at low tide, which was improved by 1825 with bridges like the famed London Bridge, spanning the river with fewer piers, allowing the river to flow more freely during the Winter months.

And, they're off!!

This week is the running of Ascot horse races, one of the major events of England's social calendar. Located in Ascot, Berkshire, it is the most famous English thoroughbred racecourse, hosting nine of the UK's 32 annual Group 1 races. The course is about six miles from Windsor Castle.

Ascot stages twenty-six days of racing each year, with eighteen flat meets between May and October. It also features the jump racing events in the winter, but the Royal Meets are held in June, the major draw, with the highlight event known as the The Gold Cup! The most prestigious race is the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes held in July.

The racecourse was founded by Queen Anne in 1711, with the first race called "Her Majesty's Plate", with a purse of 100 guineas. It was held on August 11, 1711, with seven horses in the race. The race had three separate four mile heats! In 1813 Parliament passed an act to insure the racecourse grounds would remain for that purpose. A new grandstand costing about £10,000 was erected in 1839 for the 'glitterati". Even today, Elizabeth II not only makes her appearance in a horse-drawn carriage, but she does have her own horses in the race. She is the consummate horsewoman, who wins and loses gracefully, whose interest in the welfare of her horses and the sport is legend.

One Two Punch

 
The other night I watched "Cinderella Man". Such a good movie about the pugilist James J. Braddock, who was a boxing champion before the Crash of 1929, and then again later with his Heavyweight championship bout against Max Baer in 1936. It's the kind of movie that whether you are a boxing fan or not, you can't help get involved. It's nail-biting. It's talk back to the screen, "C'mon, man! Knock him out!" Frankly, I cried at the end. Braddock's portrayal is the good guy, dealt hard knocks in and out of the ring, but he prevails.

Got me to thinking about boxing, its origins, and its development in the 18th Century.Actually, sports like boxing were popular in ancient Greco-Roman times, but in the 5th Century, Emperor Theodoric the Great banned the excessive violence.

The ban stayed in place for over 1,000 years, then revived in the 17th Century in Britian. Though still illegal, boxing was promoted with a first bout taking place in 1681, with the 2nd Duke of Arbemarle arranging a contest between his butler and his butcher! The butcher won.

By the early 1700's prize fighting became a craze in England, even bouts being hosted in the Royal Theatre. A purse was established, but even fighters took side bets. They were furious contests with NO referee to keep order!

But with boxer James Figg, things began to change. He used some of the technique he acquired from fencing. He was a champion from 1719 to 1730, fighting about 300 times, winning every one! When he retired, he set up an actual school for the sport, where athletes could train.

 

One of Figg's students, Jack Broughton became the bare-knuckle champ from 1729-1750, with one opponent, George Taylor, dying as a result of injuries. Broughton was later known as the Father of English Boxing, because with Taylor's death, he established better rules and safer equipment."Boughton's Rules" as they were called, provided for the knock down count to thirty to get up or the match was called. Punching below the waist became outlawed, and he introduced "mufflers", a type of glove, for training.

In 1791-1795, Daniel Mendoza led the pack. Weighing in at 160 pounds, he emphasized speed and agility, "fancy footwork".

And then there was John "Gentleman" Jackson, an excellent fighter, a champ for one year in 1795, though he retired early, he brought the aristocracy the art of boxing, and one of his more affluent students was Lord Byron!

I found some of this research fascinating; interesting to see the development and evolution of a sport that is gritty and violent, yet has had its elegant and stylish moments, and of course, everyone enjoys an underdog win. Unfortunately, the boxing, in my opinion, has become really corrupted and ugly. Its ties to World Wrestling and all the antics, dilutes the contest. The enormous amounts of money involved bring a different group of fighters and promoters to the table, and that gives the sport a black eye.