Jumbo Package: The science of the Olympics and the limits of human performance

Yeah, it’s a slow day. There’s little interesting stuff out there relevant to Alabama. But, the point of the JP has always been more about launching discussion than merely being a link-dump, so we’ll try and give you something outside the box today.

• Alabama and Georgia’s talent makes them both CFP contenders. And, yes, LSU and Auburn are up there too. But, also hauling in consistent Top 15 classes, and sitting at 15th in ESPN’s longitudinal class composites, is Tennessee. The starting 22 is there; the Vols just lack elite depth and, until proven otherwise, the coaching.
• Avery Johnson made his tourney pitch to Lunardi yesterday. The gist? Ignore the ugly losses. Bad news may travel fast, but you have to reward teams that compete well against Top 25 tournament-type teams. I wonder if CAJ took that same approach with Junior’s report card: “Look at those As, Dad! Ignore the Cs!” I kind of doubt it. But, you respect the hustle.
• Finally, the Gimp Tent (tm) has now winded its way through the tortuous US Patent process, and the University of Alabama’s Deer Antler Spray Shack is open for business. Alabama had licensed the product, now used by 70 college and pro teams, so it was already making bank. This just secures their ability to have a monopolistic grip on the concept of putting people an overgrown pup tent (if you think Alabama won’t litigate every single sheet stretched out on the sidelines, or maybe a pillow fort or two, you are sadly mistaken.) The Limp Casa and Broken Manhood Hovel looks to be growing as ubiquitous as the University of Florida’s hydration beverage. Hooray, us! (The tent’s proper name is SidelinER, BTW...and I’m never using that name again. It is and shall forever be the Gimp Tent.)

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Now, on to other cool stuff. Today, it just happens to be about the Olympics:

• What group of Winter Olympic fans can allegedly tailgate like an SEC home crowd? Meet the partially-undressed, drunken rabblerousers up in the Luge stands. No word on whether snowboard enthusiasts are playing Call of Duty and crushing a bag of Funyuns when not at the halfpipe.
• You may have heard the big deal on Sunday night, when US Women’s figure skater Mirai Nagasu nailed a triple axel in competition, becoming the first to do so since Tonya Harding and the first US woman to do so in the OIympics:

• But, what makes this such a big deal? The physics are explained here:

• It takes a lot of upper body strength to generate the angular momentum to do that jump. What other muscles need to be freakishly developed for their respective sport? BI breaks down the athletic development necessary for each event — the luge, for instance, requires a neck like a tree trunk.
• Various quad tricks are being performed all over the venues in South Korea this week. But, we are closing in on the limit of what the unassisted human body can do. Will quintuples be in our future? Probably not.
• Finally, from a real-live rocket scientist at the Marshall Space Flight Center, the oddly fascinating and satisfying science of curling. The rock does not behave as it should, or at least as we expect it to. Is it the ice? The brooms? The stone itself? Some combination of the factors? There are literally three curling physicists in the world, divided into two camps...and they don’t agree. They don’t even speak to one another.

If you have time to watch just one video today, make it this one.

Now, having been armed with some of the physics of the Olympics, go forth to erudition — or at least now be smart enough win a bar bet or two!

RTR