Word: handstand
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Thomas grasped the bar. He swung around once, twice, building speed and momentum for a spread-legged somersault over the bar, reaching in mid-air to grab the bar again before swinging into a perfect handstand. For a moment, he was frozen, balanced perfectly upside down. Then he flipped into action again, knifing his inverted body through a double "German" giant swing, arching his back into another handstand, twirling, spinning. Finally, tucking his knees into his chest, Thomas whipped into his dismount: a double somersault with a half-twist on each revolution. If he faltered on landing, took one steadying...
...best, displaying not only solid technical skills but the flair and inventiveness that raise their sport to art. Conner's performance on the parallel bars was such a blend. Legs spread in a straddle position, he supported himself on one bar, pressed slowly up into a handstand - then shifted to a one-armed handstand. He was the only finalist even to attempt such a stunt. For making the difficult look easy, Conner earned a 9.90 score and a gold medal...
When Karl Wallenda was a boy in Germany, the story goes, he answered an ad asking for someone who could do a handstand. The ad did not say just where the handstand was to be done...
...named Louis Weitzman, agreed to try the boy out. He led him up a ladder to a platform 40 ft. in the air. "Just walk behind me," said Weitzman as he started out on the high wire, "and when I bend a little, you get up and do a handstand on my shoulders." Karl Wallenda looked down. "I can't," he said. "You do it," said Weitzman, "or I'll shake you off the wire...
...Karl Wallenda did a handstand on Weitzman's shoulders. So Karl Wallenda became a high-wire stunt man. Probably it was in his blood all along. His father was a catcher in a wandering troupe of aerialists; his mother performed with the troupe too. But when Wallenda first began performing his own high-wire act, he soon showed the daring that was to make him the greatest of his strange breed. He not only walked the wire but rode a bicycle on it- with his brother Herman on his shoulders. He invented an act that had never before been...