Slow Champion No. 7: Alex Ehrlich

Those of you who live in London may have noticed that in August there were one or two new additions to the urban landscape: ping pong tables. With this kind of random invasion, you couldn't help but think that the dearly departed Douglas Adams had a hand in organising it, but it was in fact the work of pinglondon.com, a website set up by the English Table Tennis Association to promote ping pong.

Ping pong is not an activity you'd usually associate with slowness; followers of this sport are regularly exposed to matches of such speed and ferocity they can hardly see the ball. Enter our latest Slow Champion, Alex Ehrlich.

Alex Ehrlich - longest ping pong rally

In a World Cup table tennis match in 1936, Polish-born Ehrlich was playing Paneth Farcas of Romania. Both were pretty defensive players but it was Ehrlich with his never give in, never surrender, never do anything interesting style who had earned the nickname 'king of the chisellers'. On their opening rally, they started a point that would end up in the history books. It lasted for TEN THOUSAND hits. That's more than occur in whole tennis or cricket matches! At the end of the rally, when Farcas finally lost the point, Ehrlich had switched to returning southpaw and had begun a chess game with an onlooker. Had Ehrlich been an easier name to spell, he would surely have done for the phrase "showboater".

The match was eventually abandoned, when the referee's neck locked (hey, you try turning your head 12,000 times), so the effort from both these athletes eventually came to nothing. A story of true Slow Champion behaviour if ever we've heard one.

Ehrlich, we who are about to race slowly salute you. Here's your medal.

Slow Champion No. 8: Mark King
Slow Champion No. 9: James Whitehouse
Slow Champion No. 10: Mudassar Nazar

Slow Champion No. 8: Mark King

And you thought Snooker couldn't get more boring tense.

Mark King - Longest frame of snooker at the Crucible

On the 26th of April, 2009, Stephen Maguire won the 16th frame against Mark King at the crucible in 1 hour and 15 minutes. Even though Maguire won, King gets the nod for sticking it out and not falling alseep on the green baize.

Slow Champion No. 9: John Whitehouse
Slow Champion No. 10: Mudassar Nazar

Slow Champion No. 9: John Whitehouse

On Wednesday 31 September, 2005, most people were watching episode 4140 of Emmerdale (Zoe refuses Sadie's offer to buy Home farm), but the real drama of the night was watched by the 122 people in Kent who witnessed the FA Cup preliminary round replay between Tunbridge Wells and Littlehampton Town.

John Whitehouse - Longest FA Cup penalty shootout

In an epic display of forward play, dynamism and ludicrously poor refereeing, this FA Cup tie went to a penalty shoot out that would (eventually) go down in history. 40 agonising penalties later, Tunbridge Wells had won 2-2 (16-15).

The hero of the hour(s) was John Whitehouse, Wells' goalkeeper, who saved 4 penalties throughout the game. By keeping his sheet slightly cleaner than his opposite number, he earns a place in our top ten. Good lad.

Slow Champion No.10: Mudassar Nazar

Slow Champion No. 10: Mudassar Nazar

With only two weeks to go, we are counting down to the Slow Cycle with a list of the top 10 Slow Champions. A Slow Champion is a suitably sluggish sedentary superstar, an ambassador for slow sports the world over.

Mudassar Nazar - Slowest Test Century

Mudassar Nazar, a member of the Pakistan Cricket team, took 557 minutes to reach his maiden test century  against England in Lahore on 14 December 1997. He was caught and bowled by Geoff Miller on 114 runs. He'd faced  449 balls and hit 12 fours over 591 minutes of proper Test batting: that's over 9 hours! Even Geoffrey Boycott was heard to say "hurry up".*

Let's get this man a bike and bring him over for the Slow Cycle, he definitely deserves a Slow Champion medal.

* May or may not be true.

Slow tune No. 5: Bicycle Safety Rap - Sam Spoke

Pedal power

Apparently, it takes 18 cyclists to power a hairdryer. Half that, and you can toast some bread. Add these cyclists together, throw in a few more and you'd be able to boil a kettle. Not exactly a great return for your effort, is it?

Well thank the biker for the Slow Cycle. 1000 cyclists entering the Slow Cycle will raise enough funds for Prostate UK to send a surgeon on a urological fellowship, where they will receive the latest training in laparoscopic, robotic and pelvic oncology. This training will help in the fight to save some of the 10,000 men who die from prostate cancer every year in the UK, so they too can dry their hair, grab a bite of toast and belt down that cuppa.

Mr Benjamin Eddy, studying with the help of Prostate UK

Saddle solutions

Cycling can be a bit of a pain if you've got prostate problems, but there are alternatives to getting the tube bus every morning to avoid saddle soreness.

A British company called RIDO have been tweaking their award winning ergonomic saddles for the last few years and have now come up with a product that is getting rave reviews from both the cycling press and riders with delicate undercarriages. road.cc said  "If numbness or discomfort is an issue for you, check out the R2." CTC note "[they] look odd, but who cares? They work."

The principle behind this type of saddle, and there are others like the BodyGeometry range from Specialized, is to take the weight off the crotch (perineum) and place the weight of the rider firmly on the Sit bones (ischial tuberosities). You will be able to feel your Sit bones as you sit reading this: rock back in your seat slightly and you'll feel your weight shift on to two bony prominences under your buttocks. These are the ischial tuberosities. By shifting the rider's weight onto the Sit bones, pressure is taken off the delicate areas of the crotch, decreasing the likelihood of vascular or neurological compromise.

As with all forms or ergonomics, this is not an exact science and there's little in the way of substantial evidence to back up every claim, but there is a growing number of people, both cyclists and doctors, who have put their name forward in backing these types of saddles. RIDO even have a carbon-based version of the R2 coming out (at 445g, the normal R2 is a bit of a beast) for all you weight conscious racers.