Barometer | 29 August 2013

One-legged wonder

The Paralympic Games began in 1960 and can trace its origins to the 1948 International Wheelchair Games, held for ex-servicemen at Stoke Mandeville hospital in 1948. Before that, however, a disabled German-American gymnast, George Eyser, put in a remarkable performance at  the 1904 Olympic Games in St Louis.

— Eyser, who emigrated to the US aged 14 in 1884, had lost his left leg when run over by a train in his childhood, and competed with a wooden leg.

— Having put in a mediocre performance in the opening events, he won six medals in a single day, with gold on the parallel bars, the long-horse vault and a long-since discontinued event, the 25ft rope-climb.

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— Eyser went on to win other athletics events over the next few years, though his later life is obscure.

Melting point

The coverage of sea ice measured in the Arctic fell to its lowest level in 33 years.   How much of the Arctic has been covered by sea ice on 28 August in each of the past six years?

Cats’ eyes

A lion, later thought to be a domestic cat, was reported near Clacton. What evidence is there of big cats in the British countryside?

Reported sightings: 2123 in a single year

Actual finds described on British Big Cats Society website, over past 20 years: 3
— A lynx was shot in Beccles, Suffolk, in 1991 after killing 15 sheep in a week.

— A lynx was caught in Golders Green, north London, in May 2001 and taken to London Zoo with a paw injury.

— A lynx was shot in Northern Ireland by an RUC officer in February 1996.