Celebrating Second-place Slackers: A Quiz
Back when my son Tom and I were tagging all 67 of the 4,000-plus-foot mountains in New England, a perverse idea crossed my mind: What if we stopped inches short of each peak and then climbed back down?
Instead of triumphant summit poses with trekking poles raised in exultation our collection of photos would depict a pair of languid hikers gazing indifferently at a pile of rocks just ahead.
Better yet, rather than backpacking the entire 273-mile Long Trail from the Massachusetts/Vermont border to Canada, what if we about-faced just before the path’s northern terminus? After all, anybody can spend weeks traipsing over mountain peaks, through mud and brambles, in scorching heat and thunderstorms, just to say he completed a challenging hike; it takes a special person to walk away from the final steps.
Boston Marathon? Why not run nearly 26.2 miles from Hopkinton toward Copley Square, but after making that last turn onto Boylston Street amble into the Back Bay Social Club, ignoring spectators shouting that the finish line lay only a few yards farther?
Luckily this fanciful reverie, likely the result of a lightheaded bout with hypoxia, didn’t last long. After catching my breath I focused on resuming our mission – but it did get me to thinking: Why not celebrate second place? Why lionize only the fastest, the most fearless, the first?
With this in mind I have devised a quiz honoring great runners-up (it would be unfair to call them slackers). The answers are at the end – no peeking!
1. On May 29, 1953, New Zealand beekeeper Edmund Hillary, accompanied by Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, became the first man to climb Mount Everest – news so stunning that when word of their success reached the United Kingdom a few days later it nearly overshadowed the June 2 coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
Who was the second man to scale the world’s tallest peak? Who was the first woman?
2. Speaking of mountains, Everest, in the Himalayas of Nepal, standing at 29,029 feet, is generally recognized as the highest on Earth. Which is next highest? Who was the first to climb it?
3. On May 6, 1954, Roger Bannister brought thousands of cheering spectators to their feet during a track meet at Great Britain’s Oxford University when he ran the mile in 3 minutes, 59.4 seconds – the first man to break the four-minute mile. Who was the second?
4. On July 21, 1969, astronaut Neil Armstrong clambered down a ladder from the Apollo 11 spacecraft and became the first man to set foot on the moon. Who was the second?
5. Who was the first woman to walk on the moon?
6. Who was the second person to circumnavigate the globe?
7. Most hikers in our neck of the woods know that Mount Washington in the White Mountains of New Hampshire is the tallest summit in the Northeast at 6,288 feet. Which mountain is second-highest?
8. The aforementioned Long Trail in Vermont, constructed between 1910 and 1930, is this country’s oldest long-distance hiking path. What is the second-oldest?
9. The Connecticut River, which flows 410 miles from the Canadian border to Long Island Sound, is the longest that runs through this state. Which is the second-longest?
10. Let’s finish by getting a little closer to home: Johnny Kelley of Mystic famously won the Boston Marathon in 1957. What other Patriot’s Day feat did he accomplish?
Answers:
1. On May 23, 1956 a Swiss expedition led by Ernst Schmied and Juerg Marmet reached the summit of Mount Everest, nearly three years after Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay climbed to the top.
Japanese climber Junko Tabei became the first woman to reach the summit of Everest on May 16, 1975.
2. K2, in Pakistan’s Karakorum Range, measures 28,251 feet. On July 31, 1954, Italians Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni became the first to complete the perilous ascent to the summit.
Incidentally, recent surveys have suggested that K2 may be taller than first recorded and may even be higher than Everest, which would give Lacedelli and Compagnoni new standing and relegate Hillary and Norgay to also-rans. For the time being, though, their first-place status stands.
3. Just 46 days after Roger Bannister ran the first sub-four-minute mile, his longtime Australian rival, John Landy, broke the record during a track meet in Turku, Finland, dashing the distance in 3 minutes, 57.9 seconds.
4. Barely 20 minutes after Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon, fellow Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin joined him on the lunar surface.
5. This was a trick question. The 12 astronauts who have walked on the moon are Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Pete Conrad, Alan Bean, Alan Shepard, Edgar D. Mitchell, David Scott, James Irwin, John Young, Charles Duke, Jack Schmitt and Gene Cernan – all men.
6. If you guessed that Francis Drake, aboard the Golden Hind, was the second person to circumnavigate the globe in 1580, you would be close. By most accounts Drake is credited with being the third, though he was the first to complete a circumnavigation as captain throughout the entire expedition.
Believed to be in second place was Spanish explorer Andres de Urdeneta, along with several of his crewmates in 1536.
Now comes an interesting point: Most of us were taught in school that Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan was first to sail around the world in the early 1500s, but some contemporary historians now point out that he was killed in the Philippines in 1521, a year before the voyage’s completion. Some speculate that Juan Sebastian Elcano, a Basque mariner who took over after Magellan’s death and managed to return to Spain in 1522 aboard a surviving vessel of the original fleet, completed the first successful circumnavigation.
7. Mount Adams just north of Mount Washington is second-highest in New England at 5,774 feet.
8. The 2,185-mile Appalachian Trail between Maine and Georgia was completed in 1937, seven years after the Long Trail.
9. The 149-mile Housatonic River, which begins in Massachusetts and empties into Long Island Sound, is the second-longest river that flows through Connecticut.
10. In addition to winning the Boston Marathon in 1957, Johnny Kelley of Mystic placed second five times, in 1956, 1958, 1959, 1961 and 1963.
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