Latest news with #Costantini
Int'l Business Times
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Int'l Business Times
Queer Astronaut Documentary Takes On New Meaning In Trump's US
When director Cristina Costantini started making a documentary about the first US woman in space, she thought it would be looking back on the "sexism and homophobia of yesteryear". But the story of astronaut Sally Ride, whose queer identity was a secret when she blasted off more than four decades ago, took on a "completely different meaning" after the re-election of President Donald Trump, Costantini told AFP. "When we started making the film, it didn't seem all that political to celebrate queer love or women astronauts," said the director of "Sally", which started streaming on Disney+ in many countries on Tuesday. "Just a few years ago, there was a pride flag that flew in space, and (NASA) had vowed the next person on the Moon would be a woman." But that vow has now been removed from NASA's website, just one of many changes at the US space agency since Trump returned to the White House in January. "Employees have been asked to remove symbols of gay pride, pride flags, trans visibility flags," Costantini said. Now, the director hopes the documentary "serves as a reminder that these rights are not guaranteed, that they were hard fought and they were won by people like Sally" and her partner Tam. "It's our responsibility to carry the torch and continue the fight for equality." After boarding the Challenger space shuttle on June 18, 1983, Ride became the first US woman to fly to space. It was two decades after Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova made the voyage. NASA only started allowing women to apply as astronaut recruits in 1977. Ride, who had a PhD in astrophysics from Stanford University and was an accomplished tennis player, was one of six women selected out of more than 8,000 applicants in the class of 1978. Ride received the same training as male astronauts, but was treated quite differently. Journalists asked whether she cried when facing difficulty. NASA engineers asked about what make-up she would need in space. They even worried whether 100 tampons would be enough for her six-day journey into space. "I felt the women hadn't paid their dues like we had," Mike Mullane, another astronaut in the class of 1978, said in the documentary. When Ride returned to Earth, the image of the 32-year-old in her blue jumpsuit, curly chestnut hair, piercing blue eyes and confident smile was seen around the world. But Ride struggled to come to terms with her new status as icon. "It was too much for her," Tam O'Shaughnessy, who was Ride's partner for 27 years, told AFP. "She was an introvert and it was hard on her." The two women founded a nonprofit dedicated to teaching girls science. But the world would only learn they were in a relationship until after Ride's death from pancreatic cancer at the age of 61 in 2012. "Sally did not like labels," O'Shaughnessy said. "She was a queer woman. And so I think it's great that she's sort of become a part of the (LGBTQ+) community after death." O'Shaughnessy expressed concern at reports that US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wants to change the name of a Navy ship currently named after famous gay activist Harvey Milk. "There's a research vessel called 'Sally Ride' and it crossed my mind that might change, too" she said. "It's just shocking. All of this is hard to swallow." The documentary about Ride, bottom left, took on a different meaning after Trump's re-election, according to its makers AFP The world only learned that Sally Ride was queer after her death from cancer in 2012 AFP
Yahoo
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Queer astronaut documentary takes on new meaning in Trump's US
When director Cristina Costantini started making a documentary about the first US woman in space, she thought it would be looking back on the "sexism and homophobia of yesteryear". But the story of astronaut Sally Ride, whose queer identity was a secret when she blasted off more than four decades ago, took on a "completely different meaning" after the re-election of President Donald Trump, Costantini told AFP. "When we started making the film, it didn't seem all that political to celebrate queer love or women astronauts," said the director of "Sally", which started streaming on Disney+ in many countries on Tuesday. "Just a few years ago, there was a pride flag that flew in space, and (NASA) had vowed the next person on the Moon would be a woman." But that vow has now been removed from NASA's website, just one of many changes at the US space agency since Trump returned to the White House in January. "Employees have been asked to remove symbols of gay pride, pride flags, trans visibility flags," Costantini said. Now, the director hopes the documentary "serves as a reminder that these rights are not guaranteed, that they were hard fought and they were won by people like Sally" and her partner Tam. "It's our responsibility to carry the torch and continue the fight for equality." - 'It was hard on her' - After boarding the Challenger space shuttle on June 18, 1983, Ride became the first US woman to fly to space. It was two decades after Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova made the voyage. NASA only started allowing women to apply as astronaut recruits in 1977. Ride, who had a PhD in astrophysics from Stanford University and was an accomplished tennis player, was one of six women selected out of more than 8,000 applicants in the class of 1978. Ride received the same training as male astronauts, but was treated quite differently. Journalists asked whether she cried when facing difficulty. NASA engineers asked about what make-up she would need in space. They even worried whether 100 tampons would be enough for her six-day journey into space. "I felt the women hadn't paid their dues like we had," Mike Mullane, another astronaut in the class of 1978, said in the documentary. When Ride returned to Earth, the image of the 32-year-old in her blue jumpsuit, curly chestnut hair, piercing blue eyes and confident smile was seen around the world. But Ride struggled to come to terms with her new status as icon. "It was too much for her," Tam O'Shaughnessy, who was Ride's partner for 27 years, told AFP. "She was an introvert and it was hard on her." The two women founded a nonprofit dedicated to teaching girls science. But the world would only learn they were in a relationship until after Ride's death from pancreatic cancer at the age of 61 in 2012. "Sally did not like labels," O'Shaughnessy said. "She was a queer woman. And so I think it's great that she's sort of become a part of the (LGBTQ+) community after death." O'Shaughnessy expressed concern at reports that US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wants to change the name of a Navy ship currently named after famous gay activist Harvey Milk. "There's a research vessel called 'Sally Ride' and it crossed my mind that might change, too" she said. "It's just shocking. All of this is hard to swallow." ber/dl/jxb
Hindustan Times
11-05-2025
- Sport
- Hindustan Times
TT: India turns focus to doubles ahead of LA 2028
Mumbai: The senior World Championships in Doha starting on May 17 and the Asian Youth Championships (June 26-July 2) in Tashkent will provide the Indian table tennis team's head coach Massimo Costantini a chance to take stock of and draw a roadmap in an area where Indians have had greater success at global level: doubles. The plan assumes greater significance given that all three doubles events will return to the TT programme at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. It is in those events that Indians have made bigger moves more frequently in top level WTT and multi-sport tournaments in the recent past. A few days ago, Manush Shah and Diya Chitale captured the mixed doubles title at the WTT Contender Tunis, beating the higher-ranked Miwa Harimoto and Sora Matsushima of Japan in the final. A couple of years ago, Ayhika Mukherjee and Sutirtha Mukherjee delivered India's first women's doubles medal at the Hangzhou Asian Games going past the Chinese in their den, backing it up with another bronze medal at the 2024 Asian Championships. A few months back in Doha, Manush and Manav Thakkar became India's first men's doubles pair to reach the WTT Star Contender semis. All these pairs will be in the mix at Doha, and younger, untested ones at the Asian youth tournament. Post that, and once the format and qualification system for the Olympics is known, Costantini will start planning to firm up pairs with LA in mind and perhaps experiment and expand the combinations and pool. 'With the Olympics, doubles now is more relevant than before,' Costantini said. 'All the countries are starting to prepare and deploy more resources on this. It's something we will have to reflect too.' It helps that the current combinations have 'delivered historic results', said the Italian, with things 'quite steady and stable' in mixed doubles (Diya/Manush) and men's doubles (Manush/Manav). The latter are world No.9, while the former's win in Tunis was belief-boosting after losing to the Japanese pair in the Doha Star Contender quarter-finals. 'You don't elevate confidence from just getting points winning lower-level tournaments but by beating the relevant world-class players, the kind that maybe you didn't beat before,' Costantini said. 'For me, it's a little summary of the last 6-8 months, since we restarted the cycle after the (Paris) Olympics. Manav and Manush are almost always in the quarters or semis of the bigger tournaments, and so are Manush and Diya. And they're all relatively young. 'For the rest, we will have to assess from time to time, and whether some results are sporadic achievements.' In the past, such sporadic sparks have faded away in doubles. Manika Batra and Archana Kamath had surged as high as world No.4 in women's doubles but had little to show in terms of big titles. Manika and G Sathiyan teamed up for mixed doubles targetting the Paris Games, and after showing plenty of promise initially, the pair couldn't even qualify. Part of the issue in the Manika-Sathiyan dip was their inability to train together and play enough tournaments. Lessons will have to be learnt from that to sustain the doubles momentum over the next few years. It's where Costantini's role and presence of a national setup will come into play. 'We have well established a national team environment. If this is not there, players will more likely go in different directions, be more individual, and without a proper plan. One time they will play with somebody, and then somebody else, just to make the volume (for points),' the head coach said. 'The more we strengthen this aspect, the better our planning can be, including in testing certain players and getting them into more competitions.' Part of that testing was to bring together Manav and Manika, India's highest ranked singles players currently, for mixed doubles in the post-Paris reset. The combination hasn't taken off just as yet. 'They played in a couple of tournaments but haven't had too many opportunities since. Let's see how it shapes up,' he said.
Ammon
07-04-2025
- Sport
- Ammon
Demand for viral ‘torpedo' baseball bats has sent a Pennsylvania factory into overdrive
Ammon News - A 70-year-old man who plays in an area senior hardball league popped into Victus Sports this week because he needed bats for the new season. Plus he just had to take some cuts with baseball's latest fad and see for himself if there really was some wizardry in the wallop off a torpedo bat. Ed Costantini, of Newtown Square, picked up the custom-designed VOLPE11-TPD Pro Reserve Maple, and took his hacks just like MLB stars and Victus customers Anthony Volpe or Bryson Stott would inside the company's batting cage and tracked the ball's path on the virtual Citizens Bank Park on the computer screens. Most big leaguers use that often indistinguishable 'feel' as a qualifier as to how they select a bat. Costantini had a similar process and thought the hype surrounding the torpedo since it exploded into the baseball consciousness over the weekend was a 'hoax.' But after dozens of swings in the cage, where he said the balance was better, the ball sounded more crisp off the bat, the left-handed hitter ordered on the spot four custom-crafted torpedo bats at $150 a pop. 'The litmus test that I used was, I could see where the marks of the ball were,' Costantini said. 'The swings were hitting the thickness of the torpedo as opposed to the end of the bat.' More than just All-Stars want a crack at the torpedo — a striking design in which wood is moved lower down the barrel after the label and shapes the end a little like a bowling pin — and Costantini's purchase highlighted the surge of interest in baseball's shiny new toy outside the majors. Think of home runs in baseball, and the fan's mind races to the mammoth distances a ball can fly when slugged right on the nose, or a history-making chase that captivates a nation. Of lesser interest, the ol' reliable wood bat itself. That was, of course, until Paul Goldschmidt and Cody Bellinger hit back-to-back homers for the New York Yankees last Saturday to open a nine-homer barrage. Victus Sports, known as much for their vibrant bats painted as pencils or the Phillie Phanatic dressed as a King's Guard, had three employees at the game and they started a text thread where they hinted to those back home that, perhaps more than home runs were taking off. Business was about to boom, too. Yankees crowed about the torpedo-shape concept that had baseball buzzing and pitchers grumbling. The scuttlebutt and headlines stoked their super curious peers, most with an eye out for any legal, offensive edge, into asking Victus and other bat manufacturers about the possibility of taking a swing with the most famous style of bat since Roy Hobbs grabbed a 'Wonderboy.' *AP
Boston Globe
04-04-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
Demand for ‘torpedo' baseball bats has sent a Pennsylvania factory into overdrive
Advertisement Costantini had a similar process and thought the hype surrounding the torpedo since it exploded into the baseball consciousness over the weekend was a 'hoax.' But after dozens of swings in the cage, where he said the balance was better, the ball sounded more crisp off the bat, the left-handed hitter ordered on the spot four custom-crafted torpedo bats at $150 a pop. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'The litmus test that I used was, I could see where the marks of the ball were,' Costantini said. 'The swings were hitting the thickness of the torpedo as opposed to the end of the bat.' More than just All-Stars want a crack at the torpedo — a striking design in which wood is moved lower down the barrel after the label and shapes the end a little like a bowling pin — and Costantini's purchase highlighted the surge of interest in baseball's shiny new toy outside the majors. Advertisement Think of home runs in baseball, and the fan's mind races to the mammoth distances a ball can fly when slugged right on the nose, or a history-making chase that captivates a nation. Of lesser interest, the ol' reliable wood bat itself. That was, of course, until Paul Goldschmidt and Cody Bellinger hit back-to-back homers for the New York Yankees last Saturday to open a nine-homer barrage. Victus Sports, known as much for their vibrant bats painted as pencils or the Phillie Phanatic dressed as a King's Guard, had three employees at the game and they started a text thread where they hinted to those back home that, perhaps more than home runs were taking off. Business was about to boom, too. Related : Torpedo bats are driving an unprecedented surge in lumber curiosity Victus spent most of the last 14 years trying to help shape the future of baseball. The company's founders just never imagined that shape would resemble a bowling pin. 'It was the most talked about thing about bats that we ever experienced,' Victus co-founder Jared Smith said. Victus isn't the only company producing the bulgy bats, but they were among the first to list them for sale online after the Yankees' made them the talk of the sports world. The torpedo bat took the league by storm in only 24 hours, and days later, the calls and orders, and test drives — from big leaguers to rec leaguers — are humming inside the company's base, in a northwest suburb of Philadelphia. 'The amount of steam that it's caught, this quickly, that's certainly surprising,' Smith said. 'If the Yankees hitting nine home runs in a game doesn't happen, this doesn't happen.' Advertisement Victus was stamped this season as the official bat of Major League Baseball and business was already good: Phillies slugger Bryce Harper is among the stars who stick their bats on highlight reels. But that torpedo-looking hunk of lumber? It generated about as much interest last season in baseball as a .200 hitter. Victus made its first torpedoes around 2024 spring training when the Yankees reached out about crafting samples for their players. Victus, as dialed-in as anyone in the bat game, only made about a dozen last season, and about a dozen more birch or maple bats this spring. This week alone, try hundreds of torpedoes. 'Every two minutes, another one comes out of the machine,' Smith said. Related : Who knew there would be a baseball bat craze? On a good day, Victus makes 600-700 bats, but the influx of pro orders — the company estimates at least half of every starting lineup uses Victus or Marucci bats — has sent production into overdrive. The creation of a typical bat is usually a two-day process, but one can be turned around without a finish in about 20 minutes. Victus crafted rush-order bats Monday morning for a few interested Phillies and dashed to Citizens Bank Park for delivery moments before first pitch. All-Star third baseman Alec Bohm singled with one. Stott tested bats at the 'They connect all these wires to you, and you swing 1,000 bats,' Stott said. 'And they kind of tell you where you're hitting the ball mostly.' Advertisement Tom Quirk manufactures a torpedo baseball bat at Victus Sports in King of Prussia, Pa. Matt Rourke/Associated Press Rookie of the year? Here's the surprising part of the torpedo bat: For all its early hype, the bat is no rookie in the game. The lethal lumber has been used by some sluggers in baseball for at least a year or two only, well, no one really noticed. Giancarlo Stanton and Francisco Lindor used torpedoes last season. Other players experimented with it and no one — not the bulk of other players or journalists or fans — ever really picked up on the newfangled advance in hitting innovation. Smith said only 'a few baseball junkies' inquired about the bats. 'I think it's just one of those things that until you're looking for it, you might not see it,' Smith said. 'Now when you look at pictures, you're like, oh yeah, it's a torpedo.' Aaron Leanhardt, a former Yankees front-office staffer who now works for the Miami Marlins, was credited as the one who developed the torpedo barrel to bring more mass to a bat's sweet spot. A member of Victus' parent company, Marucci Sports, worked with Leanhardt in a Louisiana branch of their hit lab last year to get the bat off the ground and into the hands of big leaguers. 'I think getting past the shape being different was the hardest barrier,' Smith said. 'Then the team goes out and hits those home runs like they did and everyone is willing to try it.' Before last weekend, Victus had no plans to mass produce the bat, making it only available to professionals. Now, Smith said, 'I think it's our job to kind of educate the public in what's out there.' The odd shape off the bat — like making a sausage, the meat is simply pushed down the casing — has little to no effect at Victus on the dynamics of making a baseball bat. The cost is the same as a standard bat, too, with a sticker price starting at around $200. Only the slogan is punched up: Get your hands on the most-talked about bat in the game. Advertisement The shape of the bat puts more wood at the point where hitters most often make contact with the ball. Matt Rourke/Associated Press Does the torpedo bat work? There's not enough data yet to truly know how much oomph — or hits and homers — a torpedo bat may help some hitters. Cincinnati's Elly De La Cruz picked one up for the first time Monday and had a single, double and two home runs for a career-high seven RBIs. Not all hitters are believers —- or at least feel like they need to tinker with their lumber. Yankees slugger Aaron Judge, who hit an AL-record 62 homers in 2022 and 58 last year en route to his second AL MVP award, declined to try the new bat, asking, 'Why try to change something?' Phillies All-Star shortstop Trea Turner said the hoopla was 'blown out of proportion.' 'You've still got to hit the ball,' Turner said. Turner, though, said he was open to trying the torpedo. 'For bats to be the hot topic out in the zeitgeist is cool,' Smith said. 'It's kind of like our time to shine, in a way.'
