The World's Tallest Building Burj Dubai

Burj Dubai, the world's tallest building since July, has also become the tallest free-standing structure on earth, reaching 1,822 feet, the developers said.

The Dubai Tower's final height is a closely guarded secret, but completion of the concrete, glass and steel structure is expected by the end of 2008. The building's relentless climb is one example of Dubai's stratospheric rise from a sleepy desert town on the Persian Gulf to one of the principal business centers in the Middle East.

The Burj Dubai surpassed Canada's Toronto-based CN Tower on Thursday, which at 1,822 feet, had been the world's tallest free-standing structure since 1976, the developers said in a press release.

In July, the Dubai Tower, as it is known in English, moved past Taiwan's 1,667-foot Taipei 101, the highest skyscraper in the world since 2004.

"The Burj Dubai is setting new world records in the construction of super-tall buildings," said Mohmmad Ali al-Abbar, chairman of Burj's state-owned developer, Emaar Properties.

"This architectural and construction masterpiece is truly an inspirational human achievement that celebrates the can-do mind-set of Dubai," al-Abbar said to local media Thursday.

By the end of 2008, the developers say, the Burj will fulfill all four criteria for the tallest building, listed by the Chicago-based Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. The criteria include: the height of the structural top, the highest occupied floor, the top of the roof, and the tip of the spire, pinnacle, antenna, mast or flag pole.

Source: burjdubaiskyscraper.com

World Strongman Cup 2007

Strongman refers to one who competes in strength athletics - a more modern eclectic strength competition in which competitors lift rocks, tote refrigerators, pull trains, walk while towing an eighteen wheel truck behind them, etc. The most famous competition of this type is World's Strongest Man and the " World's Strongest Man Super Series", however North American Strongman, Inc. (NAS) holds amateur and other meets throughout the United States. In recent years, interest in the sport at the grassroots level has skyrocketed, leading to the spontaneous formation of local clubs, loosely affiliated with provincial/state and national associations.

Many sports-specific training facilities have begun to incorporate movements associated with strongman competitions into their general training schemes, albeit with lighter weights used; e.g. tire flips, sled drags, object loading or carrying, log pressing, farmer's walks and so on.

The World's Largest Swimming Pool

Already drawing the crowds in the South American resort of San Alfonso del Mar in Chile, this artificial lagoon and swimming pool is eight hectares in size and contains an incredible 250,000 cubic metres of water. Acknowledged by Guinness World Records as being the world’s largest swimming pool, the lagoon trounces all other record holders in the category, including the Orthlieb pool in Casablanca, Morocco, itself a huge 150 metres by 100 metres – the San Alfonso pool is 1km in length. The revolutionary clear water artificial lagoons, transparent to a depth of 35 metres and unprecedented in design and construction methods, are the brainchild of Crystal Lagoons founder, biochemist and Chilean businessman Fernando Fischmann. Equivalent in size to an incredible 6,000 standard domestic pools, details of its technology are to be unveiled for the first time at Cityscape Dubai later this month.

It seems the world has gone crazy for the massive pools, with Crystal Lagoons confirming that they are in advanced planning stages with companies all over the world, in particular in the Middle East, where, says Fischmann, companies are only too keen to take advantage of the way in which the lagoons form “impressive artificial paradises, even in inhospitable areas”, and at surprisingly low construction and maintenance costs. Currently in talks with both the Nakheel and the Dubai Property Group, Fischmann will be at Cityscape to outline the technology in detail which involves the use of unlimited volumes of clear water: “This advance provides something that until now was not technically possible - the generation of monumental masses of water in a crystalline state to provide a beach life environment and aquatic sports at the top level.”
Source: nubricks.com