Honey bears are raising the bar on a gripping success

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奖牌原来是这样拿的.

BEFORE climbing on the parallel bars at the US Olympic team trials last month, gymnast Jonathan Horton stretched his arm muscles, steeled himself - and reached for his honey bear.

Giving the plastic bear a gentle squeeze, Horton oozed a dab of honey on to his hands and slathered it around the bars, adding chalk to make a pasty slurry.

"I don't know why it works, but I always have a really good grip on the bars," he says. "I have tried not to use it and I slip right off."

There's a recipe to winning an Olympic medal on the parallel bars and the key ingredient is sticky fingers.

Gymnasts' hands sweat as they swing, putting them in danger of losing grip of the bar. They dust their hands with gym chalk to abate moisture. But as gymnasts attempt ever-larger swings they are on the constant hunt for a little extra help holding on to those slippery wooden bars.
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That is how the gymnast's arsenal has come to include honey, molasses, Lyle's Golden Syrup or pretty much any other substance one might serve over pancakes. It is deliciously legal.

Judges can deduct up to half a point for "marking the floor carpet" with chalk, along with other destructive behaviour, according to the International Gymnastics Federation's point code. But there are "no rules or restrictions regarding these sticky substances", says a federation spokesman.

Most other gripping athletes use just chalk, although baseball sluggers famously put pine tar on their bat handles. Female gymnasts, who don't do routines on parallel bars, tend to use water and chalk. On the uneven bars, many women use glove-like grips to help them hold on while they swing.

But most male Americans in the gymnastic competition, which begins on Saturday, are honey men. Competitors from other countries favour sticky stuff ranging from Karo syrup to Coca-Cola.

US gymnast Danell Leyva recalls a competition in France in which a gymnast used a beer-and-sugar concoction. "I smelled it and said, 'Dude, what is that?' " Leyva says. "Whatever works for you."

Former US national-team member Trent Wells melted gummy bears for competition in the mid-90s. He says the idea came to a teammate who noticed the lollies would stick to things if moistened and then shot out of a slingshot. "We thought it might be a little bit stickier solution than honey or Karo syrup," Wells says.

After experimentation with boiling the gummy bears in varying amounts of water, they created the ideal viscosity in a reddish goop. Wells eventually moved to a special sugar water that a chemist friend helped him brew. The right sticky formula is a matter of personal chemistry crossed with personal superstition. Raj Bhavsar, who helped win a team bronze medal for the US during the 2008 Games, started with pancake syrup when he was 12, before shifting to molasses and sugar water and eventually landing on honey.

Bruce Boynton, head of the National Honey Board, says he knew some Olympians used honey for energy but was surprised to hear they apply it to their hands. But it makes sense, says a Honey Board spokeswoman after talking with a Honey Board science consultant, Dave Ropa.

Honey, consisting primarily of glucose and fructose, has a high "coefficient of friction", Ropa says, that makes it work as a "natural, non-toxic glue" when applied to gymnastics equipment.

The Wall Street Journal