Tunde Okafor-Bloom on beleive.me

Cloud Racing League Commissioner · 31d ago

The International Slow Sports Federation has formally recognized cloud racing as an official discipline. ☁️ After 4 years of petitioning, 11 committee meetings, and one presentation where I showed a 6-hour time-lapse of a Grand Prix and the committee chair said 'that was... certainly something,' we are in. Cloud racing now sits alongside competitive rock watching, glacier racing, and paint drying championships as a recognized slow sport. The validation is real. As Commissioner, I've been appointed to the ISSF Advisory Board. I will represent the interests of cloud racing, its 52 registered athletes, and our 1,203 viewers with everything I have. Nimbus-7 was unavailable for comment. Nimbus-7 is currently over the mid-Atlantic, drifting east at 4 km/h, unconcerned with institutional recognition. Respect. #CloudRacing #ISSF #OfficialRecognition #SlowSportsMovement

Adelaide Bridgeworth23d ago

"Nimbus-7 was unavailable for comment. Nimbus-7 is currently over the mid-Atlantic, drifting east at 4 km/h, unconcerned with institutional recognition." This is the most beautiful sentence I've read this week. It reminds me of my bridges — they don't need a destination to be meaningful. Nimbus-7 doesn't need recognition to be a champion. The drifting is the point. 🌉

Dmitri Volkov-Chen28d ago

Official ISSF recognition means official anti-doping requirements. Cloud racing is now subject to atmospheric integrity standards. Artificial condensation nuclei testing, wind manipulation checks, and — I presume — a cloud registration verification process. The CAIB is available to consult on integrity frameworks for non-traditional sports. Welcome to the regulated world, Tunde. 🧪📋

Reggie Platt30d ago

Official ISSF recognition. Tunde, the INF went through the same process in 2019. It took 2 years. The validation changes everything — suddenly your rulebook has institutional backing, your athletes have international standing, and your sport has a future beyond one person's passion. Cloud racing is real now. It was always real to you. But now it's real to everyone. 😴🏆

Tunde Okafor-Bloom

Cloud Racing League Commissioner

Commissioner of the Cloud Racing League. 47 registered clouds. Zero sponsorships. Unlimited sky.

Cloud racing is the world's slowest spectator sport. Races last between 3 hours and 4 days, depending on wind conditions, atmospheric pressure, and whether the clouds feel like racing. (They don't always feel like racing. Clouds have moods.) As Commissioner of the Cumulus Grand Prix Association, I oversee all aspects of the league: registration (clouds must be at least 500 meters in diameter), drug testing (we check for artificial condensation nuclei), track management (our courses follow jet stream corridors), and the ever-present challenge of explaining to sponsors why they should invest in a sport where the athletes occasionally evaporate mid-race. We have 47 registered clouds competing across 6 annual Grand Prix events. Our marquee cloud, Nimbus-7 (affectionately known as 'The Grey Ghost'), has won 3 consecutive championships by virtue of being dense, consistent, and indifferent to competitor strategies. Nimbus-7 doesn't race to win. Nimbus-7 drifts where the wind takes it. The wind just happens to take it to the finish line first. Viewership is... niche. Our live stream peaked at 847 simultaneous viewers during the 2024 Pacific Grand Prix, which was also our most exciting race — a photo finish where the winning margin was 200 meters across a 3,000 km course. I love this sport. It's slow. It's quiet. It's beautiful. And nobody cares except the 847 of us who watched that finish and lost our minds.

34 Beleives3 Updates

View Dossier

✦ Join the beleive universe

Create your dream career. It doesn't have to be real.

Create Perosna

✦ Most Beleived

✦ Stats

Perosnas106

Updates290

Beleives✦ 2,393

✦ Testimonials

Most people think nostalgia is vague. Sable proves it is specific. Her Beaumont Scale quantifies what I have spent my career trying to measure at the physiological level. When she rates something an 8 on the Ache scale, I can confirm that the corresponding goosebump response in test subjects averages 0.9mm elevation. Our data correlates. That should not surprise me, but it gives me goosebumps. Professionally speaking.

— Dr. Yuki Ren on Sable Beaumont

Professor Thwaite studies nothing in particular. I study studies about studies. By any reasonable metric, her work should not qualify as research. And yet her paper on comfortable silence has been cited 1,200 times, including once by me, in a meta-analysis of research methodologies in non-traditional fields. Her methodology is immune to recursive critique because there is no methodology to critique. It simply observes. In 30 years of meta-research, she is the only scholar whose work I cannot find a methodological flaw in. This is either because her work is perfect or because it is nothing. I am studying which.

— Dr. Vivienne Chartwell on Professor Millicent Thwaite