February 6, 2026 • 41 mins
Who's the Michael Phelps of the early winter games? Why did the 1924 British curling team just get their gold medals? And what are the greatest sports we wish were still in the Olympics (who's up for a round of Korfball)? Will and Mango dive into Olympic history and investigate how one little rule change affected how future sports were played. Featuring American ski archer Dave Bergart.
This episode originally aired on January 17, 2018.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what will what's that mango?
Speaker 2 (00:01):
So you know what my favorite part of the Winter
Olympics is, all.
Speaker 3 (00:04):
Right, I think I want to guess on this one.
I'm gonna guess the bobs led.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I mean, that's super fun. But my favorite armchair sport
at the Olympics is trying to spot the carpetbaggers.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
The carpetbaggers.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yeah, I mean, you know you see it in the Olympics,
but especially in the Winter Olympics, Like at Sochi, there
was this couple from Long Island in their late forties
who thought would be fun to compete at the Olympics
for Dominica, which is this tiny island nation in the Caribbean.
And you'd obviously have to be super fit to be
in your late forties and make the US ski team, right,
but in Dominica you kind of just have to have
(00:38):
a pair of skis in a passport.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
So, I mean, how prevalent is this carpetbaggering? How do
they get away with this?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I mean it is discouraged, but sometimes it's like elite
athletes who couldn't make cut in their country where they live,
but then you know they want to compete for their
country of origin, and sometimes it's athletic mercenaries, like Bahrain
is notorious for buying Kenyans to long distance for their nation.
And then there are these wealthy crazies who could just
buy their way in, like Germany has this prince named
(01:06):
Hubertus who was born in Mexico, but it's competed for
Mexico in slalom six times. I believe wow at Sochi,
he was fifty five years old when he's doing this. Yeah,
and you might remember him from wearing this outrageous spandex
mariachi outfit.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
I'm gonna look him up.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I don't remember this, he said. If he wasn't gonna win,
at least he could name for best dressed. Getting excited
to spot these Olympic outcasts made me wonder about all
the other things at the Winter Olympics, like when did
the Winter Olympics start? And why does Norway dominate the games?
And why does curling get to be a sport. So
let's stay in.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and it's always I'm joined by my good
friend Mangesh hut Ticketter and on the other side, of
the soundproof glass, showing off his brand new Winter Olympic
stuffed animal pal. I don't know how he got a
hold of that. That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil.
Look over there, Mango at Sue Harang, you know, the
white tiger mascot for the upcoming Games.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yeah, I'd recognize them anywhere. So I love that the
Winter Olympics get their own mascots. It's actually one of
my favorite things about the Olympics.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Well, you know, the winner Games might play second fiddle
in terms of scale and viewership, but I feel like
the mascots, those things can go toe to toe with
their summer cousins. In fact, one thing I learned while
preparing for today's show is that we actually have the
Winter Games to thank for this whole idea of these
Olympic mascots. You know, they didn't start out as this
cute and cuddly animal like Sue Harang might be just
(02:54):
look at it over there in Tristan's lap. But the
very first one was this creepy caricature of this armless
skier I don't know why, with his manic red face.
His name was Shush after the term for the straight
downhill ski run. And then he popped up as this
unofficial mascot of the nineteen sixty eight Winter Games that
(03:14):
were in France. And even though his simple, big headed
design led to most fans calling him the skiing sperm,
Schus was a big hit with attendees and so he
kind of paved the way for the first official mascot
four years later, and that was that multicolored dot son
named Waldy who appeared at the Summer Olympics in Munich.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
So Schuss is great, but if we're talking unnerving mascots,
I'm gonna go with Schneeman.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Shush, and Schneman.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Schneeman was the first official mascot at the Winter Games,
and this was back in nineteen seventy six, and he
was basically just a snowman head on tiny legs wearing
this big, floppy red hat. It's almost like a kid
started building Schneman and then gave up after realizing there
was an Atarian cide where it was warmer.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
I'm done with you, schneaem It.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Well, obviously, today's show is all about the Winter Olympics,
and we're getting pretty excited around here for next month's games.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
In Pyeongchang.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
So we wanted to take the opportunity to dig into
some of that weird history and the surprising controversies that
surround these lesser known Olympics. So, Mega, where do you
feel like we should start?
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Well, you know, I always like starting at the beginning,
you Which actually wasn't that long ago for the Winter Olympics.
So the first official Winter Games were held in France
back in nineteen twenty four, which was only twenty eight
years after the first modern Summer Olympics in Athens. But
the Winter Olympics were known by a different name originally,
So the first event was actually called Winter Sports Week,
(04:39):
and it was this twelve day program consisting of six
sports and sixteen events.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
That's such a weird name, like it sounds like something
you'd participate in in college or something.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
So why did they call it this?
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Was it like a test run for the winter version
of the Olympics or what?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah, exactly right. So, figure skating and ice hockey were
actually part of the Summer Games already at that point,
and the idea of giving cold weather sports their own
showcase was first floaded by the IOC in nineteen twenty one.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
So, I mean it seems like the interest was there.
So why did this first event get such a like
a watered down name.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Well, I mean some Scandinavian countries boked at the idea
of a separate event because they already took part in
their own competition called the Nordic Games and they didn't
want an official winner Olympics to steal their thunder. So,
you know, the committee made this Winter Sports Week. But
the Games were this huge success. There were ten thousand
paying attendees who turned up to watch sixteen countries compete
(05:30):
in sports like speed skating and bob sled and curling,
and the events were such a smash hit that just
one year later, the IOC retroactively declared it the first
Olympic Winner Games.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Huh.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
All right, so who were like, you know, like the
Michael Phelps of the first Winter Olympics. Were there any
standouts or were the athletes still trying to kind of
figure out what they were doing in the competition.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, so, you know, the Scandinevan countries, like I mentioned,
had this leg up because they'd been holding their own
competitions for over twenty years at this point. So Norway
in particular, has always dominated the Winter Games, and the
first one was no exception. They had this incredible athlete,
thorleaf Haw, which is about as Nordica name as you
can have, i'd say, And he was this legendary skier
(06:11):
who won three gold medals in three different events that year,
and he also took home a bronze medal for the
ski jump competition. But this is super weird. Fifty years later,
it was discovered that a scoring mistake had actually happened
and the medal actually belonged to this US athlete named
Andrews Hoggen.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Wow, fifty years later, I mean, I guess better late
than ever, but still that is a long time.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
So were there any other US victories that year?
Speaker 4 (06:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Actually, the very first gold medal awarded went to this
American speed skater named Charles Jutra, and he was this underdog,
but in the end he beat out all twenty six
other skaters by completing the five hundred meter event in
just forty four seconds. And my favorite underdog though, is
this Norwegian ice skater who's named Sonja Henny. And not
(06:54):
only was she only one of eleven female athletes competing
that year, she was also only eleven years old.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Eleven years old. Wow, so did she win?
Speaker 2 (07:03):
No, she came in dead last time. But the nineteen
twenty four Games were actually just the start of her career.
She won a gold medal at each of the next
three Winter Olympics.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Wow, and she grew up to.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Be this Norwegian movie star.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
I mean, Norwegian just really do kind of own the
Winter Games, don't they.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
I mean I was reading that Norway has actually won.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
More gold medals in the competition than any other country
After Sochi. Their record stands I think it's one hundred
and eighteen gold medals and something like three hundred and
twenty nine total.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Yeah, and they're actually one of only three countries the
other two being Austrian Liechtenstein, that have actually won more
medals in the Winter Olympics than in the Summer ones.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Hm.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
I mean it makes a lot of sense given their
geography and the climate. But you know, that cold weather
advantage is actually kind of at the root of one
of the Winter Olympics' biggest controversies.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
You know, put things in perspective.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
There are ninety countries that are set to compete in
pyeong Chang this year, which is a far cry from
the more than two hundred countries that participated in the
twenty sixteen Games that were in Rio. You know, the
reason for that disparity isn't so much a lack of
interest as it is a lack of resources.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
You know, being able to compete.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
In events like lusing and figure skating and Bob's letting.
I mean, all of that requires this practice and these
very expensive facilities. And his Olympic historian David Waalachinsky puts it,
if you want to run one hundred meters or even
a marathon, you can just step outside your door and
go do it. If you want to play soccer, you
can do that anywhere. But if you want to compete
in the luge, I don't think so. So obviously, you know,
(08:28):
something like the alpine skiing is it's an expensive hobby
and if you're trying to compete, just think about all
the equipment and training and also just the regular access
to these facilities that you'd need to have.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Yeah. So, I know in tennis they say if you
don't play for two days, you lose some of your
muscle memory and you're basically relearning your strokes. Yeah, which
is crazy, right, But if you think about something like that.
For skiing, I mean, the climate dependent nature of the
events definitely hurts your chances if you're from a tropical place,
and the Winter Olympics have also developed this, you know,
elitist stigma because the cold countries also tend to be
(09:01):
richer and whiter, which is probably one of the reasons
that they still aren't as popular as the summer counterparts.
Which isn't to say that more temperator even downright tropical
countries don't get a chance to shine. I mean, everyone
remembers cool runnings, right and the Jamaican bob sled team
from the nineteen eighty eight Calgary Games. But there's still
a long way to go if the Winter Olympics want
to be an event that's truly representative of international athletes.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Yeah, you know, And since we're talking about controversies and
you mentioned the eighty eight Olympics, I just have to
take a second to talk about Eddie the Eagle.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
So I'm not sure I know that mascot.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
I know it sounds very cuddly, but Eddie the Eagle
is actually one of the nicknames for Michael Edwards, and
he was this British plaster who always dreamed of competing
as a downhill skier in the Olympics, and after determining
that ski jumping would be cheaper and less competitive in
order to be able to prepare, Michael became the first
in British history to participate in the event. Now, there
(09:53):
was only one little problem, and that was the fact
that he was terrible at ski jumping. In fact, he
crashed at the World Championship in nineteen eighty six, kind
of became the laughing stock of the press and they
not so lovingly referred to him as mister Magoo. But
you know, Edwards was undeterred and he managed to fulfill
his dream by competing at the Calgary Olympics just two
years later. Although he successfully landed his Johnbie, he didn't
(10:15):
score even like half the total points as any of
the other competitors. But nonetheless, Eddie the Eagle, as he
was called by the President of the IOC, became this
national star and you know, an unexpected point of pride
for England.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
So I'm guessing where the story is going, right, It's
just like that little Norwegian girl who rallied and came
back to clean house at the next Olympics.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Uh, definitely not Now.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Edwards competed for a spot I think in the next
three Winter Games, but the Olympic community had raised the
qualifying standards at that point and that was really to
box him out.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
And you know.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Still he claims about seventy percent of his income now
comes from speaking engagement, so it wasn't a total loss.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
For the guy.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah, And as far as controversy is going, that one's
pretty innocent, Like most Olympic scandals are a little more
tinged with, definitely. And so I was reading about Orton Enderland.
She was this East German Lewes champion who wound up
forfeiting her gold from the sixty eight Games when it
was discovered that she and her teammates had actually heated
the rails that are sled just prior to the race.
(11:14):
I mean, I didn't realize the physics of this, but
the extra warmth had reduced the sled's friction with the ice,
which gave them a much faster run time. And so
the three women were disqualified, but the East German Olympic
committee never took responsibility. Instead, they blamed it all on
a capitalist revenge plot.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Oh yeah, that must have been a capitalist revenge plot.
You know, it's funny because I know about like corking
your bed or deflating a football, but I honestly have
no idea how to cheat in winter sports. I mean,
it wouldn't even occur to me to heat the metal
under your luge. That's also a sentence I never thought
I would say. But all right, well, speaking of East Germany,
there's one interesting thing I came across, and that was
(11:51):
that West and East Germany actually reached across the Iron
Curtain and they decided to compete together as this unified
team of Germany. This happened in three Olympics, fifty six
and sixty and sixty four. But that's when the truce
came to an end because this alternate for an East
German team, I think on the toboggan team. They used
the games as a way to make a break for freedom.
(12:12):
And so her name was outa Gawller, and apparently she
fled for West Germany while her teammates were celebrating during
a reception one night.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Did she make it?
Speaker 3 (12:20):
She actually did? And you know what, she actually wasn't
even the only one. According to the Associated Press, there
were thirteen fans from Eastern European communist countries that also
escaped under the cover of the Olympics.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
That's amazing and you kind of have to admire people
who saw an opportunity and seized it. So one of
my favorite Olympic controversies centers on this guy named Stephen Bradbury,
who depressed dubbed the accidental gold medalist. He was on
the Australian speed skating team that won the country its
first medal at the Winter Olympics back in nineteen ninety four,
but his most triumphant moment came at the two thousand
(12:52):
and two Games in Salt Lake City, and by that
point Bradbury had suffered a number of debilitating injuries and
was no longer at the top of his game. In fact,
he only made it through the quarterfinals that year because
another athlete was disqualified, and he made it through the
semis because a number of his competitors fell down on
the track. Oh wow, And that fall actually gave him
this great idea for what would turn out to be
(13:12):
a winning strategy when it came time for the big race.
Bradbury figured his best shot was just to hang back,
you know, on the off chance that another fall might
clear the field for him, and amazingly the plan worked
like in spades. As he was racing, there was this
disastrous fall that caused all four of his competitors to
collapse in him. Yeah, it was just before the finish line,
(13:34):
and Bradbury kind of just skated slowly around them, claiming
his coal metal.
Speaker 5 (13:38):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
The craziest part was like the crowd was booing and jeering.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
I mean, I kind of love that story. It might
not be like a glorious win, but a win.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Is a win exactly. And Bradbury's sort of admitted that
he won by sheer luck, and he used to sort
of be upset about it and conflicted about it, but
now he kind of considers his reward for you know,
this entire career hard work.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
I mean, you know, like we were saying earlier, the
Winter Olympics don't always favor these warmer weather countries, and
Australia certainly being one of those, so.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
You have to take what you can get.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
I think there's actually one other long running controversy I
do want to mention, but before we get to that,
let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
You're listening to.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Part time genius, and we're talking about the little known
origins and shocking scandals of the Winter Olympics, all right, Mega,
So the last controversy I wanted to mention is just
how long it took for a British curling team to
receive its gold medals.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
And why is that?
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Well, Great Britain won the curling competition way back in
the inaugural Winter Games of nineteen twenty four, but the
winner actually didn't get their gold until a whopping eighty
two years later. So what was the hold of Well,
the delay stem from some confusion over weather curling had
been an official event at the first Games, or whether
it was what they called a demonstration sport. You know,
(15:03):
these are the events that are mostly there for promotional
purposes and kind of build interest in these niche sports.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah. So, my friend Dave was a ski archer, and
he was like tenth in the world and number one
in the US when we were in college. It's not
a big sport here, but it is in Europe, and
I was always hoping they'd make ski archery a sport
just so I could watch him in the Olympics. But
it never happened.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
You know, I've met Dave before, and he never bragged
about this unel I would start every conversation with I
was number one in the world at.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
The ski archery thing.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
But you know, it's weird to think about things that
have been these demonstration sports, like, you know, everything from
pigeon racing and ballooning to even volleyball and tennis. But
at some point those were outsider sports. And also there
was a sport called I think corfball. I don't know
what that is, but I'm a big fan just because
of a name. Anyway, some of the demonstration sports wind
(15:53):
up becoming official events, but until they do, they actually
don't give the winners of these the proper Olympic medals.
So even though curling was played at the first Winter Olympics,
it didn't reappear in the Games until nineteen ninety eight,
and its first appearance became accepted as you know, just
being a demonstration event.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
So what changed over the course of those eighty some years.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Well, for some reason, the IOC did this deep dive
into its records and they ruled that curling had actually
been intended as part of the official program back in
nineteen twenty four. So even though the original team members
were long gone by this point. They were given the
long overdue honor of being upgraded to these full Olympic
gold medals.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Well, I'm glad you brought up demo sports because I
actually spent some time looking at old Winter Olympics And
have you ever heard of skigering?
Speaker 1 (16:39):
No, is that like corfball.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
It's exactly like corfball on skis. So this comes from
the nineteen twenty eight Games. But basically competitors on skis
were pulled over jumps and other obstacles by riderless horses.
Why it was this one off event that never returned
to the Olympics, But it actually still has a following,
and there's a World Skeetering Championship that's held in Whitefish, Montana,
every single year.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
I mean, I have to admit that sounds like a
sport that happened by accident where somebody like fell off
a horse.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
It was still attached to it. But I've never heard
of that.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
I mean, I did know that dogs made an appearance.
I think it was in the nineteen thirty two Winter
Olympics that were like Placid, But this was just part
of a demonstration for this sled dog racing, and so
the sport re emerged at the fifty two Games in Oslo,
but you know, surprisingly it never quite made it to
official event status.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Yeah, it's kind of crazy because sled dog racing seems
like a natural fit. Yeah, I mean, I guess they
always have the Iditarod, but sadly for like a lot
of other sports that they don't have, like their own championships.
So there's one called ski Ballet or across Sky, and
it was pretty much what the name suggests. So competitors
take to a smooth slope and they performed these highly
(17:47):
choreographed ski maneuvers and it's all set to music.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Huh, which sounds awesome, right, yeah it does.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
It cropped off at two Winter Olympics. It was shown
in Calgary in eighty eight and then again in France
in ninety two, but it never really found an audi
and in fact, the International Ski Federation for some reason
stopped holding formal competition for the sport in two thousand
and that's kind of when the dream of ski bala died.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
I mean, it's kind of weird, but I'd probably watch it.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
In fact, I think i'd be really good at it,
all right, Well, one of the weirdest official sports of
the Winter Games was called the Winner Pentathlon. So in
addition to cross country skiing and shooting, the event also
featured get this, skiing, horseback riding, and of course fencing.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Wait, how did this not catch on? Skis, horses, guns, swords,
something for everyone?
Speaker 3 (18:33):
You're not kidding, I mean, I feel like everybody can
find something awesome in this. But I suppose it was
deemed a little too complicated for the Olympics. But it
actually is still held every year as part of the
Military World Games.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
So here's an event that, despite fan outcry, was also
deemed too complicated for the Winter Olympics. Chicken sled racing.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
All right, that can't be a real thing, No way.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
I know it's only sort of a thing. So a
few years ago, KFC and this ad agency hired two
members of the Team USA Bob Sled Team to help
promote their new chicken strips. And the breakman for the
team is this guy. Jim Carril was filmed eating chicken
from the KFC Go Cup while racing down the track
at seventy miles per hour with a force of five
Gee's so friendly. This is some sort of feet. According
(19:18):
to carryl, no other bobsled team out there is pulling
five g's while eating chicken, and he's right and more
casual fans of chicken sled racing may not know the
physical demands five g's puts on an athlete. Do you
know how much an extra crispy strip weighs at five
g's It's almost a half pound. Seriously, don't try this
at home.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
I love how serious he is with that. That's pretty great.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
And yeah, I am guessing the sport never made it
to the demo phase though.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Yeah, so, I mean, the company started this social media
campaign that include this petition to make it an official
event at the twenty eighteen Games, but as far as
I know, it won't be debuting there.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
That's probably for the best.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
But all right, well, speaking of Bob's ledding, did you
ever hear how the sport got it start? Actually kind
of a three for here, because there were two other
winter sports that involved the icy track. You've got the
luge the skeleton, and those can also be traced back
to the same source.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
So, I mean, I know what loses it's when there's
like a single person on a sled face up and
feet first. But remind me what's skeleton again.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
It's pretty much the reverse, like you sled face down
and face first, which is just awful.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
It's terrifying. It just makes me like nervous thinking about it.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
I know me too, But the story is pretty strange
as well. So apparently lose skeleton and bob sledding. All
owe this huge debt to a Swiss hotel owner. His
name was Casper Badrutt, and in the eighteen sixties Casper
hit upon the idea of a winter resort and this
was kind of a way to fill empty rooms during
the freezing winter months in Saint Marins. So he convinced
(20:47):
English tours that there was plenty of fun to be
had by speeding through the town's streets on kind of
a modified sled that that happened to be popular at
the time among local delivery boys. It was only one
problem to this, and that's an i'mateure. Sledgers were routinely
smacking into unsuspecting pedestrians. They were just trying to walk
down the street, and I guess in some ways that
(21:07):
wasn't great for business. So Casper came up with a solution,
and that was to construct this icy halfpipe, and so
people could, you know, no longer have to recavoc in
the streets, and they started experimenting with new configurations. They might,
you know, strap two sleds together to make somewhat of
a bob sled, And within a decade this recreational sledding
had morphed into a few distinct competitive sports, and by
(21:30):
the time the Winter Olympics rolled around in nineteen twenty four,
bob sled or bob slag as they used to call it,
it was kind of a natural inclusion on the program.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
That's kind of funny because it's actually a similar thing
that happened with the snowboard. So the basic idea of
snowboards first cropped up in the eighteen hundreds, but they
didn't become a commercial product. And I didn't realize this
but until the nineteen sixties. And that's when a Michigan
man named Sherman Poppin strapped two skis together to make
a new kind of ride for his daughter. And you'll
(21:58):
love this. He dubbed the invention the snurfer snurfer and
he sold over a million of them in the next decade,
and then athletes made their own adjustments and improvements, just
like with the bob sled, and then the sport became
a full blown craze in the eighties and nineties. Also,
I really do wish we could keep calling it snurfing.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Yeah, let's try to bring that back if we can.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
But yeah, it's wild to think about how recent a
breakthrough something as familiar as snowboarding really is.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
And what's weird.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
It's kind of the same with figure skating too. I mean,
ice skating has been around for hundreds of years, but
you know, the expressive acrobatic version that we think of
with figure skaters, that didn't come around until the mid
nineteenth century. And believe it or not, it was an
American who actually popularized it. The guy's name was Jackson Haynes,
and he was looking for a way to combine his
ballet dance training with ice skating at a time when
(22:46):
most of the skaters were focusing on just doing these
complex patterns and the ice and so moving gracefully to
music and all the spinning and jumping. That was something
that no ice skater was doing at the time, and
it all seemed too theatrical, I guess for some people,
so this restricted view frustrated Haynes, and so he left
for Europe and this international style, as they started to
(23:07):
describe it, it began to thrill these audiences in London
and Paris and other places that they were taking it.
And so we chriss crossed the European continent as this
skating celebrity for over a decade. And so today people
remember him as the father of figure skating.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Oh I love that anyway. I know there are plenty
of other innovations connected to the Winter Olympics like we
should probably talk about, but first let's take a little break.
So Dave Bergart is a dear friend of mine. This
is how far we go back. So I was on
(23:42):
a study abroad trip to Tibet, and I knew no
one on the program. And as I was walking onto
this bus as a total dork. I mean, I think
I had a sketch pad in one hand and a
ukulelea in my other, and I had this ridiculous little
suitcase while everyone had these awesome hiking backpacks. And by Dave,
and he was on this bus just playing with a
Rubik's cube and he was wearing a Coffeels T shirt
(24:05):
which was a little band from Delaware, and I thought,
another cool dork. I found my people. But then later
Dave was so humble about this, and I was shocked
to learn he was number one in the country and
ski archery and and the fact that he was a
real athlete just blew me away. But that's what I
wanted to talk about today. So Dave Brogart, welcome to
the program.
Speaker 5 (24:25):
Hey, thanks mangusch And we can debate real athlete with
ski archery.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
So I'm always interested in these like fringe sports, and
I'm so curious, like how did you even learn about
ski archery and how did you get into it?
Speaker 5 (24:40):
Yeah, that's a good question. So you know, obviously I
grew up as a competitive archer. I was just like
I think I was one of those kids. I just
went to summer camp and you know, picked up archery
and you know, just fell in love with it. And
it just happened like the camp counselor like lived down
the street for me, and he shot archery year round,
(25:03):
and so he invited me to, you know, start shooting
with him, and so like in I don't know, elementary school,
middle school, like I was kind of going around the
East Coast doing all these archery tournaments, and then like
I hit high school and like, archery is fun. I
learned a lot from it, but it was like a
little bit too mellow, and all my friends are doing
Nordic skiing and so I just picked it up and
(25:24):
then like learned about it and I'm like, wait, I
can combine these two things and this really obscure sport,
Like that sounds awesome and it's like the.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Most amazing ben diagram of things I'd never.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
Put together totally.
Speaker 5 (25:39):
And so yeah, I just started racing in the the
archery archery Bathlon and like I just was at the
right time, like it was starting to get bigger internationally
and had some opportunities to start traveling and racing, and yeah,
I did that from like nineteen ninety eight to like
two thousand and seven ish or so, and I raced
all over Europe in Russia, and yeah, it was a
(26:03):
good experience.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
That's amazing. So when you started, how many people were
you competing against in the US?
Speaker 4 (26:08):
Like pretty small?
Speaker 5 (26:10):
I mean, you know, Nordic skiing is a pretty small
niche and then like if you add like biathlon, which
is the sort of the cousin sport, which just uses
you know, rightful instead of a bow and arrow that's
even smaller and then if you like take, it's like
even a smaller piece of that.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
And chess boxing, which you know is that where they're
like rounds of chess and followed by boxing, Like it
has to be an okay chess player, but it helps
to be a really great boxer like Mike Dyson would
destroy Gary Kasparov. But do you have to be a
better skier archer and ski archery?
Speaker 4 (26:42):
Yeah, it's a good question. I would probably say skier.
Speaker 5 (26:46):
You have to be good at both for sure, but
fast gears tended to do better I think than just
straight archers.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yeah, and so I know when you traveled abroad to competitions,
families would put you up. Could you tell us about
your Russian host family and how they welcomed you and
your computing there?
Speaker 5 (27:06):
Man, Yeah, this cracks me up because you know, there's
this one race I did in like a Siberian outpost
and there's like no hotel. So yeah, I was put
up by host family, and uh, you know, I was
like in shape and like kind of living a monk lifestyle,
like eating pretty healthy and they were so tickled to
have like an American in their house. They wanted to
(27:28):
give me like the best hospitality possible, and they, like
the night before the race, like insisted that I just
take like vodka shot after vodka shot, and like then
they're like heated up there like wood fired sauna, and
like you know, like would accept like no.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
For an answer.
Speaker 5 (27:44):
So I went out there and like kind of craziness
just ensued with like a local policeman coming and all
of a sudden, we were firing his gun at like
pepsi cans in the backyard. I was not in tip
top race shape the next day, but I didn't know
if that was a yeah, part of like my competitors'
plan or what. But you know, years later, like I
(28:07):
don't think it mattered how we did in the race.
It was a pretty fun story and cool cultural experience
and yeah, I feel really lucky.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
That's pretty awesome. So we want to put you to
a quiz because we always put our favorite guests to
a quiz. So this is called real discontinued Olympic event
or something we made up. I love it, Okay, So
the first one is tug of War. Is this a
real discontinued event or something we made up.
Speaker 5 (28:32):
Oh, I I'm gonna go real event. I bet, I
bet in the old like you know. Really, I could
see this in early nineteen hundred, so I can see
I can see Tug of war.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Yeah, absolutely right. They had eight men team and England
was particularly good at it. And it was from nineteen
hundred to nineteen twenty. All right, one for one solo
synchronized swimming.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
I'm gonna have to go made up.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
I don't know if we so I thought it was
it was fake too, but it's a real event. This
is from nineteen eighty four to nineteen ninety two, and
despite the name, apparently the synchronized is actually with the
music and not with other people.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
Oh that is so good.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 5 (29:17):
We missed ot calling that gosh.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
H tandem horse dancing.
Speaker 6 (29:23):
Oh god, I want to say false, but after that
last one threw me for a loop tandem horse dancing,
it's I have to say false.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Yeah, it's false, but I want it to be a
real event. For two men's snowman construction.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
Two men, I'm gonna go false. I hope this is false.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Yeah, that's also false and number five swimming obstacle.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
Course, well, we've only had one true one so far.
I don't know if that two hm true?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yeah, that's right. So according to the Guardian, the discipline
required swimmers to clamber over a pole hovering just above
the surface of the water, scramble over a row of
parked boats, and then swim under another row of little ships.
And apparently people who grew up in harbors would tend
to win this competition.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Yeah, So Dave one astounding four for five, which entitles
him to our top prize. A hand written note to
his wife or boss, singing his praises Dave Virgart, thanks
for being on Part Time Genius.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
That's awesome, Thanks so much.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Welcome back to Part Time Genius. So one thing I
noticed while prepping for this episode is just how many
breakthrough innovations happened to coincide with the nineteen sixty Winter Olympics.
And it's not an exaggeration to say that the Games
would never be the same again after that year.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Oh it's a big statement, right, So what kind of
stuff were you thinking about?
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Well, for starters, nineteen sixty was the year of the Zamboni.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
The Zamboni So like the thing on the hockey rinks
and stuff.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Yeah, so Frank Zamboni invented in nineteen forty nine and
he used it at his family owned rink, and then
it started to catch on with the public in the fifties,
especially after Sonya Henny bought one to take along on
her travels. And you remember Sonia Henny as the Norwegian
young kid.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
I do remember her. And it was his name, really,
Frank Zamboni. That's awesome, Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
And when it came time for the nineteen sixty Games,
Zamboni's were finally ready to make their Olympic debut, so
they used Frank's padded method. The machine actually shaves the
surface of the ice and then sweeps away the shavings
and then it washes the ice though it's nice and
slick for skaters, and all these years later, Zamboni's are
still the gold standard.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Yeah, it's an interesting fact.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
I'm still not one hundred percent convinced you didn't sneak
that in just so you can say Zamboni. But anyway,
what else was big for the nineteen sixty Games.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Well, Zamboni's and Bonie's Ambonie well, the biggest game changer
that year was that the Olympics were televised for the
first time. And it's kind of hard to imagine today
when you can watch round the clock live coverage of
every single event, But until the nineteen sixties and the
nineteen sixty Games in particular, the only people who could
watch the Olympics were those who attended them. And that
(32:25):
changed when CBS paid this tiny, paltry sum of fifty
thousand dollars for exclusive broadcasting. Oh wow, yeah, I mean,
it's so little money, right, but it totally paid off
for the network and they saw record setting ratings that year,
but the athletes and organizers actually benefited from it as.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Well, So all right, so how's that?
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Well, I mean, there was some confusion during the men's
slalom skiing event that year, and officials were unsure whether
one of the skiers had actually missed a gate during
his run. But thanks to this new deal with the
TV network, the officials actually had this chance to resolve
the matter, and they asked members of the CBS team
if they could review the tape to confirm what had happened.
CBS obliged, and in doing so, they actually came up
(33:06):
with something that became indispensable in all sports, the instant replay.
So that all started from the Winter Olympics.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
Oh, that's pretty cool. I guess you're accurate. So nineteen
sixty was a pretty big year for the Winter Games.
But you know, actually one of my favorite innovations didn't
come along until almost thirty years later. It was in
the eighty eight Games in Calgary, and that was the
year when the National Research Council of Canada devised a
special all weather Olympic torch. This was to be used
(33:32):
in the traditional relay before the Games, and unlike previous torches,
this one was designed to be especially lightweight and it
was powered by this special fuel that allowed the flame
to stay lit during its eighty eight day, eleven thousand
mile trip across the Canadian tundra.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
That's amazing across the tundra. And actually it reminds me
of something I read about this year's Olympic Torch relay,
which is going on right now. But apparently in December
there was one leg where the torch was carried by
the South Korean robot named Hubo.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Wait is that allowed I think it all had to
be people.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
No, it can apparently, And the best part was that
Hubo used a power drill to cut a hole in
a wall and then he passed the torch over to
the inventor who created him.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
That is a little bit ridiculous, but I mean also
a good reminder that the Olympics can be, you know,
pretty entertaining.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Sometimes, especially when you add robots to the mix, which
is something South Korea is going all in on this year.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Yeah, you know, I was reading about how their Ministry
of Science is working with these local companies and so
they're rolling out new technologies all through the games. Like
apparently they've been testing these multilingual and autonomous robots at
the airports so they can guide visitors to correct gates
or provide information about flight times, and then when they
aren't busy with guests, they just roam around and clean
(34:43):
things up.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
And so the hope is that the bots can be
put to work in pyeong Chang as a way to
get visitors around this language barrier there.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
That's pretty neat And from everything I read, this year's
games are going to be like this true Techi paradise.
So aside from the full on robots. Hyundai has these
self driving buses that risk visitors around the host city,
and they've got a fleet of aerial drones they'll be
watching over the proceedings. And that's not just to help
broadcast events, but also for security purposes and maybe also
(35:11):
part of the entertainment offerings.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
I don't know, we'll find out.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
But the thing that'll catch most nerds attention is that
the Winter Olympics will be the test site for the
new five G mobile network, and so most of us
won't be able to connect to this new platform until
twenty twenty, but for those in attendance, the network will
actually provide data speeds up to a thousand times faster
than the current networks.
Speaker 5 (35:31):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
I mean that's fast enough to download almost a gig
of data in a single second.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
That's pretty well all right.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
Well, we've talked about some of these very you know,
tech heavy innovations that we should be seen, but there
are also some non tech based first that we should
look forward to as well. There was one of I
was reading about, you know. For example, Adam Rippon will
compete in figure skating as the first openly gay male
athlete to represent the US and the Winter Olympics, which
is kind of hard to believe that it's not until
(35:57):
this year that that's happening. But you know, all the
next activity aimed at homosexual athletes during the twenty fourteen Games,
and so Chi Adam's performance hopefully will be an uplifting
moment for many people at this year's event.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Yeah, and one of the first I'm most looking forward
to this year is Nigeria's debut at the Winter Olympics.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Huh.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
The African nation will become the latest warm weather country
to buck the cold climate trend and that's all thanks
to its women's bobsled team.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Oh wow, So it's kind of like cool Runnings all
over again.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Yeah, definitely, And just like with the famous Jamaican bob
sled team, Nigeria's team is a total labor of love.
So they actually crowdsourced the seventy five thousand dollars they
needed on GoFundMe for like sleds and equipment and fees.
And according to the sled driver, her name is Seon
Attigan and anyway, this is her quote. I was inspired
to start the Nigerian women's bobsled team in hopes of
(36:47):
being the first ever African representative men or women to
qualify for the Winter Olympic Games in the sport of
bob sled.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Well, mission accomplished on that one. That's pretty neat and
I can't wait to see how they do. You know,
this year more than others, I'm really.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Looking forward to the Games.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
You know, things feel pretty divided these days, so it
does seem extra important to have this event where people
from all different regions and all different cultures they can
come together and you kind of celebrate what humanity is
capable of, and to do so in this friendly spirit
of competition that the Olympics.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Is really all about.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
I know, and in South Korea, Yeah, no kidding, but
will I know the opening ceremonies are still a few
weeks away, but would you say we kick things off
early with the men's freestyle fact off event?
Speaker 1 (37:30):
You know what, Mango, I say, let the Games begin.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
So did you know that only one person has won
gold at both the Winter and Summer Olympics, and that
honor goes to American Eddie Egan. He won the light
heavyweight boxing event in the nineteen twenty Olympics, and over
a decade later he was part of the four man
Bob's led team that took gold at Lake Placid. There
are three other athletes that have won in winter and summer,
(38:01):
but Egan is the only one to take gold at both.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
So I know, we were just talking about the Jamaican
bobsled team that got so much attention for the Calgary
Olympics and cooled runnings, and you know, the team was
kind of a punchline for a while, but they eventually
won their fans over because of their hard work and determination.
But what I didn't remember, and what most people probably
don't remember, is that the team still competes and they've
actually gotten much better. In fact, only six years after
(38:25):
those nineteen eighty eight games, the Jamaican team actually beat
both US teams in the event.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
I didn't know that either, all right, So, which country
is most dominant in a single sport? I was looking
ato this and you may remember that four years ago
in Sochy, the long track speed skaters from the Netherlands
took home something like seventy percent of the medals in
that sport.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
I mean, just completely dominant, right.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
But the Atlantic was looking back at metals over the
past eleven Olympics and they found that the most dominant
country in a single sport, those would be Germany's losures,
and they took home something like thirty seven percent of
medals over that period of time. Now, I should note
this would include East and West Germany as well as
the unified Germany, so they did get to have more
competitors over that period of time.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
But that's still pretty remarkable.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Yeah, that's amazing. So the only winter sport where an
American athlete has never meddled is the biathlon. But you know,
I have a feeling that they're gonna pull it off
this year. Yeah, But I mean, the truth is, I'm
saying that, like I know anyone who competes it.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
Yeah, I don't even know exactly who does that, but
I hope that we win one there. So all right, Well,
earlier we mentioned Norway being a powerhouse in the Winter Olympics,
and it's even more impressive if you look at their
performance per capita. But approximately five million citizens, they're roughly
the same size as my home state of Alabama, and
they've won approximately one Winter Olympic medal for every seventeen
(39:45):
thousand residents. Now, I don't know if that sounds like
much or not. But compare that to the US, where
it's one for every one point two million.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
So I like the fact, but I can actually top it.
And that's because everyone forgets about Liechtenstein.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
I forgot about lickeden Stein.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
So they've won a total of nine medals all in
alpine skiing, and that's actually close to one for every
forty two hundred people there.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
That is pretty crazy that one out of every forty
two hundred people that.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Live there has won a medal.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
That is, it's on all the recruiting materials.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
Well, Mango, I have to admit it.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
You have won it.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
You win this week's fact Off Trophy.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Well, thank you guys for listening. That's it for today.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
If we've forgot any great facts about the Winter Olympics
or just the Olympics in general, we'd love to hear
from you. It's part time genius at HowStuffWorks dot com.
You can always call us on our twenty four to
seven fact Hotline. It is still twenty four to seven mango.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
One eight four four pt genius. You can also hit
us up on Facebook or Twitter. Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Thanks again for listening. Part time.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
Genius is a production of how stuff works, and wouldn't
be possible without several brilliant people who do the important
things we couldn't even begin to understand.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Tristan McNeil does the editing thing.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
Noel Brown made the theme song and does the mixy
mixy sound thing.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Jerry Rowland does the exact producer thing.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Gabelozier is our lead researcher, with support from the research
Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and Eves.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Jeff Gook gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
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If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,
And if you really really like what you've heard, maybe
you could leave a.
Speaker 1 (41:28):
Good review for us. Could we forget Jams Jason who
Guess what will what's that mango?
Speaker 2 (00:01):
So you know what my favorite part of the Winter
Olympics is, all.
Speaker 3 (00:04):
Right, I think I want to guess on this one.
I'm gonna guess the bobs led.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I mean, that's super fun. But my favorite armchair sport
at the Olympics is trying to spot the carpetbaggers.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
The carpetbaggers.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Yeah, I mean, you know you see it in the Olympics,
but especially in the Winter Olympics, Like at Sochi, there
was this couple from Long Island in their late forties
who thought would be fun to compete at the Olympics
for Dominica, which is this tiny island nation in the Caribbean.
And you'd obviously have to be super fit to be
in your late forties and make the US ski team, right,
but in Dominica you kind of just have to have
(00:38):
a pair of skis in a passport.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
So, I mean, how prevalent is this carpetbaggering? How do
they get away with this?
Speaker 2 (00:44):
I mean it is discouraged, but sometimes it's like elite
athletes who couldn't make cut in their country where they live,
but then you know they want to compete for their
country of origin, and sometimes it's athletic mercenaries, like Bahrain
is notorious for buying Kenyans to long distance for their nation.
And then there are these wealthy crazies who could just
buy their way in, like Germany has this prince named
(01:06):
Hubertus who was born in Mexico, but it's competed for
Mexico in slalom six times. I believe wow at Sochi,
he was fifty five years old when he's doing this. Yeah,
and you might remember him from wearing this outrageous spandex
mariachi outfit.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
I'm gonna look him up.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
I don't remember this, he said. If he wasn't gonna win,
at least he could name for best dressed. Getting excited
to spot these Olympic outcasts made me wonder about all
the other things at the Winter Olympics, like when did
the Winter Olympics start? And why does Norway dominate the games?
And why does curling get to be a sport. So
let's stay in.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Will Pearson and it's always I'm joined by my good
friend Mangesh hut Ticketter and on the other side, of
the soundproof glass, showing off his brand new Winter Olympic
stuffed animal pal. I don't know how he got a
hold of that. That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil.
Look over there, Mango at Sue Harang, you know, the
white tiger mascot for the upcoming Games.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yeah, I'd recognize them anywhere. So I love that the
Winter Olympics get their own mascots. It's actually one of
my favorite things about the Olympics.
Speaker 3 (02:32):
Well, you know, the winner Games might play second fiddle
in terms of scale and viewership, but I feel like
the mascots, those things can go toe to toe with
their summer cousins. In fact, one thing I learned while
preparing for today's show is that we actually have the
Winter Games to thank for this whole idea of these
Olympic mascots. You know, they didn't start out as this
cute and cuddly animal like Sue Harang might be just
(02:54):
look at it over there in Tristan's lap. But the
very first one was this creepy caricature of this armless
skier I don't know why, with his manic red face.
His name was Shush after the term for the straight
downhill ski run. And then he popped up as this
unofficial mascot of the nineteen sixty eight Winter Games that
(03:14):
were in France. And even though his simple, big headed
design led to most fans calling him the skiing sperm,
Schus was a big hit with attendees and so he
kind of paved the way for the first official mascot
four years later, and that was that multicolored dot son
named Waldy who appeared at the Summer Olympics in Munich.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
So Schuss is great, but if we're talking unnerving mascots,
I'm gonna go with Schneeman.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Shush, and Schneman.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Schneeman was the first official mascot at the Winter Games,
and this was back in nineteen seventy six, and he
was basically just a snowman head on tiny legs wearing
this big, floppy red hat. It's almost like a kid
started building Schneman and then gave up after realizing there
was an Atarian cide where it was warmer.
Speaker 1 (03:59):
I'm done with you, schneaem It.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Well, obviously, today's show is all about the Winter Olympics,
and we're getting pretty excited around here for next month's games.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
In Pyeongchang.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
So we wanted to take the opportunity to dig into
some of that weird history and the surprising controversies that
surround these lesser known Olympics. So, Mega, where do you
feel like we should start?
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Well, you know, I always like starting at the beginning,
you Which actually wasn't that long ago for the Winter Olympics.
So the first official Winter Games were held in France
back in nineteen twenty four, which was only twenty eight
years after the first modern Summer Olympics in Athens. But
the Winter Olympics were known by a different name originally,
So the first event was actually called Winter Sports Week,
(04:39):
and it was this twelve day program consisting of six
sports and sixteen events.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
That's such a weird name, like it sounds like something
you'd participate in in college or something.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
So why did they call it this?
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Was it like a test run for the winter version
of the Olympics or what?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Yeah, exactly right. So, figure skating and ice hockey were
actually part of the Summer Games already at that point,
and the idea of giving cold weather sports their own
showcase was first floaded by the IOC in nineteen twenty one.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
So, I mean it seems like the interest was there.
So why did this first event get such a like
a watered down name.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Well, I mean some Scandinavian countries boked at the idea
of a separate event because they already took part in
their own competition called the Nordic Games and they didn't
want an official winner Olympics to steal their thunder. So,
you know, the committee made this Winter Sports Week. But
the Games were this huge success. There were ten thousand
paying attendees who turned up to watch sixteen countries compete
(05:30):
in sports like speed skating and bob sled and curling,
and the events were such a smash hit that just
one year later, the IOC retroactively declared it the first
Olympic Winner Games.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Huh.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
All right, so who were like, you know, like the
Michael Phelps of the first Winter Olympics. Were there any
standouts or were the athletes still trying to kind of
figure out what they were doing in the competition.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Yeah, so, you know, the Scandinevan countries, like I mentioned,
had this leg up because they'd been holding their own
competitions for over twenty years at this point. So Norway
in particular, has always dominated the Winter Games, and the
first one was no exception. They had this incredible athlete,
thorleaf Haw, which is about as Nordica name as you
can have, i'd say, And he was this legendary skier
(06:11):
who won three gold medals in three different events that year,
and he also took home a bronze medal for the
ski jump competition. But this is super weird. Fifty years later,
it was discovered that a scoring mistake had actually happened
and the medal actually belonged to this US athlete named
Andrews Hoggen.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Wow, fifty years later, I mean, I guess better late
than ever, but still that is a long time.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
So were there any other US victories that year?
Speaker 4 (06:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Actually, the very first gold medal awarded went to this
American speed skater named Charles Jutra, and he was this underdog,
but in the end he beat out all twenty six
other skaters by completing the five hundred meter event in
just forty four seconds. And my favorite underdog though, is
this Norwegian ice skater who's named Sonja Henny. And not
(06:54):
only was she only one of eleven female athletes competing
that year, she was also only eleven years old.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
Eleven years old. Wow, so did she win?
Speaker 2 (07:03):
No, she came in dead last time. But the nineteen
twenty four Games were actually just the start of her career.
She won a gold medal at each of the next
three Winter Olympics.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Wow, and she grew up to.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Be this Norwegian movie star.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
I mean, Norwegian just really do kind of own the
Winter Games, don't they.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
I mean I was reading that Norway has actually won.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
More gold medals in the competition than any other country
After Sochi. Their record stands I think it's one hundred
and eighteen gold medals and something like three hundred and
twenty nine total.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Yeah, and they're actually one of only three countries the
other two being Austrian Liechtenstein, that have actually won more
medals in the Winter Olympics than in the Summer ones.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Hm.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
I mean it makes a lot of sense given their
geography and the climate. But you know, that cold weather
advantage is actually kind of at the root of one
of the Winter Olympics' biggest controversies.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
You know, put things in perspective.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
There are ninety countries that are set to compete in
pyeong Chang this year, which is a far cry from
the more than two hundred countries that participated in the
twenty sixteen Games that were in Rio. You know, the
reason for that disparity isn't so much a lack of
interest as it is a lack of resources.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
You know, being able to compete.
Speaker 3 (08:06):
In events like lusing and figure skating and Bob's letting.
I mean, all of that requires this practice and these
very expensive facilities. And his Olympic historian David Waalachinsky puts it,
if you want to run one hundred meters or even
a marathon, you can just step outside your door and
go do it. If you want to play soccer, you
can do that anywhere. But if you want to compete
in the luge, I don't think so. So obviously, you know,
(08:28):
something like the alpine skiing is it's an expensive hobby
and if you're trying to compete, just think about all
the equipment and training and also just the regular access
to these facilities that you'd need to have.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Yeah. So, I know in tennis they say if you
don't play for two days, you lose some of your
muscle memory and you're basically relearning your strokes. Yeah, which
is crazy, right, But if you think about something like that.
For skiing, I mean, the climate dependent nature of the
events definitely hurts your chances if you're from a tropical place,
and the Winter Olympics have also developed this, you know,
elitist stigma because the cold countries also tend to be
(09:01):
richer and whiter, which is probably one of the reasons
that they still aren't as popular as the summer counterparts.
Which isn't to say that more temperator even downright tropical
countries don't get a chance to shine. I mean, everyone
remembers cool runnings, right and the Jamaican bob sled team
from the nineteen eighty eight Calgary Games. But there's still
a long way to go if the Winter Olympics want
to be an event that's truly representative of international athletes.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Yeah, you know, And since we're talking about controversies and
you mentioned the eighty eight Olympics, I just have to
take a second to talk about Eddie the Eagle.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
So I'm not sure I know that mascot.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
I know it sounds very cuddly, but Eddie the Eagle
is actually one of the nicknames for Michael Edwards, and
he was this British plaster who always dreamed of competing
as a downhill skier in the Olympics, and after determining
that ski jumping would be cheaper and less competitive in
order to be able to prepare, Michael became the first
in British history to participate in the event. Now, there
(09:53):
was only one little problem, and that was the fact
that he was terrible at ski jumping. In fact, he
crashed at the World Championship in nineteen eighty six, kind
of became the laughing stock of the press and they
not so lovingly referred to him as mister Magoo. But
you know, Edwards was undeterred and he managed to fulfill
his dream by competing at the Calgary Olympics just two
years later. Although he successfully landed his Johnbie, he didn't
(10:15):
score even like half the total points as any of
the other competitors. But nonetheless, Eddie the Eagle, as he
was called by the President of the IOC, became this
national star and you know, an unexpected point of pride
for England.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
So I'm guessing where the story is going, right, It's
just like that little Norwegian girl who rallied and came
back to clean house at the next Olympics.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Uh, definitely not Now.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Edwards competed for a spot I think in the next
three Winter Games, but the Olympic community had raised the
qualifying standards at that point and that was really to
box him out.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
And you know.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Still he claims about seventy percent of his income now
comes from speaking engagement, so it wasn't a total loss.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
For the guy.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Yeah, And as far as controversy is going, that one's
pretty innocent, Like most Olympic scandals are a little more
tinged with, definitely. And so I was reading about Orton Enderland.
She was this East German Lewes champion who wound up
forfeiting her gold from the sixty eight Games when it
was discovered that she and her teammates had actually heated
the rails that are sled just prior to the race.
(11:14):
I mean, I didn't realize the physics of this, but
the extra warmth had reduced the sled's friction with the ice,
which gave them a much faster run time. And so
the three women were disqualified, but the East German Olympic
committee never took responsibility. Instead, they blamed it all on
a capitalist revenge plot.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Oh yeah, that must have been a capitalist revenge plot.
You know, it's funny because I know about like corking
your bed or deflating a football, but I honestly have
no idea how to cheat in winter sports. I mean,
it wouldn't even occur to me to heat the metal
under your luge. That's also a sentence I never thought
I would say. But all right, well, speaking of East Germany,
there's one interesting thing I came across, and that was
(11:51):
that West and East Germany actually reached across the Iron
Curtain and they decided to compete together as this unified
team of Germany. This happened in three Olympics, fifty six
and sixty and sixty four. But that's when the truce
came to an end because this alternate for an East
German team, I think on the toboggan team. They used
the games as a way to make a break for freedom.
(12:12):
And so her name was outa Gawller, and apparently she
fled for West Germany while her teammates were celebrating during
a reception one night.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
That's crazy.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
Did she make it?
Speaker 3 (12:20):
She actually did? And you know what, she actually wasn't
even the only one. According to the Associated Press, there
were thirteen fans from Eastern European communist countries that also
escaped under the cover of the Olympics.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
That's amazing and you kind of have to admire people
who saw an opportunity and seized it. So one of
my favorite Olympic controversies centers on this guy named Stephen Bradbury,
who depressed dubbed the accidental gold medalist. He was on
the Australian speed skating team that won the country its
first medal at the Winter Olympics back in nineteen ninety four,
but his most triumphant moment came at the two thousand
(12:52):
and two Games in Salt Lake City, and by that
point Bradbury had suffered a number of debilitating injuries and
was no longer at the top of his game. In fact,
he only made it through the quarterfinals that year because
another athlete was disqualified, and he made it through the
semis because a number of his competitors fell down on
the track. Oh wow, And that fall actually gave him
this great idea for what would turn out to be
(13:12):
a winning strategy when it came time for the big race.
Bradbury figured his best shot was just to hang back,
you know, on the off chance that another fall might
clear the field for him, and amazingly the plan worked
like in spades. As he was racing, there was this
disastrous fall that caused all four of his competitors to
collapse in him. Yeah, it was just before the finish line,
(13:34):
and Bradbury kind of just skated slowly around them, claiming
his coal metal.
Speaker 5 (13:38):
You know.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
The craziest part was like the crowd was booing and jeering.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
I mean, I kind of love that story. It might
not be like a glorious win, but a win.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Is a win exactly. And Bradbury's sort of admitted that
he won by sheer luck, and he used to sort
of be upset about it and conflicted about it, but
now he kind of considers his reward for you know,
this entire career hard work.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
I mean, you know, like we were saying earlier, the
Winter Olympics don't always favor these warmer weather countries, and
Australia certainly being one of those, so.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
You have to take what you can get.
Speaker 3 (14:09):
I think there's actually one other long running controversy I
do want to mention, but before we get to that,
let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
You're listening to.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Part time genius, and we're talking about the little known
origins and shocking scandals of the Winter Olympics, all right, Mega,
So the last controversy I wanted to mention is just
how long it took for a British curling team to
receive its gold medals.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
And why is that?
Speaker 3 (14:42):
Well, Great Britain won the curling competition way back in
the inaugural Winter Games of nineteen twenty four, but the
winner actually didn't get their gold until a whopping eighty
two years later. So what was the hold of Well,
the delay stem from some confusion over weather curling had
been an official event at the first Games, or whether
it was what they called a demonstration sport. You know,
(15:03):
these are the events that are mostly there for promotional
purposes and kind of build interest in these niche sports.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah. So, my friend Dave was a ski archer, and
he was like tenth in the world and number one
in the US when we were in college. It's not
a big sport here, but it is in Europe, and
I was always hoping they'd make ski archery a sport
just so I could watch him in the Olympics. But
it never happened.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
You know, I've met Dave before, and he never bragged
about this unel I would start every conversation with I
was number one in the world at.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
The ski archery thing.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
But you know, it's weird to think about things that
have been these demonstration sports, like, you know, everything from
pigeon racing and ballooning to even volleyball and tennis. But
at some point those were outsider sports. And also there
was a sport called I think corfball. I don't know
what that is, but I'm a big fan just because
of a name. Anyway, some of the demonstration sports wind
(15:53):
up becoming official events, but until they do, they actually
don't give the winners of these the proper Olympic medals.
So even though curling was played at the first Winter Olympics,
it didn't reappear in the Games until nineteen ninety eight,
and its first appearance became accepted as you know, just
being a demonstration event.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
So what changed over the course of those eighty some years.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
Well, for some reason, the IOC did this deep dive
into its records and they ruled that curling had actually
been intended as part of the official program back in
nineteen twenty four. So even though the original team members
were long gone by this point. They were given the
long overdue honor of being upgraded to these full Olympic
gold medals.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Well, I'm glad you brought up demo sports because I
actually spent some time looking at old Winter Olympics And
have you ever heard of skigering?
Speaker 1 (16:39):
No, is that like corfball.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
It's exactly like corfball on skis. So this comes from
the nineteen twenty eight Games. But basically competitors on skis
were pulled over jumps and other obstacles by riderless horses.
Why it was this one off event that never returned
to the Olympics, But it actually still has a following,
and there's a World Skeetering Championship that's held in Whitefish, Montana,
every single year.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
I mean, I have to admit that sounds like a
sport that happened by accident where somebody like fell off
a horse.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
It was still attached to it. But I've never heard
of that.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
I mean, I did know that dogs made an appearance.
I think it was in the nineteen thirty two Winter
Olympics that were like Placid, But this was just part
of a demonstration for this sled dog racing, and so
the sport re emerged at the fifty two Games in Oslo,
but you know, surprisingly it never quite made it to
official event status.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Yeah, it's kind of crazy because sled dog racing seems
like a natural fit. Yeah, I mean, I guess they
always have the Iditarod, but sadly for like a lot
of other sports that they don't have, like their own championships.
So there's one called ski Ballet or across Sky, and
it was pretty much what the name suggests. So competitors
take to a smooth slope and they performed these highly
(17:47):
choreographed ski maneuvers and it's all set to music.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Huh, which sounds awesome, right, yeah it does.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
It cropped off at two Winter Olympics. It was shown
in Calgary in eighty eight and then again in France
in ninety two, but it never really found an audi
and in fact, the International Ski Federation for some reason
stopped holding formal competition for the sport in two thousand
and that's kind of when the dream of ski bala died.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
I mean, it's kind of weird, but I'd probably watch it.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
In fact, I think i'd be really good at it,
all right, Well, one of the weirdest official sports of
the Winter Games was called the Winner Pentathlon. So in
addition to cross country skiing and shooting, the event also
featured get this, skiing, horseback riding, and of course fencing.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Wait, how did this not catch on? Skis, horses, guns, swords,
something for everyone?
Speaker 3 (18:33):
You're not kidding, I mean, I feel like everybody can
find something awesome in this. But I suppose it was
deemed a little too complicated for the Olympics. But it
actually is still held every year as part of the
Military World Games.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
So here's an event that, despite fan outcry, was also
deemed too complicated for the Winter Olympics. Chicken sled racing.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
All right, that can't be a real thing, No way.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
I know it's only sort of a thing. So a
few years ago, KFC and this ad agency hired two
members of the Team USA Bob Sled Team to help
promote their new chicken strips. And the breakman for the
team is this guy. Jim Carril was filmed eating chicken
from the KFC Go Cup while racing down the track
at seventy miles per hour with a force of five
Gee's so friendly. This is some sort of feet. According
(19:18):
to carryl, no other bobsled team out there is pulling
five g's while eating chicken, and he's right and more
casual fans of chicken sled racing may not know the
physical demands five g's puts on an athlete. Do you
know how much an extra crispy strip weighs at five
g's It's almost a half pound. Seriously, don't try this
at home.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
I love how serious he is with that. That's pretty great.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
And yeah, I am guessing the sport never made it
to the demo phase though.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Yeah, so, I mean, the company started this social media
campaign that include this petition to make it an official
event at the twenty eighteen Games, but as far as
I know, it won't be debuting there.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
That's probably for the best.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
But all right, well, speaking of Bob's ledding, did you
ever hear how the sport got it start? Actually kind
of a three for here, because there were two other
winter sports that involved the icy track. You've got the
luge the skeleton, and those can also be traced back
to the same source.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
So, I mean, I know what loses it's when there's
like a single person on a sled face up and
feet first. But remind me what's skeleton again.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
It's pretty much the reverse, like you sled face down
and face first, which is just awful.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
It's terrifying. It just makes me like nervous thinking about it.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
I know me too, But the story is pretty strange
as well. So apparently lose skeleton and bob sledding. All
owe this huge debt to a Swiss hotel owner. His
name was Casper Badrutt, and in the eighteen sixties Casper
hit upon the idea of a winter resort and this
was kind of a way to fill empty rooms during
the freezing winter months in Saint Marins. So he convinced
(20:47):
English tours that there was plenty of fun to be
had by speeding through the town's streets on kind of
a modified sled that that happened to be popular at
the time among local delivery boys. It was only one
problem to this, and that's an i'mateure. Sledgers were routinely
smacking into unsuspecting pedestrians. They were just trying to walk
down the street, and I guess in some ways that
(21:07):
wasn't great for business. So Casper came up with a solution,
and that was to construct this icy halfpipe, and so
people could, you know, no longer have to recavoc in
the streets, and they started experimenting with new configurations. They might,
you know, strap two sleds together to make somewhat of
a bob sled, And within a decade this recreational sledding
had morphed into a few distinct competitive sports, and by
(21:30):
the time the Winter Olympics rolled around in nineteen twenty four,
bob sled or bob slag as they used to call it,
it was kind of a natural inclusion on the program.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
That's kind of funny because it's actually a similar thing
that happened with the snowboard. So the basic idea of
snowboards first cropped up in the eighteen hundreds, but they
didn't become a commercial product. And I didn't realize this
but until the nineteen sixties. And that's when a Michigan
man named Sherman Poppin strapped two skis together to make
a new kind of ride for his daughter. And you'll
(21:58):
love this. He dubbed the invention the snurfer snurfer and
he sold over a million of them in the next decade,
and then athletes made their own adjustments and improvements, just
like with the bob sled, and then the sport became
a full blown craze in the eighties and nineties. Also,
I really do wish we could keep calling it snurfing.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Yeah, let's try to bring that back if we can.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
But yeah, it's wild to think about how recent a
breakthrough something as familiar as snowboarding really is.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
And what's weird.
Speaker 3 (22:24):
It's kind of the same with figure skating too. I mean,
ice skating has been around for hundreds of years, but
you know, the expressive acrobatic version that we think of
with figure skaters, that didn't come around until the mid
nineteenth century. And believe it or not, it was an
American who actually popularized it. The guy's name was Jackson Haynes,
and he was looking for a way to combine his
ballet dance training with ice skating at a time when
(22:46):
most of the skaters were focusing on just doing these
complex patterns and the ice and so moving gracefully to
music and all the spinning and jumping. That was something
that no ice skater was doing at the time, and
it all seemed too theatrical, I guess for some people,
so this restricted view frustrated Haynes, and so he left
for Europe and this international style, as they started to
(23:07):
describe it, it began to thrill these audiences in London
and Paris and other places that they were taking it.
And so we chriss crossed the European continent as this
skating celebrity for over a decade. And so today people
remember him as the father of figure skating.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
Oh I love that anyway. I know there are plenty
of other innovations connected to the Winter Olympics like we
should probably talk about, but first let's take a little break.
So Dave Bergart is a dear friend of mine. This
is how far we go back. So I was on
(23:42):
a study abroad trip to Tibet, and I knew no
one on the program. And as I was walking onto
this bus as a total dork. I mean, I think
I had a sketch pad in one hand and a
ukulelea in my other, and I had this ridiculous little
suitcase while everyone had these awesome hiking backpacks. And by Dave,
and he was on this bus just playing with a
Rubik's cube and he was wearing a Coffeels T shirt
(24:05):
which was a little band from Delaware, and I thought,
another cool dork. I found my people. But then later
Dave was so humble about this, and I was shocked
to learn he was number one in the country and
ski archery and and the fact that he was a
real athlete just blew me away. But that's what I
wanted to talk about today. So Dave Brogart, welcome to
the program.
Speaker 5 (24:25):
Hey, thanks mangusch And we can debate real athlete with
ski archery.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
So I'm always interested in these like fringe sports, and
I'm so curious, like how did you even learn about
ski archery and how did you get into it?
Speaker 5 (24:40):
Yeah, that's a good question. So you know, obviously I
grew up as a competitive archer. I was just like
I think I was one of those kids. I just
went to summer camp and you know, picked up archery
and you know, just fell in love with it. And
it just happened like the camp counselor like lived down
the street for me, and he shot archery year round,
(25:03):
and so he invited me to, you know, start shooting
with him, and so like in I don't know, elementary school,
middle school, like I was kind of going around the
East Coast doing all these archery tournaments, and then like
I hit high school and like, archery is fun. I
learned a lot from it, but it was like a
little bit too mellow, and all my friends are doing
Nordic skiing and so I just picked it up and
(25:24):
then like learned about it and I'm like, wait, I
can combine these two things and this really obscure sport,
Like that sounds awesome and it's like the.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Most amazing ben diagram of things I'd never.
Speaker 4 (25:36):
Put together totally.
Speaker 5 (25:39):
And so yeah, I just started racing in the the
archery archery Bathlon and like I just was at the
right time, like it was starting to get bigger internationally
and had some opportunities to start traveling and racing, and yeah,
I did that from like nineteen ninety eight to like
two thousand and seven ish or so, and I raced
all over Europe in Russia, and yeah, it was a
(26:03):
good experience.
Speaker 2 (26:04):
That's amazing. So when you started, how many people were
you competing against in the US?
Speaker 4 (26:08):
Like pretty small?
Speaker 5 (26:10):
I mean, you know, Nordic skiing is a pretty small
niche and then like if you add like biathlon, which
is the sort of the cousin sport, which just uses
you know, rightful instead of a bow and arrow that's
even smaller and then if you like take, it's like
even a smaller piece of that.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
And chess boxing, which you know is that where they're
like rounds of chess and followed by boxing, Like it
has to be an okay chess player, but it helps
to be a really great boxer like Mike Dyson would
destroy Gary Kasparov. But do you have to be a
better skier archer and ski archery?
Speaker 4 (26:42):
Yeah, it's a good question. I would probably say skier.
Speaker 5 (26:46):
You have to be good at both for sure, but
fast gears tended to do better I think than just
straight archers.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yeah, and so I know when you traveled abroad to competitions,
families would put you up. Could you tell us about
your Russian host family and how they welcomed you and
your computing there?
Speaker 5 (27:06):
Man, Yeah, this cracks me up because you know, there's
this one race I did in like a Siberian outpost
and there's like no hotel. So yeah, I was put
up by host family, and uh, you know, I was
like in shape and like kind of living a monk lifestyle,
like eating pretty healthy and they were so tickled to
have like an American in their house. They wanted to
(27:28):
give me like the best hospitality possible, and they, like
the night before the race, like insisted that I just
take like vodka shot after vodka shot, and like then
they're like heated up there like wood fired sauna, and
like you know, like would accept like no.
Speaker 4 (27:43):
For an answer.
Speaker 5 (27:44):
So I went out there and like kind of craziness
just ensued with like a local policeman coming and all
of a sudden, we were firing his gun at like
pepsi cans in the backyard. I was not in tip
top race shape the next day, but I didn't know
if that was a yeah, part of like my competitors'
plan or what. But you know, years later, like I
(28:07):
don't think it mattered how we did in the race.
It was a pretty fun story and cool cultural experience
and yeah, I feel really lucky.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
That's pretty awesome. So we want to put you to
a quiz because we always put our favorite guests to
a quiz. So this is called real discontinued Olympic event
or something we made up. I love it, Okay, So
the first one is tug of War. Is this a
real discontinued event or something we made up.
Speaker 5 (28:32):
Oh, I I'm gonna go real event. I bet, I
bet in the old like you know. Really, I could
see this in early nineteen hundred, so I can see
I can see Tug of war.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Yeah, absolutely right. They had eight men team and England
was particularly good at it. And it was from nineteen
hundred to nineteen twenty. All right, one for one solo
synchronized swimming.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
I'm gonna have to go made up.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
I don't know if we so I thought it was
it was fake too, but it's a real event. This
is from nineteen eighty four to nineteen ninety two, and
despite the name, apparently the synchronized is actually with the
music and not with other people.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
Oh that is so good.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
Isn't that crazy?
Speaker 5 (29:17):
We missed ot calling that gosh.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
H tandem horse dancing.
Speaker 6 (29:23):
Oh god, I want to say false, but after that
last one threw me for a loop tandem horse dancing,
it's I have to say false.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
Yeah, it's false, but I want it to be a
real event. For two men's snowman construction.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
Two men, I'm gonna go false. I hope this is false.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Yeah, that's also false and number five swimming obstacle.
Speaker 4 (29:58):
Course, well, we've only had one true one so far.
I don't know if that two hm true?
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yeah, that's right. So according to the Guardian, the discipline
required swimmers to clamber over a pole hovering just above
the surface of the water, scramble over a row of
parked boats, and then swim under another row of little ships.
And apparently people who grew up in harbors would tend
to win this competition.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
That's amazing.
Speaker 2 (30:31):
Yeah, So Dave one astounding four for five, which entitles
him to our top prize. A hand written note to
his wife or boss, singing his praises Dave Virgart, thanks
for being on Part Time Genius.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
That's awesome, Thanks so much.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Welcome back to Part Time Genius. So one thing I
noticed while prepping for this episode is just how many
breakthrough innovations happened to coincide with the nineteen sixty Winter Olympics.
And it's not an exaggeration to say that the Games
would never be the same again after that year.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Oh it's a big statement, right, So what kind of
stuff were you thinking about?
Speaker 2 (31:12):
Well, for starters, nineteen sixty was the year of the Zamboni.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
The Zamboni So like the thing on the hockey rinks
and stuff.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Yeah, so Frank Zamboni invented in nineteen forty nine and
he used it at his family owned rink, and then
it started to catch on with the public in the fifties,
especially after Sonya Henny bought one to take along on
her travels. And you remember Sonia Henny as the Norwegian
young kid.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
I do remember her. And it was his name, really,
Frank Zamboni. That's awesome, Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
And when it came time for the nineteen sixty Games,
Zamboni's were finally ready to make their Olympic debut, so
they used Frank's padded method. The machine actually shaves the
surface of the ice and then sweeps away the shavings
and then it washes the ice though it's nice and
slick for skaters, and all these years later, Zamboni's are
still the gold standard.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Yeah, it's an interesting fact.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
I'm still not one hundred percent convinced you didn't sneak
that in just so you can say Zamboni. But anyway,
what else was big for the nineteen sixty Games.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Well, Zamboni's and Bonie's Ambonie well, the biggest game changer
that year was that the Olympics were televised for the
first time. And it's kind of hard to imagine today
when you can watch round the clock live coverage of
every single event, But until the nineteen sixties and the
nineteen sixty Games in particular, the only people who could
watch the Olympics were those who attended them. And that
(32:25):
changed when CBS paid this tiny, paltry sum of fifty
thousand dollars for exclusive broadcasting. Oh wow, yeah, I mean,
it's so little money, right, but it totally paid off
for the network and they saw record setting ratings that year,
but the athletes and organizers actually benefited from it as.
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Well, So all right, so how's that?
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Well, I mean, there was some confusion during the men's
slalom skiing event that year, and officials were unsure whether
one of the skiers had actually missed a gate during
his run. But thanks to this new deal with the
TV network, the officials actually had this chance to resolve
the matter, and they asked members of the CBS team
if they could review the tape to confirm what had happened.
CBS obliged, and in doing so, they actually came up
(33:06):
with something that became indispensable in all sports, the instant replay.
So that all started from the Winter Olympics.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
Oh, that's pretty cool. I guess you're accurate. So nineteen
sixty was a pretty big year for the Winter Games.
But you know, actually one of my favorite innovations didn't
come along until almost thirty years later. It was in
the eighty eight Games in Calgary, and that was the
year when the National Research Council of Canada devised a
special all weather Olympic torch. This was to be used
(33:32):
in the traditional relay before the Games, and unlike previous torches,
this one was designed to be especially lightweight and it
was powered by this special fuel that allowed the flame
to stay lit during its eighty eight day, eleven thousand
mile trip across the Canadian tundra.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
That's amazing across the tundra. And actually it reminds me
of something I read about this year's Olympic Torch relay,
which is going on right now. But apparently in December
there was one leg where the torch was carried by
the South Korean robot named Hubo.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Wait is that allowed I think it all had to
be people.
Speaker 2 (34:04):
No, it can apparently, And the best part was that
Hubo used a power drill to cut a hole in
a wall and then he passed the torch over to
the inventor who created him.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
That is a little bit ridiculous, but I mean also
a good reminder that the Olympics can be, you know,
pretty entertaining.
Speaker 2 (34:17):
Sometimes, especially when you add robots to the mix, which
is something South Korea is going all in on this year.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
Yeah, you know, I was reading about how their Ministry
of Science is working with these local companies and so
they're rolling out new technologies all through the games. Like
apparently they've been testing these multilingual and autonomous robots at
the airports so they can guide visitors to correct gates
or provide information about flight times, and then when they
aren't busy with guests, they just roam around and clean
(34:43):
things up.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
That's awesome.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
And so the hope is that the bots can be
put to work in pyeong Chang as a way to
get visitors around this language barrier there.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
That's pretty neat And from everything I read, this year's
games are going to be like this true Techi paradise.
So aside from the full on robots. Hyundai has these
self driving buses that risk visitors around the host city,
and they've got a fleet of aerial drones they'll be
watching over the proceedings. And that's not just to help
broadcast events, but also for security purposes and maybe also
(35:11):
part of the entertainment offerings.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
I don't know, we'll find out.
Speaker 2 (35:14):
But the thing that'll catch most nerds attention is that
the Winter Olympics will be the test site for the
new five G mobile network, and so most of us
won't be able to connect to this new platform until
twenty twenty, but for those in attendance, the network will
actually provide data speeds up to a thousand times faster
than the current networks.
Speaker 5 (35:31):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
I mean that's fast enough to download almost a gig
of data in a single second.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
That's pretty well all right.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
Well, we've talked about some of these very you know,
tech heavy innovations that we should be seen, but there
are also some non tech based first that we should
look forward to as well. There was one of I
was reading about, you know. For example, Adam Rippon will
compete in figure skating as the first openly gay male
athlete to represent the US and the Winter Olympics, which
is kind of hard to believe that it's not until
(35:57):
this year that that's happening. But you know, all the
next activity aimed at homosexual athletes during the twenty fourteen Games,
and so Chi Adam's performance hopefully will be an uplifting
moment for many people at this year's event.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
Yeah, and one of the first I'm most looking forward
to this year is Nigeria's debut at the Winter Olympics.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
Huh.
Speaker 2 (36:15):
The African nation will become the latest warm weather country
to buck the cold climate trend and that's all thanks
to its women's bobsled team.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
Oh wow, So it's kind of like cool Runnings all
over again.
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Yeah, definitely, And just like with the famous Jamaican bob
sled team, Nigeria's team is a total labor of love.
So they actually crowdsourced the seventy five thousand dollars they
needed on GoFundMe for like sleds and equipment and fees.
And according to the sled driver, her name is Seon
Attigan and anyway, this is her quote. I was inspired
to start the Nigerian women's bobsled team in hopes of
(36:47):
being the first ever African representative men or women to
qualify for the Winter Olympic Games in the sport of
bob sled.
Speaker 3 (36:54):
Well, mission accomplished on that one. That's pretty neat and
I can't wait to see how they do. You know,
this year more than others, I'm really.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Looking forward to the Games.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
You know, things feel pretty divided these days, so it
does seem extra important to have this event where people
from all different regions and all different cultures they can
come together and you kind of celebrate what humanity is
capable of, and to do so in this friendly spirit
of competition that the Olympics.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
Is really all about.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
I know, and in South Korea, Yeah, no kidding, but
will I know the opening ceremonies are still a few
weeks away, but would you say we kick things off
early with the men's freestyle fact off event?
Speaker 1 (37:30):
You know what, Mango, I say, let the Games begin.
Speaker 3 (37:41):
So did you know that only one person has won
gold at both the Winter and Summer Olympics, and that
honor goes to American Eddie Egan. He won the light
heavyweight boxing event in the nineteen twenty Olympics, and over
a decade later he was part of the four man
Bob's led team that took gold at Lake Placid. There
are three other athletes that have won in winter and summer,
(38:01):
but Egan is the only one to take gold at both.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
So I know, we were just talking about the Jamaican
bobsled team that got so much attention for the Calgary
Olympics and cooled runnings, and you know, the team was
kind of a punchline for a while, but they eventually
won their fans over because of their hard work and determination.
But what I didn't remember, and what most people probably
don't remember, is that the team still competes and they've
actually gotten much better. In fact, only six years after
(38:25):
those nineteen eighty eight games, the Jamaican team actually beat
both US teams in the event.
Speaker 1 (38:30):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
I didn't know that either, all right, So, which country
is most dominant in a single sport? I was looking
ato this and you may remember that four years ago
in Sochy, the long track speed skaters from the Netherlands
took home something like seventy percent of the medals in
that sport.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
I mean, just completely dominant, right.
Speaker 3 (38:48):
But the Atlantic was looking back at metals over the
past eleven Olympics and they found that the most dominant
country in a single sport, those would be Germany's losures,
and they took home something like thirty seven percent of
medals over that period of time. Now, I should note
this would include East and West Germany as well as
the unified Germany, so they did get to have more
competitors over that period of time.
Speaker 1 (39:09):
But that's still pretty remarkable.
Speaker 2 (39:10):
Yeah, that's amazing. So the only winter sport where an
American athlete has never meddled is the biathlon. But you know,
I have a feeling that they're gonna pull it off
this year. Yeah, But I mean, the truth is, I'm
saying that, like I know anyone who competes it.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
Yeah, I don't even know exactly who does that, but
I hope that we win one there. So all right, Well,
earlier we mentioned Norway being a powerhouse in the Winter Olympics,
and it's even more impressive if you look at their
performance per capita. But approximately five million citizens, they're roughly
the same size as my home state of Alabama, and
they've won approximately one Winter Olympic medal for every seventeen
(39:45):
thousand residents. Now, I don't know if that sounds like
much or not. But compare that to the US, where
it's one for every one point two million.
Speaker 2 (39:53):
So I like the fact, but I can actually top it.
And that's because everyone forgets about Liechtenstein.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
I forgot about lickeden Stein.
Speaker 2 (40:02):
So they've won a total of nine medals all in
alpine skiing, and that's actually close to one for every
forty two hundred people there.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
That is pretty crazy that one out of every forty
two hundred people that.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Live there has won a medal.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
That is, it's on all the recruiting materials.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
Well, Mango, I have to admit it.
Speaker 2 (40:19):
You have won it.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
You win this week's fact Off Trophy.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Well, thank you guys for listening. That's it for today.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
If we've forgot any great facts about the Winter Olympics
or just the Olympics in general, we'd love to hear
from you. It's part time genius at HowStuffWorks dot com.
You can always call us on our twenty four to
seven fact Hotline. It is still twenty four to seven mango.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
One eight four four pt genius. You can also hit
us up on Facebook or Twitter. Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Thanks again for listening. Part time.
Speaker 3 (41:00):
Genius is a production of how stuff works, and wouldn't
be possible without several brilliant people who do the important
things we couldn't even begin to understand.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
Tristan McNeil does the editing thing.
Speaker 3 (41:09):
Noel Brown made the theme song and does the mixy
mixy sound thing.
Speaker 2 (41:13):
Jerry Rowland does the exact producer thing.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
Gabelozier is our lead researcher, with support from the research
Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and Eves.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
Jeff Gook gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
Speaker 3 (41:24):
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And if you really really like what you've heard, maybe
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Speaker 1 (41:28):
Good review for us. Could we forget Jams Jason who
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