August 16, 2024 • 31 mins
How great were the Olympics?! Pretty great. But that doesn't mean they couldn't be better. From Poodle clipping to ski ballet, Will and Mango resurface 9 incredible and obscure sports that ought to be included in the next Olympic Games.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
You're listening to part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio. Guess what Will?
Speaker 2 (00:13):
What's that Mango?
Speaker 1 (00:14):
So you know how I love all those obscure Olympic
sports that are kind of on the bubble right.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
This is something you and I have talked about for
a long time. We both love learning about all the
weird sports, the strange sports like chest boxing, extreme ironing,
all the good stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Dream ironing is like my favorite easily. I was reading
an article on GQ about historic Olympic sports, and the
number one straightest Olympic sport on their list is poodle clipping.
Can you believe that?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Actually, no, I don't think that. I did.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Wait, was poodle clipping actually a sport? According to the article,
it was just a test event. But in the Paris
nineteen hundred Games, one hundred and twenty eight poodle groomers
supposedly competed in front of a lively crowd of six
thousand cheering fans where they had to trim as much
for off as many poodles as they could in two hours,
which sounds utterly ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
That is incredible, and I do have to say I
don't want to brag, but I feel like I could
have gold zoned the heck out of that event. But
I am curious, like, how many poodles do you have
to shave to win an event like that?
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Well, I am certain that poodle clipping training and technology
has only evanced since nineteen hundred, but at the time,
the gold medal was supposedly won by a farmer's wife
named a real lafoul who gave fancy haircuts to seventeen poodles.
And this is the fact. You can find all over
the web, from the Sunday Times to the BBC's Olympics
(01:37):
live blog from Beijing and of course GQ where I
found it. So of course I was super excited to
talk about it. But it turns out, and this totally
broke my heart. Poodle clipping is a hoax.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
No, oh man, this is heartbreaking because I was actually
really going to get into it, Like, once a poodle
is shaved, do they go back to that same poodle
or do they just have this long line of poodles,
Like once you shaved, you're done, but.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
You have to toss the poodle to move on.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
I think I guess so. But anyway, if it's a hoax,
so there's there's no poodle clipping in the Olympics.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah, and so this comes from the Museum of Hoaxes.
But in two thousand and eight, a writer named Christopher
Lyles was writing a daily countdown column for the Daily Telegraph,
and every day he wrote some sort of story or
fact about Olympic history. But on April first, he decided
to have some fun with his column and he made
up this bit about poodle clipping. Now, the Olympics obviously
(02:30):
has tested a whole bunch of unusual games over the years,
from pigeon shooting to tandem cycling, and when he published
that poodle clipping was a test event in the nineteen
hundred France Olympics, it kind of felt too good to
be true, right, Like it's French, it's historic, it involves poodles.
But of course one of the clearest tells was the
name of the winner of real lafool aka the French
(02:51):
word for April and lafool. Anyway, as the Museum of
Hoaxes put it, the April Fools joke has a slow
burn because people forget about it, and then every four
years of resurfaces, making anyone in the nose smile again,
which is a pretty wonderful legacy.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
That's pretty great.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Anyway, Now that the Paris Games are over, and you know,
we're setting our sites on the La Olympics, I thought
it would actually be fun to revisit some ridiculous sports
and competitions. Not poodle clipping, but you know, games that
were actually a part of the Olympics, and I thought
you might be up for that.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
I love this because I'm having that withdrawal. You know,
it's been so much fun. I'm not getting to watch
anybody win medals for trampolining and all that good stuff.
So let's do what I'm in. Hey, their podcast listeners,
(03:57):
welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and is all.
I'm joined by my good friend menges Sha Ticketer and
sitting behind that big booth practicing twirling in his office
chair like it's an Olympic sport. I mean, he actually,
I would say, looks like an Olympic gymnast as qualified
as he is with this. It's just amazing. Look at
him go a mango.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
I mean it's impressive. He was doing handstands earlier. But
Dylan does know that desk twirling isn't an Olympic sport, right.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
No, No, he knows this. He's been hard at work
petitioning in the IOC, and he'll be ready when they
admit it to the twenty twenty eight Games. He's optimistic.
I'm optimistic.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
I cannot wait to cheer him on. Well.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I don't know about you, Mango, but I'm still coming
down from all the excitement of the Olympic Games. And
it's fun to look back at some of the unusual
events that used to be included. Like this comes for
the International Society of Olympic Historians, and it talks about
some of the contests that took place in the nineteen
hundred Paris Olympics. They included cannon firing, pigeon racing, firefighting,
(04:56):
and kite flying. Some of this just seems so fun.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
I mean, they all sound crazy, I but firefighting is
a sport is kind of amazing.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, I mean this comes from a time when the
World's Fair used to run in tandem with the Olympic Games,
and there was actually a lot of crossover between the
two events. And there's some disagreement from the IOC about
which ones were fully part of the Olympics, but there
were definitely a lot of experimental and exhibition games taking
place really sort of all over Paris.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
So of course, part of the reason we're doing this
episode is because we love stories about things on the bubble,
like we love tales about pedigree dogs that are on
the cusp of being allowed to compete in the Westminster
Dog Show, or words that got cut from the dictionary.
And of course there are a lot of Olympic sports
that fall into this category as well, including breakdancing or breaking,
which was just add to the Olympic Games this year,
(05:44):
and I was curious, did you enjoy watching breakdancing the Olympics.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I have to say people sometimes question why it's in
the Olympics, but if you think about it, if you're
out in public and breakdancing is on TV. This actually
happened to me just a couple of weeks ago during
the Olympics, and you see it on TV, and the
response from everybody this was in a restaurant, is they
all start acting like their break dancing, Like there's something
(06:10):
so fun and almost contagious about it, Like everybody starts
doing their same awful moves. It it's it's just a
lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Honestly, yeah, I agree, But what fact are you going
to lead off with?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
All right, Well, you know, I'm a fan of American
Ninja Warrior. Like from wayback in the earliest days, Big
Time used to set up courses for my kids all
through our den and everywhere, and it was just so
much fun to turn our house into the ultimate obstacle course. Now, look,
I wasn't fooling myself. I didn't think my kids would ever,
you know, end up in American Ninja Warrior, because I
certainly didn't have the coordination to do it. But it
(06:44):
was fun to be able to pretend at home. And
so I was delighted when I found out that swimming
obstacle race used to be an event in the Olympics.
I love obstacle races, just like cannon shooting and kite flying.
This comes from the nineteen hundred Olympic Games in Paris,
but the event almost sounds like it was just made
up on the spot. So swimmers had to get across
(07:05):
this two hundred meter course on the River sind which
included quote, climbing over a pole, scrambling over a row
of boats, swimming under another row, of boats. I mean,
it's just again, it's like they're making it up along
the way. And the event was supposed to show strength,
agility and swimming prowess, which I guess it did.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
It almost sounds like a doubledare course right in the slime.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah. Yeah, there's no like flag you pull out of
a nose or anything like that. But you know, of
course that the river was apparently really muddy during the event,
so it might have been a thicker swim than you'd
expect for an Olympic game. So even back then they
were having some trouble with what they needed out of
the water. But what's also interesting is that an Australian
athlete named Fred Lane won the obstacle course race and
(07:49):
he also won the two hundred meter freestyle, so this
was a very good athlete. But according to the Olympic
dot COM's profile of him, it was at a time
when people were still trying to figure out what the
fastest stroke was. So people competing in swim competitions with breastroke,
doggy style, something called the trudgeon, which later morphed into
the crawl. But you know, people were trying all these
(08:12):
different strokes out, but Fred's stroke of choice and the
two hundred meter was a trudgeen where he swam on
his left side but used a scissor kick to cut
through the water. I actually, I don't know why I'm
acting it out right now, but listeners can't see that.
But you know, you can see how fast it would be.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
I can't see you because I'm just paying attention to
Dylan still spinning.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Back, guys still going.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
It is funny to think, though that, you know, everything
from the way we start sprints off blocks to the
way we swim has changed so much over the years.
I kind of wish they'd bring that event back though.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, But you know, weirdly, despite the popularity of it
with spectators, they only held the swimming obstacle race at
that one Olympics. I agree, though, I don't see why
they don't bring it back.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Well, here's another event you might be surprised was once
an Olympic sport, and that's pistol dueling.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Did you say dueling?
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Yeah, I mean, I guess when you think about it,
it's not that different from like fencing or boxing, like
two people facing off trying to kill each other.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Yeah, except for the guns. Part of it, manga. That
part's a little weird.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
That's right, except for the guns. So if there's any
sport that's truly been on the cost of the Games,
it's dueling. So dueling was part of the nineteen oh
six Summer Olympics, or the nineteen oh six Intercalated Games
as they're called. But the dueling there was more like
a target practice. There was a dummy who wore a
fancy coat, I guess to make it seem more human,
but it had a bull's eye on the chest and
(09:36):
competitor shot at it. So it wasn't really that much
more exciting than archery. But then the nineteen oh eight
Olympics were slated and a doctor and dueling enthusiast named
Paul Devilers really saw this as his chance. And this
comes from our old friend Jake Rossen at Mental Floss.
But basically dueling didn't lead to that many deaths when
(09:56):
it was popular. Often the guns misfired or people missed
and the duel was called off because of the strict rules.
So aside from the poor case of Alexander Hamilton, which
we all now know about, it didn't lead to that
many debts. And then during the Civil War, when there
was an enormous amount of death and people aimed guns
at one another, dueling really lost its charm. But Devilar
(10:18):
saw it as this gentleman's sport and he wanted to
bring it back in a safe way, so he came
up with all these rules to make it safer. He
devised a way for the guns to shoot wax bullets
without melting them. He made people wear protective gear kind
of like the chain mail you'd wear for fencing, and
metal helmets as well with goggles. There was a shield
on the gun to protect your hands, so your hand
(10:39):
wouldn't get hit by the bullet. And as Jake points
out in his article, one reporter described the effects this
way quote, instead of the soft wax bullets shrieking through
the bodies of the duel lists, they will yield up
their fair young lives like tomatoes hurled against a barn door.
So the whole point was that the wax bullet would splatter,
and an arbiter could declare someone dead without really declaring
(11:01):
someone dead.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
That is wild, and so dueling gets incorporated in the games.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Not exactly, so the sport gets some momentum. In France,
and England, and it has these really big supporters, including
the former French president, but instead of being a real event,
it gets sort of an exhibition status. Eleven duelers from
all over the world, including Russia, France, America and Sweden
all competed, partially because many of them were Fencers and
(11:26):
they would have come for the Olympic competition anyway. But
while the sport is allowed to take place on the
Olympic rounds, it's kind of shoved into a corner before
the real games begin. And while there was some excitement
around dueling, it really didn't last.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
And why do you think it gets cast aside as
a sport or an Olympic event.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Part of it is that World War One starts not
too long after, and that kind of dulls people's enthusiasm
for seeing people shoot guns at other humans, much like
the Civil War before it. But the other is that
devilers and others couldn't really make a strong case for it.
This one sharpshooter named Walter wins He tried to claim
that dueling is actually a net benefit and as he
(12:04):
put it, quote, a man thinks twice before being rude.
If he thinks he will have to face a pistol
in consequence. But I guess that wasn't enough of an
argument for the Olympic committees.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Yeah, I guess not.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
So what's next on your list?
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Why don't we talk a little bit about ski ballet,
which is sort of like figure skating on skis. Obviously,
I have.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Never heard of this, and it sounds incredible to me.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
It is incredible. Yeah, I'm going to send you some
videos because it is really fun to watch. Actually, I'm
sending this link to your phone right now. You should
check this out. Watch it. I mean, don't you feel
like this is something that you'd be pretty good at.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
I'm watching now. It is. It is beautiful.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, there's a grant Land story on the
history of the sport, and what's interesting is that the
sport really emerges in the nineteen seventies, and according to
the article, apparently youth were just rebelling against any sort
of rules or restrictions. This was in the era of
the Vietnam War, of course, and indulging in this sort
of beautiful, artsy rule free dance skiing became part of
(13:08):
that revolt, not a type of revolt I can imagine
but it was still pretty funny to see.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
That sounds fake, but I like it.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, it's true. I mean, that's actually what sport organizers
attribute it to. And you know, because we really haven't
seen much ski ballet in our lifetime. In the Olympics,
it was a demonstration sport in the nineteen eighty eight,
nineteen ninety two Olympics. And I do not remember this
from when we were younger, and those would have been
Olympics we were paying attention to. But I never realized
how popular it was. It was both an individual event
(13:38):
a team event. There were these synchronized routines and lifts.
It's a lot like figure skating as you see it
now or ice dancing, I guess. But according to the
Grantland piece, ski ballet also featured in chapstick commercials, Bond movies.
There was even a nineteen eighty four movie set in
the world of ski ballet, and it was called Hot Dog,
which the New York Times praised as quote less moronic
(14:00):
than it might have been, which is just a you know,
fantastic review.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
That is an amazing compliment. So, while you were talking
about watching this video and it's really kind of spectacular,
It's like a guy doing flips and skating around on
skis and using his polls to lift himself and do
all these crazy spins, all to John Williams music. It
is great. So what happened to Skibala? Like, how come
this didn't last?
Speaker 2 (14:25):
You know, believe it or not, It somehow didn't attract
enough young people to the sport. I mean it's one
of those that I guess people were amused by it,
but not a lot of people being like I'm going
to go train for this. And unlike snowboarding, where you
put it on in the Olympics and the numbers of
young snowboarders really dramatically increases, ski Bala just didn't have
that kind of pull. You know. The TV numbers weren't
(14:45):
that great either, so they decided to ax it, which
I think is tragic.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Yeah, it feels like the world of ski La is
perfect for a Will Ferrell movie. But right it like
it was in the wrong era, Like you could see
it being a hot trend on Instagram or TikTok.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Now, Oh that's a good point. Yeah, I'm curious whether
it would have taken off if it was more in
the social era. But you're right. I think it was
just ahead of its time. So what's next on your list?
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Well, since we're talking about winter sports, one I think
is really fun is a type of ice getting called
special figures. So this event reminded me of my friend Howard,
who I'm sure I've told you about. But Howard, it
was this super funny, mischievous and really artsy friend of
mine that I grew up with since we were in
elementary school. And when he was in a frat in college,
(15:33):
they had this parade of floats or some competition like that,
and Howard volunteered to participate. So he decides to do
something really funny. He decides to mock WWE style of
wrestling with this doll as his submission, and he has
these canisters of paint in the corners of this wrestling
ring that he's built on the flow, and along the
(15:53):
way he keeps dipping the doll in pain and then
wrestling it like he drops an elbow on it. He
dips in pain and throws it to a souplex or
spins it around on the canvas and keeps dropping down
on it. And after he's thrown the doll around for
like twenty minutes, he tilts up the wrestling mat, which
is actually a canvas, and he's painted Van Goo's Starry
Night on it. It is so stupid and clever and
(16:19):
like perfect Howard. But anyway, Special Figures remind me of that,
because Special Figures is an ice dance in competition where
you do a whole routine, but actually you're drawing a
pattern on the ice. So apparently the early schools of
American and British ice skating actually incorporated a lot of
this ice drawing, because it's very hard to precisely trace
(16:40):
patterns with an ice skate, and the patterns could be
pretty elaborate, like these gorgeous filigreed stars and intricate flowers
and such. And it takes place in precisely won Olympics,
the nineteen oh eight Games in London. There is a
Russian who competes, who is apparently so good that after
people see the pattern he's made on the ice, they quit,
(17:00):
so they don't even try to compete because it's such
good artwork. But if you're wondering why Special Figures didn't
last in his Olympic sport, this quote from Wikipedia might
give you a clue quote. According to figure skating historian
and writer Ellen Kestenbaum, the body movements required to execute
the design were unpleasant to watch, jerky, and did not
(17:21):
use the flow of the blade across the ice. So
even though the patterns were beautiful and needed obvious skill
and control, it was like this hrky, jerky thing to watch.
That said, it sounds like Special Figures might actually be
making a comeback today, non the Olympics, but in competitions
on black ice where you see the patterns better from
the stands. These have actually started taking place and the
(17:43):
event is slowly regaining popularity.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
That actually is really cool. I will have to check
that out more. All right, Well, here's another one that
I almost feel like our audience has to see because
it's incredible, and it's called horse vaulting, which when you
hear the words horse vaulting, you can just picture so
many different things.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
I know, like it seems like horses jumping, but what
is it exactly.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
I mean, the horse high jump and the long jump
were actually competitions in the Olympics before, but this is
more like if you took the pommel horse but did
it on a horse, as the horse was trotting along.
There's a lot involved in this court.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
So people are actually doing gymnastics on a real live horse.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
I'm telling you is it is truly remarkable. Like they
don't wear helmets. The horses on a high leash type
of thing where it's kind of running in a circle.
And while it's trotting, there's music playing and a rider
or an athlete or gymnast, whatever you want to call them,
and they're doing flips and balancing on top and spinning
around on the horse like it's actually really beautiful. This
(18:47):
is how Time magazine describes it. Quote. Horse vaulters do pirouettes,
split leaps, handstands, and arabesque while on top of a
moving steed. Riders perform their jaw dropping routine means to music,
and compete as individuals or as a pair. In the
latter instance, partners lift and toss one another in the
air and perform handstands on top of each other's shoulders.
(19:11):
The sport, which can be traced back at least two
thousand years to the Roman Games, includes the musicality of
synchronized swimming, the daredevil quality of gymnastics, and the beauty
of equestrian events. Like it really is just so fantastic.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
So, first of all, I one hundred percent agree this
video of the German team that you sent me at
the twenty eighteen Equestrian Games is incredible. They're like jumping
on and off the horse to showpin. But how come
it isn't an Olympic sport?
Speaker 2 (19:40):
You know, it's It's not entirely clear, and I do
wonder if it's because it was a very German sport
when it came to the Antwerp Olympics in nineteen twenty.
It might have lost favor during the World Wars. But
in that same article you know that I was looking
at in time, and this is back in twenty twelve,
they made the case to drop race walking for the
Olympics and gested bringing in horse vaulting because hundreds of
(20:02):
people actually still compete in the international competitions, so it
doesn't have the same issues as skip la. I guess
apparently not. Apparently people rushed out to start doing this
and a lot of folks are hoping it'll get pulled
into future games. I for one am part of that crew.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Well, I know we've got a few more sports to
talk about, but before you do that.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Let's take a quick break.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're talking strange
Olympic sports semengo, what do you have horse next?
Speaker 1 (20:45):
So this isn't exactly a feel good one, but it
is definitely strange. Have you ever heard about Anthropology Days
at the Olympics.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
I have not, but I'm definitely intrigued.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
So I first read about this as a footnote in
a book on the lip, and then I found more
on slate. But it is pretty wild. So, as we
mentioned above, the World's Fair and the Olympics often coincided
in the earliest days, and during the nineteen oh four games,
the Olympics slash World's Fair had a pre Olympic event
called Anthropology Days. This comes from History News Now, but
(21:19):
the site states that on August twelfth and thirteenth of
nineteen oh four, quote savages in native costume from Congolese
Pygmy tribes, the Philippines, Patagonia and various Native American tribes
who were barred from regular Olympic games competed against each
other in such nonstandard events as mud fighting, rock throwing,
(21:39):
greased pole climbing, and spear throwing. It is horrible.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
I mean, that is ridiculous. So how did this event
even come to be?
Speaker 1 (21:48):
I mean, I think it was part of the World's
Fair crossover, where there were definitely displays of people like
Ota Benga, the pigmy who ended up in the Bronxio
and the Anthropology Days games, which I can you not
were called the Special Olympics were partially a way to
show the superiority of progress and really of white Anglo Americans.
So the whole thing was utterly disastrous. On the first day,
(22:11):
they tried to take all these native peoples who didn't
speak the language and just set them on a course
like they didn't take time to teach anyone how to
play the games. They tried to get them the high
jump or shot put, and the people were very confused.
As Slate points out, even the one hundred yard dash
was problematic. The starting gun concept was understandably lost on
(22:32):
many of the participants, so too was the idea of
breaking through the finish line. Many would stop short or
run below the tape. So you know, they're putting them
in these events that they didn't explain and made no sense.
And the second day was even worse. This is where
they did the so called savage games like mud fighting,
tree climbing, and spear throwing. But again, none of this
(22:52):
was comprehensible to any of these people, like they'd never
seen a javelin before, so they were just baffled and
also uninterested. The games were a disaster, except for in
the organizer James E. Sullivan's mind, who claimed the whole
thing had scientific purpose. As he put it, quote, the
meeting proves conclusively that the savage has been a very
much overrated man from an athletic point of view, which
(23:15):
is so racist and so dumb. Anyway, what's interesting is
that the modern Olympics founder Pierre Kobuta wholly disagreed with
these savage games, calling it appalling, a charade and an embarrassment,
and he concluded that the whole thing will quote lose
its appeal when essentially all these men on display learned
to run, jump, and throw and leave the white men behind.
(23:38):
He couldn't have distanced himself more from the event, and
he ensured that it wasn't a part of any future Olympics.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Wow, it's just so disturbing, and it makes sense that
he wanted to distance the event from the Olympics. It
just feels against the you know, the spirit of the Games.
But I feel like we need to take this in
a different direction. Mango, that was a weird story. I'm
glad you shared it, but I feel like we need
to go as sparating history though it really is. It
is definitely fascinating history. One of the things I love
(24:06):
is when you see an Olympic sport and you're like,
I could totally do that.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Oh my gosh. I feel like that's half of the Olympics.
Is just like feeling like you could do these things
that are so beyond you. I read this piece about
Olympic ping pong players being challenged all the time and
just how ridiculous it is that that anyone thinks that
they can even get a point off these people. But
I feel like curling is also an example of this.
(24:31):
Like I always think that if I spent half a
year training, I'd be an amazing curler.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Yeah, I mean, curling is actually a great example of this.
And obviously there was a period when you had things
that we all did in school, like tug of war,
rope climbing, and these things were part of the Olympics
at some point which.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Also makes me wonder where they draw the line on sports,
like why isn't dodgeball an Olympic game or capture the
Flag or kickball like all things that could legitimately be competitions.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
No, it's true, and one of the games it doesn't
really feel like it should be an Olympic sport in
my opinion is croque.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Huh, I didn't realize croque was part of the games.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Yeah, this is another sport that was included in the
nineteen hundred Games in Paris, and they were still figuring
out a lot about how to run the Olympics, and
so according to croque World online, there were four croque
events in the nineteen hundred Olympics. There was one ball singles,
two ball singles doubles, and something called singles handicap. But
apparently this is from the official report from the second Olympics.
(25:31):
The reason the game was included is quote due to
the fact that its governing body wish to elevate this
gently pastime to the rank of sport by holding annual
championships end quote. So that was their thinking there, And
it goes on to say one would be wrong, however,
to disdain crok it develops a combative mind. One has
(25:52):
only to see it transform young girls into reasoners, and
from reasoners into reasonable people. I don't even really know
what that means the quote.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
I mean, croque has always done that for people, right.
It sounds pretty sexist.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yes, I would agree, But oddly enough, the Olympics allowed
women to compete with men in croquet and these games,
so the first female Olympians they were actually croquet players.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Oh that's actually pretty cool. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
And the game was not popular, so that was the
downside here, where there was only one spectator who traveled
from England to watch, and because the French insisted that
the croque tournament be spread out over something like eight weeks,
no other countries participated eight weeks. I don't know what
they were thinking here. So France ended up winning all
the medals, of course, which did not help the game's popularity,
(26:41):
and according to Croque World, the games were eliminated from
the Olympics due to a lack of spectatorship and because
the sport had quote hardly any pretensions to athleticism. So
not a great ending there.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
I love that quote. So for my final sport, I
was going to go with solo synchronized swimming, which has
a bit of controversy because the name is kind of laughable.
It's water dancing, which is obviously much more impressive when
you're doing it in sync with a full team of dancers.
By the way, did you see the team doing the
moonwalk underwater?
Speaker 2 (27:14):
It was just incredible. Like I know, synchronized swimming is
one of those sports that over the years has kind
of been made fun of. It was of course involved
in one of the greatest SNL sketches of all time
thanks to Martin Short's involvement in that one. But it
really is just amazing to watch these dancers, Like the
way they control their bodies and sync is just insane
to me.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
I really do not understand it, and I feel like
anyone who thinks it isn't a sport is out of
their mind. But I actually want to talk about something
that doesn't feel like as much of a sport. It's
called distance plunging.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
And what is distance plunging.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
It's basically like a kid's game where you jump in
the water and see how far you can dive without
moving your limbs underwater, and the rules were it was
as far as you went in sixty seconds, or when
your body floated to the top, whatever came first. But
much like croquet, this was a sport that only Americans
participated in at the nineteen oh four Olympics in Saint Louis.
(28:12):
And I actually heard a funny story about this. Apparently
the nineteen oh four Games weren't supposed to go to
Saint Louis. They were actually awarded to Chicago, but because
the World's Fair was happening there that summer, the city
made this huge fuss to make sure that the Olympics
didn't outshine their event and both events could take place
at the same city. So Pierre de Coberta gave Saint
(28:32):
Louis the Olympics, but, as Slate writes, quote, the prospect
of an arduous trip to a second tier city in
the American Midwest kept almost all of the top European
athletes away. Ultimately fewer than half the events had even
one non American entrant. The Baron himself steered clear of
the Games, later recalling that he believed quote the Olympia
(28:53):
would match the mediocrity of the town, which is, you know, unfortunate.
I do love Saint Louis. I think we should a
field trip to the city museum. But it's funny that
because the city wasn't perceived as a big enough sell
to competitors, Americans ended up dominating the events and the
medal count in things like Olympic plunging.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
I did not know that that's that's awesome and it's
a great fact. I know that people might think that
you should win the trophy this week, but I have
to say, I'm still seeing Dylan over there spinning. I
have no idea whether he's actually recorded this episode because
he has not sent focus on anything other than spinning.
Because he's still going, I think we got to give
(29:32):
him the medal this week. What do you think?
Speaker 1 (29:33):
I think? So he's got two trophies this year, and
I think he just wants to collect more and more. Well,
that is it for this week's episode. If you have
any great Olympic stories you want to share, or sports
you think we should lobby to be in the Olympics,
or you just want to send Dylan some congratulations, feel
free to send those to our email address at Petgenius
(29:55):
Moms at gmail dot com. You know, our moms are
sitting around waiting for you to write us and if
you happen to be in the Apple iTunes store looking
at podcasts, don't forget to rate and review this show.
One of the many ways we procrastinated by reading the
comments from Will, Dylan, Mary, and me. That's it for
this week's episode. Thank you so much for listening. Part
(30:27):
Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This
show is hosted by Will Pearson and Me Mongashtikler, and
research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode
was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with
support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced for
iHeart by Katrina Norbel and Ali Perry, with social media
(30:50):
support from Sasha Gay, trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey.
For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio
app full podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
You're listening to part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio. Guess what Will?
Speaker 2 (00:13):
What's that Mango?
Speaker 1 (00:14):
So you know how I love all those obscure Olympic
sports that are kind of on the bubble right.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
This is something you and I have talked about for
a long time. We both love learning about all the
weird sports, the strange sports like chest boxing, extreme ironing,
all the good stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Dream ironing is like my favorite easily. I was reading
an article on GQ about historic Olympic sports, and the
number one straightest Olympic sport on their list is poodle clipping.
Can you believe that?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Actually, no, I don't think that. I did.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Wait, was poodle clipping actually a sport? According to the article,
it was just a test event. But in the Paris
nineteen hundred Games, one hundred and twenty eight poodle groomers
supposedly competed in front of a lively crowd of six
thousand cheering fans where they had to trim as much
for off as many poodles as they could in two hours,
which sounds utterly ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
That is incredible, and I do have to say I
don't want to brag, but I feel like I could
have gold zoned the heck out of that event. But
I am curious, like, how many poodles do you have
to shave to win an event like that?
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Well, I am certain that poodle clipping training and technology
has only evanced since nineteen hundred, but at the time,
the gold medal was supposedly won by a farmer's wife
named a real lafoul who gave fancy haircuts to seventeen poodles.
And this is the fact. You can find all over
the web, from the Sunday Times to the BBC's Olympics
(01:37):
live blog from Beijing and of course GQ where I
found it. So of course I was super excited to
talk about it. But it turns out, and this totally
broke my heart. Poodle clipping is a hoax.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
No, oh man, this is heartbreaking because I was actually
really going to get into it, Like, once a poodle
is shaved, do they go back to that same poodle
or do they just have this long line of poodles,
Like once you shaved, you're done, but.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
You have to toss the poodle to move on.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
I think I guess so. But anyway, if it's a hoax,
so there's there's no poodle clipping in the Olympics.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah, and so this comes from the Museum of Hoaxes.
But in two thousand and eight, a writer named Christopher
Lyles was writing a daily countdown column for the Daily Telegraph,
and every day he wrote some sort of story or
fact about Olympic history. But on April first, he decided
to have some fun with his column and he made
up this bit about poodle clipping. Now, the Olympics obviously
(02:30):
has tested a whole bunch of unusual games over the years,
from pigeon shooting to tandem cycling, and when he published
that poodle clipping was a test event in the nineteen
hundred France Olympics, it kind of felt too good to
be true, right, Like it's French, it's historic, it involves poodles.
But of course one of the clearest tells was the
name of the winner of real lafool aka the French
(02:51):
word for April and lafool. Anyway, as the Museum of
Hoaxes put it, the April Fools joke has a slow
burn because people forget about it, and then every four
years of resurfaces, making anyone in the nose smile again,
which is a pretty wonderful legacy.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
That's pretty great.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Anyway, Now that the Paris Games are over, and you know,
we're setting our sites on the La Olympics, I thought
it would actually be fun to revisit some ridiculous sports
and competitions. Not poodle clipping, but you know, games that
were actually a part of the Olympics, and I thought
you might be up for that.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
I love this because I'm having that withdrawal. You know,
it's been so much fun. I'm not getting to watch
anybody win medals for trampolining and all that good stuff.
So let's do what I'm in. Hey, their podcast listeners,
(03:57):
welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and is all.
I'm joined by my good friend menges Sha Ticketer and
sitting behind that big booth practicing twirling in his office
chair like it's an Olympic sport. I mean, he actually,
I would say, looks like an Olympic gymnast as qualified
as he is with this. It's just amazing. Look at
him go a mango.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
I mean it's impressive. He was doing handstands earlier. But
Dylan does know that desk twirling isn't an Olympic sport, right.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
No, No, he knows this. He's been hard at work
petitioning in the IOC, and he'll be ready when they
admit it to the twenty twenty eight Games. He's optimistic.
I'm optimistic.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
I cannot wait to cheer him on. Well.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I don't know about you, Mango, but I'm still coming
down from all the excitement of the Olympic Games. And
it's fun to look back at some of the unusual
events that used to be included. Like this comes for
the International Society of Olympic Historians, and it talks about
some of the contests that took place in the nineteen
hundred Paris Olympics. They included cannon firing, pigeon racing, firefighting,
(04:56):
and kite flying. Some of this just seems so fun.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
I mean, they all sound crazy, I but firefighting is
a sport is kind of amazing.
Speaker 2 (05:04):
Yeah, I mean this comes from a time when the
World's Fair used to run in tandem with the Olympic Games,
and there was actually a lot of crossover between the
two events. And there's some disagreement from the IOC about
which ones were fully part of the Olympics, but there
were definitely a lot of experimental and exhibition games taking
place really sort of all over Paris.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
So of course, part of the reason we're doing this
episode is because we love stories about things on the bubble,
like we love tales about pedigree dogs that are on
the cusp of being allowed to compete in the Westminster
Dog Show, or words that got cut from the dictionary.
And of course there are a lot of Olympic sports
that fall into this category as well, including breakdancing or breaking,
which was just add to the Olympic Games this year,
(05:44):
and I was curious, did you enjoy watching breakdancing the Olympics.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I have to say people sometimes question why it's in
the Olympics, but if you think about it, if you're
out in public and breakdancing is on TV. This actually
happened to me just a couple of weeks ago during
the Olympics, and you see it on TV, and the
response from everybody this was in a restaurant, is they
all start acting like their break dancing, Like there's something
(06:10):
so fun and almost contagious about it, Like everybody starts
doing their same awful moves. It it's it's just a
lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Honestly, yeah, I agree, But what fact are you going
to lead off with?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
All right, Well, you know, I'm a fan of American
Ninja Warrior. Like from wayback in the earliest days, Big
Time used to set up courses for my kids all
through our den and everywhere, and it was just so
much fun to turn our house into the ultimate obstacle course. Now, look,
I wasn't fooling myself. I didn't think my kids would ever,
you know, end up in American Ninja Warrior, because I
certainly didn't have the coordination to do it. But it
(06:44):
was fun to be able to pretend at home. And
so I was delighted when I found out that swimming
obstacle race used to be an event in the Olympics.
I love obstacle races, just like cannon shooting and kite flying.
This comes from the nineteen hundred Olympic Games in Paris,
but the event almost sounds like it was just made
up on the spot. So swimmers had to get across
(07:05):
this two hundred meter course on the River sind which
included quote, climbing over a pole, scrambling over a row
of boats, swimming under another row, of boats. I mean,
it's just again, it's like they're making it up along
the way. And the event was supposed to show strength,
agility and swimming prowess, which I guess it did.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
It almost sounds like a doubledare course right in the slime.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah. Yeah, there's no like flag you pull out of
a nose or anything like that. But you know, of
course that the river was apparently really muddy during the event,
so it might have been a thicker swim than you'd
expect for an Olympic game. So even back then they
were having some trouble with what they needed out of
the water. But what's also interesting is that an Australian
athlete named Fred Lane won the obstacle course race and
(07:49):
he also won the two hundred meter freestyle, so this
was a very good athlete. But according to the Olympic
dot COM's profile of him, it was at a time
when people were still trying to figure out what the
fastest stroke was. So people competing in swim competitions with breastroke,
doggy style, something called the trudgeon, which later morphed into
the crawl. But you know, people were trying all these
(08:12):
different strokes out, but Fred's stroke of choice and the
two hundred meter was a trudgeen where he swam on
his left side but used a scissor kick to cut
through the water. I actually, I don't know why I'm
acting it out right now, but listeners can't see that.
But you know, you can see how fast it would be.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
I can't see you because I'm just paying attention to
Dylan still spinning.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Back, guys still going.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
It is funny to think, though that, you know, everything
from the way we start sprints off blocks to the
way we swim has changed so much over the years.
I kind of wish they'd bring that event back though.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
Yeah, But you know, weirdly, despite the popularity of it
with spectators, they only held the swimming obstacle race at
that one Olympics. I agree, though, I don't see why
they don't bring it back.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Well, here's another event you might be surprised was once
an Olympic sport, and that's pistol dueling.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
Did you say dueling?
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Yeah, I mean, I guess when you think about it,
it's not that different from like fencing or boxing, like
two people facing off trying to kill each other.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Yeah, except for the guns. Part of it, manga. That
part's a little weird.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
That's right, except for the guns. So if there's any
sport that's truly been on the cost of the Games,
it's dueling. So dueling was part of the nineteen oh
six Summer Olympics, or the nineteen oh six Intercalated Games
as they're called. But the dueling there was more like
a target practice. There was a dummy who wore a
fancy coat, I guess to make it seem more human,
but it had a bull's eye on the chest and
(09:36):
competitor shot at it. So it wasn't really that much
more exciting than archery. But then the nineteen oh eight
Olympics were slated and a doctor and dueling enthusiast named
Paul Devilers really saw this as his chance. And this
comes from our old friend Jake Rossen at Mental Floss.
But basically dueling didn't lead to that many deaths when
(09:56):
it was popular. Often the guns misfired or people missed
and the duel was called off because of the strict rules.
So aside from the poor case of Alexander Hamilton, which
we all now know about, it didn't lead to that
many debts. And then during the Civil War, when there
was an enormous amount of death and people aimed guns
at one another, dueling really lost its charm. But Devilar
(10:18):
saw it as this gentleman's sport and he wanted to
bring it back in a safe way, so he came
up with all these rules to make it safer. He
devised a way for the guns to shoot wax bullets
without melting them. He made people wear protective gear kind
of like the chain mail you'd wear for fencing, and
metal helmets as well with goggles. There was a shield
on the gun to protect your hands, so your hand
(10:39):
wouldn't get hit by the bullet. And as Jake points
out in his article, one reporter described the effects this
way quote, instead of the soft wax bullets shrieking through
the bodies of the duel lists, they will yield up
their fair young lives like tomatoes hurled against a barn door.
So the whole point was that the wax bullet would splatter,
and an arbiter could declare someone dead without really declaring
(11:01):
someone dead.
Speaker 2 (11:02):
That is wild, and so dueling gets incorporated in the games.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Not exactly, so the sport gets some momentum. In France,
and England, and it has these really big supporters, including
the former French president, but instead of being a real event,
it gets sort of an exhibition status. Eleven duelers from
all over the world, including Russia, France, America and Sweden
all competed, partially because many of them were Fencers and
(11:26):
they would have come for the Olympic competition anyway. But
while the sport is allowed to take place on the
Olympic rounds, it's kind of shoved into a corner before
the real games begin. And while there was some excitement
around dueling, it really didn't last.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
And why do you think it gets cast aside as
a sport or an Olympic event.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Part of it is that World War One starts not
too long after, and that kind of dulls people's enthusiasm
for seeing people shoot guns at other humans, much like
the Civil War before it. But the other is that
devilers and others couldn't really make a strong case for it.
This one sharpshooter named Walter wins He tried to claim
that dueling is actually a net benefit and as he
(12:04):
put it, quote, a man thinks twice before being rude.
If he thinks he will have to face a pistol
in consequence. But I guess that wasn't enough of an
argument for the Olympic committees.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Yeah, I guess not.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
So what's next on your list?
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Why don't we talk a little bit about ski ballet,
which is sort of like figure skating on skis. Obviously,
I have.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Never heard of this, and it sounds incredible to me.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
It is incredible. Yeah, I'm going to send you some
videos because it is really fun to watch. Actually, I'm
sending this link to your phone right now. You should
check this out. Watch it. I mean, don't you feel
like this is something that you'd be pretty good at.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
I'm watching now. It is. It is beautiful.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, there's a grant Land story on the
history of the sport, and what's interesting is that the
sport really emerges in the nineteen seventies, and according to
the article, apparently youth were just rebelling against any sort
of rules or restrictions. This was in the era of
the Vietnam War, of course, and indulging in this sort
of beautiful, artsy rule free dance skiing became part of
(13:08):
that revolt, not a type of revolt I can imagine
but it was still pretty funny to see.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
That sounds fake, but I like it.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, it's true. I mean, that's actually what sport organizers
attribute it to. And you know, because we really haven't
seen much ski ballet in our lifetime. In the Olympics,
it was a demonstration sport in the nineteen eighty eight,
nineteen ninety two Olympics. And I do not remember this
from when we were younger, and those would have been
Olympics we were paying attention to. But I never realized
how popular it was. It was both an individual event
(13:38):
a team event. There were these synchronized routines and lifts.
It's a lot like figure skating as you see it
now or ice dancing, I guess. But according to the
Grantland piece, ski ballet also featured in chapstick commercials, Bond movies.
There was even a nineteen eighty four movie set in
the world of ski ballet, and it was called Hot Dog,
which the New York Times praised as quote less moronic
(14:00):
than it might have been, which is just a you know,
fantastic review.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
That is an amazing compliment. So, while you were talking
about watching this video and it's really kind of spectacular,
It's like a guy doing flips and skating around on
skis and using his polls to lift himself and do
all these crazy spins, all to John Williams music. It
is great. So what happened to Skibala? Like, how come
this didn't last?
Speaker 2 (14:25):
You know, believe it or not, It somehow didn't attract
enough young people to the sport. I mean it's one
of those that I guess people were amused by it,
but not a lot of people being like I'm going
to go train for this. And unlike snowboarding, where you
put it on in the Olympics and the numbers of
young snowboarders really dramatically increases, ski Bala just didn't have
that kind of pull. You know. The TV numbers weren't
(14:45):
that great either, so they decided to ax it, which
I think is tragic.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Yeah, it feels like the world of ski La is
perfect for a Will Ferrell movie. But right it like
it was in the wrong era, Like you could see
it being a hot trend on Instagram or TikTok.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
Now, Oh that's a good point. Yeah, I'm curious whether
it would have taken off if it was more in
the social era. But you're right. I think it was
just ahead of its time. So what's next on your list?
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Well, since we're talking about winter sports, one I think
is really fun is a type of ice getting called
special figures. So this event reminded me of my friend Howard,
who I'm sure I've told you about. But Howard, it
was this super funny, mischievous and really artsy friend of
mine that I grew up with since we were in
elementary school. And when he was in a frat in college,
(15:33):
they had this parade of floats or some competition like that,
and Howard volunteered to participate. So he decides to do
something really funny. He decides to mock WWE style of
wrestling with this doll as his submission, and he has
these canisters of paint in the corners of this wrestling
ring that he's built on the flow, and along the
(15:53):
way he keeps dipping the doll in pain and then
wrestling it like he drops an elbow on it. He
dips in pain and throws it to a souplex or
spins it around on the canvas and keeps dropping down
on it. And after he's thrown the doll around for
like twenty minutes, he tilts up the wrestling mat, which
is actually a canvas, and he's painted Van Goo's Starry
Night on it. It is so stupid and clever and
(16:19):
like perfect Howard. But anyway, Special Figures remind me of that,
because Special Figures is an ice dance in competition where
you do a whole routine, but actually you're drawing a
pattern on the ice. So apparently the early schools of
American and British ice skating actually incorporated a lot of
this ice drawing, because it's very hard to precisely trace
(16:40):
patterns with an ice skate, and the patterns could be
pretty elaborate, like these gorgeous filigreed stars and intricate flowers
and such. And it takes place in precisely won Olympics,
the nineteen oh eight Games in London. There is a
Russian who competes, who is apparently so good that after
people see the pattern he's made on the ice, they quit,
(17:00):
so they don't even try to compete because it's such
good artwork. But if you're wondering why Special Figures didn't
last in his Olympic sport, this quote from Wikipedia might
give you a clue quote. According to figure skating historian
and writer Ellen Kestenbaum, the body movements required to execute
the design were unpleasant to watch, jerky, and did not
(17:21):
use the flow of the blade across the ice. So
even though the patterns were beautiful and needed obvious skill
and control, it was like this hrky, jerky thing to watch.
That said, it sounds like Special Figures might actually be
making a comeback today, non the Olympics, but in competitions
on black ice where you see the patterns better from
the stands. These have actually started taking place and the
(17:43):
event is slowly regaining popularity.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
That actually is really cool. I will have to check
that out more. All right, Well, here's another one that
I almost feel like our audience has to see because
it's incredible, and it's called horse vaulting, which when you
hear the words horse vaulting, you can just picture so
many different things.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
I know, like it seems like horses jumping, but what
is it exactly.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
I mean, the horse high jump and the long jump
were actually competitions in the Olympics before, but this is
more like if you took the pommel horse but did
it on a horse, as the horse was trotting along.
There's a lot involved in this court.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
So people are actually doing gymnastics on a real live horse.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
I'm telling you is it is truly remarkable. Like they
don't wear helmets. The horses on a high leash type
of thing where it's kind of running in a circle.
And while it's trotting, there's music playing and a rider
or an athlete or gymnast, whatever you want to call them,
and they're doing flips and balancing on top and spinning
around on the horse like it's actually really beautiful. This
(18:47):
is how Time magazine describes it. Quote. Horse vaulters do pirouettes,
split leaps, handstands, and arabesque while on top of a
moving steed. Riders perform their jaw dropping routine means to music,
and compete as individuals or as a pair. In the
latter instance, partners lift and toss one another in the
air and perform handstands on top of each other's shoulders.
(19:11):
The sport, which can be traced back at least two
thousand years to the Roman Games, includes the musicality of
synchronized swimming, the daredevil quality of gymnastics, and the beauty
of equestrian events. Like it really is just so fantastic.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
So, first of all, I one hundred percent agree this
video of the German team that you sent me at
the twenty eighteen Equestrian Games is incredible. They're like jumping
on and off the horse to showpin. But how come
it isn't an Olympic sport?
Speaker 2 (19:40):
You know, it's It's not entirely clear, and I do
wonder if it's because it was a very German sport
when it came to the Antwerp Olympics in nineteen twenty.
It might have lost favor during the World Wars. But
in that same article you know that I was looking
at in time, and this is back in twenty twelve,
they made the case to drop race walking for the
Olympics and gested bringing in horse vaulting because hundreds of
(20:02):
people actually still compete in the international competitions, so it
doesn't have the same issues as skip la. I guess
apparently not. Apparently people rushed out to start doing this
and a lot of folks are hoping it'll get pulled
into future games. I for one am part of that crew.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
Well, I know we've got a few more sports to
talk about, but before you do that.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
Let's take a quick break.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
Welcome back to Part Time Genius, where we're talking strange
Olympic sports semengo, what do you have horse next?
Speaker 1 (20:45):
So this isn't exactly a feel good one, but it
is definitely strange. Have you ever heard about Anthropology Days
at the Olympics.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
I have not, but I'm definitely intrigued.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
So I first read about this as a footnote in
a book on the lip, and then I found more
on slate. But it is pretty wild. So, as we
mentioned above, the World's Fair and the Olympics often coincided
in the earliest days, and during the nineteen oh four games,
the Olympics slash World's Fair had a pre Olympic event
called Anthropology Days. This comes from History News Now, but
(21:19):
the site states that on August twelfth and thirteenth of
nineteen oh four, quote savages in native costume from Congolese
Pygmy tribes, the Philippines, Patagonia and various Native American tribes
who were barred from regular Olympic games competed against each
other in such nonstandard events as mud fighting, rock throwing,
(21:39):
greased pole climbing, and spear throwing. It is horrible.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
I mean, that is ridiculous. So how did this event
even come to be?
Speaker 1 (21:48):
I mean, I think it was part of the World's
Fair crossover, where there were definitely displays of people like
Ota Benga, the pigmy who ended up in the Bronxio
and the Anthropology Days games, which I can you not
were called the Special Olympics were partially a way to
show the superiority of progress and really of white Anglo Americans.
So the whole thing was utterly disastrous. On the first day,
(22:11):
they tried to take all these native peoples who didn't
speak the language and just set them on a course
like they didn't take time to teach anyone how to
play the games. They tried to get them the high
jump or shot put, and the people were very confused.
As Slate points out, even the one hundred yard dash
was problematic. The starting gun concept was understandably lost on
(22:32):
many of the participants, so too was the idea of
breaking through the finish line. Many would stop short or
run below the tape. So you know, they're putting them
in these events that they didn't explain and made no sense.
And the second day was even worse. This is where
they did the so called savage games like mud fighting,
tree climbing, and spear throwing. But again, none of this
(22:52):
was comprehensible to any of these people, like they'd never
seen a javelin before, so they were just baffled and
also uninterested. The games were a disaster, except for in
the organizer James E. Sullivan's mind, who claimed the whole
thing had scientific purpose. As he put it, quote, the
meeting proves conclusively that the savage has been a very
much overrated man from an athletic point of view, which
(23:15):
is so racist and so dumb. Anyway, what's interesting is
that the modern Olympics founder Pierre Kobuta wholly disagreed with
these savage games, calling it appalling, a charade and an embarrassment,
and he concluded that the whole thing will quote lose
its appeal when essentially all these men on display learned
to run, jump, and throw and leave the white men behind.
(23:38):
He couldn't have distanced himself more from the event, and
he ensured that it wasn't a part of any future Olympics.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Wow, it's just so disturbing, and it makes sense that
he wanted to distance the event from the Olympics. It
just feels against the you know, the spirit of the Games.
But I feel like we need to take this in
a different direction. Mango, that was a weird story. I'm
glad you shared it, but I feel like we need
to go as sparating history though it really is. It
is definitely fascinating history. One of the things I love
(24:06):
is when you see an Olympic sport and you're like,
I could totally do that.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Oh my gosh. I feel like that's half of the Olympics.
Is just like feeling like you could do these things
that are so beyond you. I read this piece about
Olympic ping pong players being challenged all the time and
just how ridiculous it is that that anyone thinks that
they can even get a point off these people. But
I feel like curling is also an example of this.
(24:31):
Like I always think that if I spent half a
year training, I'd be an amazing curler.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Yeah, I mean, curling is actually a great example of this.
And obviously there was a period when you had things
that we all did in school, like tug of war,
rope climbing, and these things were part of the Olympics
at some point which.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Also makes me wonder where they draw the line on sports,
like why isn't dodgeball an Olympic game or capture the
Flag or kickball like all things that could legitimately be competitions.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
No, it's true, and one of the games it doesn't
really feel like it should be an Olympic sport in
my opinion is croque.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Huh, I didn't realize croque was part of the games.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Yeah, this is another sport that was included in the
nineteen hundred Games in Paris, and they were still figuring
out a lot about how to run the Olympics, and
so according to croque World online, there were four croque
events in the nineteen hundred Olympics. There was one ball singles,
two ball singles doubles, and something called singles handicap. But
apparently this is from the official report from the second Olympics.
(25:31):
The reason the game was included is quote due to
the fact that its governing body wish to elevate this
gently pastime to the rank of sport by holding annual
championships end quote. So that was their thinking there, And
it goes on to say one would be wrong, however,
to disdain crok it develops a combative mind. One has
(25:52):
only to see it transform young girls into reasoners, and
from reasoners into reasonable people. I don't even really know
what that means the quote.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
I mean, croque has always done that for people, right.
It sounds pretty sexist.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yes, I would agree, But oddly enough, the Olympics allowed
women to compete with men in croquet and these games,
so the first female Olympians they were actually croquet players.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Oh that's actually pretty cool. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
And the game was not popular, so that was the
downside here, where there was only one spectator who traveled
from England to watch, and because the French insisted that
the croque tournament be spread out over something like eight weeks,
no other countries participated eight weeks. I don't know what
they were thinking here. So France ended up winning all
the medals, of course, which did not help the game's popularity,
(26:41):
and according to Croque World, the games were eliminated from
the Olympics due to a lack of spectatorship and because
the sport had quote hardly any pretensions to athleticism. So
not a great ending there.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
I love that quote. So for my final sport, I
was going to go with solo synchronized swimming, which has
a bit of controversy because the name is kind of laughable.
It's water dancing, which is obviously much more impressive when
you're doing it in sync with a full team of dancers.
By the way, did you see the team doing the
moonwalk underwater?
Speaker 2 (27:14):
It was just incredible. Like I know, synchronized swimming is
one of those sports that over the years has kind
of been made fun of. It was of course involved
in one of the greatest SNL sketches of all time
thanks to Martin Short's involvement in that one. But it
really is just amazing to watch these dancers, Like the
way they control their bodies and sync is just insane
to me.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
I really do not understand it, and I feel like
anyone who thinks it isn't a sport is out of
their mind. But I actually want to talk about something
that doesn't feel like as much of a sport. It's
called distance plunging.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
And what is distance plunging.
Speaker 1 (27:50):
It's basically like a kid's game where you jump in
the water and see how far you can dive without
moving your limbs underwater, and the rules were it was
as far as you went in sixty seconds, or when
your body floated to the top, whatever came first. But
much like croquet, this was a sport that only Americans
participated in at the nineteen oh four Olympics in Saint Louis.
(28:12):
And I actually heard a funny story about this. Apparently
the nineteen oh four Games weren't supposed to go to
Saint Louis. They were actually awarded to Chicago, but because
the World's Fair was happening there that summer, the city
made this huge fuss to make sure that the Olympics
didn't outshine their event and both events could take place
at the same city. So Pierre de Coberta gave Saint
(28:32):
Louis the Olympics, but, as Slate writes, quote, the prospect
of an arduous trip to a second tier city in
the American Midwest kept almost all of the top European
athletes away. Ultimately fewer than half the events had even
one non American entrant. The Baron himself steered clear of
the Games, later recalling that he believed quote the Olympia
(28:53):
would match the mediocrity of the town, which is, you know, unfortunate.
I do love Saint Louis. I think we should a
field trip to the city museum. But it's funny that
because the city wasn't perceived as a big enough sell
to competitors, Americans ended up dominating the events and the
medal count in things like Olympic plunging.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
I did not know that that's that's awesome and it's
a great fact. I know that people might think that
you should win the trophy this week, but I have
to say, I'm still seeing Dylan over there spinning. I
have no idea whether he's actually recorded this episode because
he has not sent focus on anything other than spinning.
Because he's still going, I think we got to give
(29:32):
him the medal this week. What do you think?
Speaker 1 (29:33):
I think? So he's got two trophies this year, and
I think he just wants to collect more and more. Well,
that is it for this week's episode. If you have
any great Olympic stories you want to share, or sports
you think we should lobby to be in the Olympics,
or you just want to send Dylan some congratulations, feel
free to send those to our email address at Petgenius
(29:55):
Moms at gmail dot com. You know, our moms are
sitting around waiting for you to write us and if
you happen to be in the Apple iTunes store looking
at podcasts, don't forget to rate and review this show.
One of the many ways we procrastinated by reading the
comments from Will, Dylan, Mary, and me. That's it for
this week's episode. Thank you so much for listening. Part
(30:27):
Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This
show is hosted by Will Pearson and Me Mongashtikler, and
research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode
was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with
support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced for
iHeart by Katrina Norbel and Ali Perry, with social media
(30:50):
support from Sasha Gay, trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey.
For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio
app full podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Part-Time Genius News
Host
Will and Mango
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