August 11, 2022 • 59 mins
It's no secret that the Olympics have evolved over time, and met with their fair share of controversy over the years -- but the 1904 Olympic marathon remains a tale of ridiculousness for the ages. In today's episode, Ben and Max dive into a madcap series of bizarre events, brazen cheating, and more in the humid heart of brutal St. Louis weather. Taking a cue from their pals at Ridiculous Crime, the guys want you to know everyone in this episode makes it out... OK.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in before we begin this marathon.
Let's give it up for the man, the myth, the legend,
the one and only super producer, Mr Max Williams. They
called me Ben, our good friend, rider die better half
(00:47):
of the show. Mr Noel Brown is returning very soon
and sends his regards. In the meantime, we have a
special event here in today's episode. We are talking Olympics.
We are talking the history, what went right, what went wrong?
(01:09):
We're drilling down into something specific and ridiculous. We're not
doing this alone. Uh. Fellow Ridiculous Historians, please join me
in welcoming our special guest, a world renowned expert on
the four Olympics, Mr Max Williams. By how do how do?
(01:47):
How do? How do I am here? Yes, astute, astute historians.
You may recognize this voice. This is the guy who
produces this show. This is also the guy who helms
some notable episodes of one of my favorite podcasts, of Femeral.
(02:08):
Uh Max, can you tell? Can tell any of the
uninitiated a little bit about ephemeral. Yeah, Femeral is a
story where we kind of just trying to dig into,
you know, stories that aren't told enough. So Femeral its
definition kind of means this is a bad s scribing
of it. But um like things that are lost or
(02:30):
or easy to be lost. So easiest direct comparison would
be like fleeting. So what we try to do is
gifts stories that could be fleeting or easily lost to
history some life and some longevity, because you know, that
is the bed of podcasting is it's you know, in
its digital form, it is easy to be up. But
then you know that brings up a whole other debate
(02:50):
about how ephemeral our podcast We don't know that yet.
We are still in the early stages of the life
cycle of podcasts, so we won't know that for a while.
So full disclosure, folks. Uh, Noel and I both play
a little bit of a role in the show of Femeral.
I think it is fascinating, uh, and I think he
(03:15):
nailed the definition max. Uh. If you if you have
ever parted by yourself and asked whether a fart that
no one hears is natural part these are the questions
ephemeral tackles, as well as additional Max, You're shaking your head,
(03:37):
as well as questions about things like the fascinating film
Carnival of Souls, as well as things like the um
oh gosh, the evolution and dissolution of so many, so
(03:58):
many errors pop culture, Like, Max, can you tell everybody
a little bit, a little bit more about specific episodes
that are close to your heart. Yeah, so like some
of the ones I've worked on in the last year plus.
I did uh an episode about her Carvey, which is
a dive into he was obviously the director of Carnival
Soul is one of your favorite movies. Ben. He has
a career uh similar to like George Romero, where it
(04:20):
wasn't like he was a director and doing all stuff.
He made educational films for this company called Centron, located
out of Oklahoma. So it's kind of an interesting tale
of like this guy who made educational films, then made
this one movie, and then went back and made educational
films again. So it was It's it's cool because not
a lot of his work is known. Um, that was
my first one. We did one about like, you know,
(04:41):
the evolution of trash, which he wouldn't think is that
infemeral thing, but it's really changed its whole consumerism trash thing.
But then most recently I worked on I call It,
a two and a half part series about the history
of video games, which was my favorite. That's that that
that that's like my child to me, honestly at this point.
(05:02):
Now Max broke his heart for some of this stuff, folks.
And when you check out these episodes that Max and
I have have described to you in brief, you will
understand there's, uh, there's a marathon here. Uh and Ephemeral
again is one of my absolute favorite shows. I don't
(05:25):
say this lightly. So we are very very fortunate to
have to have Max Filly not just double duty, not
just superproducer, not just hosts, not just guest host uh,
but also research associate here because Max, you have been
(05:47):
researching a marathon and it's not it's not um, you know,
it's not an editing marathon. It's not it's not a
late night sound cute marathon. It's an actual marathon that
took place in nineteen o four. What's going on? Man?
(06:09):
What what caught you about this story? So funny story.
We actually have these like monthly or bi monthly pitch
meetings we do. It's so it's you me, Noel, Jeff Bartlett,
and Zach Williams are lovely researcher socialists. And we were
all sitting down on the most recent one and I
had a list of there's a couple of like quick ones,
and I was like, yeah, this nineteen o four one.
(06:29):
This seems like this seems like something we would have done.
And we start off the meeting and Noel opens up mouth,
I can't believe we haven't done this story yet, guys,
but I can't find it record it. Have you guys
heard of this thing called the nineteen o Full Marathon?
And I just read at him, like, like you thieve
you stole that from me? Obviously you did not steal
it from you. I think we're probably looking at similar sources.
But yeah, the nineteen o four Olympics, I mean, again,
(06:52):
this is really early on in modern Olympic history, Like yeah, yeah, um,
they were not a very normal Olympics, so like there
was a lot of things happening. I mean, first and foremost,
the Olympics was tied directly with the World's Fair, which
was celebrating the one year anniversary of the Louisiana purchase.
(07:15):
So there was some weird timeline things. There was some
other weird things we'll get to as well, which are
definitely not good. Um yeah, I mean there was some
great moments, like there was this guy named Georgia iSER
who earned six medals, three of them gold, which is
very impressive concerning he had a wooden leg. Oh put
the sound cue in. Yeah, but there was some parts
(07:52):
of this Olympics that were not as good, such as
the Anthropology Days. Love it next, tell everybody what the
Anthropology Days was. Uh, this really super racist thing they
did from white people and enjoy to really break it
down more so, they would recruit a group of savages
(08:14):
the air quotes are doing heavy work. They're too uh
compete in this international village showing all the different you know,
people of the world. I guess that's what they were
trying to when they would have them do these terrible
competitions like grease, pole climbing, ethnic dancing whatever that means,
and mudslinging, and it was pretty much primarily for entertainment.
(08:39):
So yeah, as you can see, these Olympics were weird.
They're not what you would think of as like we
did with you know, the most recent Beijing Olympics or
the Olympics, they're not to that level yet. But the
weirdest thing, or at least the most famous weirdest thing,
and this thing was the marathon, which is a super
(09:00):
ancient part of the Olympics. The idea of yeah, the
idea of basically running your butt off, and that's it.
That's what like. The marathon is not necessarily a team sport.
It's one individual going very far on foot. That's the
(09:24):
concept of the marathon. We can, we can play a
little bit with the history of it. But what you
need to know, folks, is that in four as as
Max just described, in St. Louis or St. Louis, however
you feel, uh, the the idea of holding these ancient
(09:50):
Olympic sports was seen as a kind of mark of authenticity.
So in the in the marathon, there's this concept of acknowledging,
paying tribute to the old, old story of the original marathon,
(10:13):
which is messed up on its own, it's super messed up.
But the thing is with this, the reason Max, you
and I are talking about it now is that from
the beginning, this thing was not necessarily what you would
(10:34):
picture as a quote unquote honest sporting event. It was,
as Karen Abbott puts it writing for Smithsonian, it's kind
of a side show. That might be the nicest way
to discover it was a sideshow. Um, it was a disaster.
So I have two things I want to preface with
(10:56):
before we really dive into this. So the first one
is no one died, and it's really important. We're gonna
we're gonna have some fun with this one, and we
want to start with that that nobody died during this.
The reason why I bring that up is I reached
out to a friend of mine who a little backstory
is my friend Vic. He was born and grew up
in the St. Louis area. He went to college at
Tulane in Louisiana, New Orleans area, and now he lives
(11:19):
in Atlanta. So he knows humidity. I was asking about this,
and when I was telling about this race, he goes,
he also used to run marathons. He's running like the
Boston Oh, he he almost made the Boston Marathon a
couple times. He's running like Atlanta Marathon. He's run a
bunch of marathons in his life. Um, he gets it. Completely.
And his first response was did someone die doing this?
(11:41):
And I know, by a miracle no one died doing this.
But I asked him about, like what the weather in
around August in St. Louis's and he told me something
about that. But I'll piece that in later in this
But I think at first we should kind of look
at the field of people competing in this event. So
there was thirty two runners, and there were some legit runners,
and there's some people who had competed in the Boston
(12:03):
Marathon or another Olympic events. But this is where that
whole Anthropology Games thing feast. And they were also just
kind of grabbing some people who are representing their countries
at the Anthropology Games and making them run this god
awful race. God awful is not a bad term for this, Max. Uh.
(12:25):
There are there are people, as you said, who placed
in earlier Olympics, right, But most of the folks are
kind of I would say, publicity hires. They're like, if
you look at the roster, then you can immediately see
(12:46):
that there are a lot of folks who have placed
in middle distance running we call it, which is uh
okay to lay it out very simply, there's this, Brent, right,
go as fast as you can for a short distance.
There's the middle distance runners, and then there's the marathon.
(13:10):
And to put in something that the sprint, it's like
a hundred meters. Um Like the middle distance might be
like one mile, which is not converted to meters very well,
but we're gonna go with like five miles. A marathon
is like twenty right, right, And so the majority of
people involved in this in nineteen o four, in this
(13:33):
marathon are really good at a hundred a hundred meters
where they're really good at a at a small collection
of miles, and they are they're they're additionally considered um oh,
how should we say it? Oddities like oh look at this,
(13:56):
Look at this America, here's somebody running. We have to
let's you know what, let's do a little sports center thing.
Can we sound cue that real quickly? Sound don very sarcastically.
So here we go. Uh so, Max and I are
(14:19):
making sure we don't get sued, but we're going into
the scene as ninety No. Four sports center commentators. All right,
here we go. Now what you're here with? Max y
O Williams lead American Commentito Nino for marathon and them
(14:45):
big natural who dos the talk competitors? Yeah, oh man,
I see San Miller as one of my favorite stuff
for a L. Newton, do not doubt him at all.
We have John Lorded, Michael Sprigge and of course Mr
Thomas hes guy think he has good fortner. But I
(15:05):
will have someone who should not look over. He's a bricklayer.
He is earning his Olympic spot after qualifying in a
five bile specially that is Mr Fred Laws Fred Loris
us are my favorites in this race. Who do you have,
Mr Ben where it appears that we are on the
same page of the same mind, Mr Maxwell, who calls,
(15:26):
of course you cannot speak of you cannot speak of
a Saint Louis Marathon without speaking of Fred Lows the
Underdome sponsored by the Amicure Athletic Union. Now I understand
we have some ordergies here. Oh that's the other given
(15:46):
a terrible term even at this point in time. But
we have ten people Frown Greece competing in this race.
They are not named, by the way, but we also
have two men from the Sinner tribe and we did
not get them shoes. They are running Airputa. But my
favorite of all these is the Cuban national and for
(16:13):
you worked on that, okay and seen, so it's right
though it's all accurate. This this happened. Uh. The the
idea of oddities is already you know, ages like milk Uh.
This guy Felix, he uh, he has a lot in
(16:37):
common with some of the folks we talked about in
our earlier episode on Puerto Rico Nationals going to the Olympics.
He is raising money and he goes to the US
based entirely upon the fact that he is very good
(17:01):
and like this guy ran across Cuba, he got to
New Orleans and what happened next? Ah, So he got
to New Orleans. He had raised all this money to
get in the competition, and you know, he's having fun.
New Orleans is a fun stady. I'm assuming it wasn't
nineteen o four, still too um and he ended up
(17:23):
losing all of his money in a dice game. So
now he's in this foreign country, has no money, has
to get St. Louis, so he hitchhikes and walks all
the way there. So he shows up at this marathon.
He's also by the way, he's five ft tall. He's
a very short guy. Yeah five full stop, not five
(17:43):
sixs not five to not five and in like a
third of an and no five ft tall. And he's
wearing a white longsleeve shirt, dark pants, a beret and
street shoes. It's actually it's funny because one of the
other Olympians looked like the bad for the guy and
found some scissors and cut is. It's in the cutoffs
form of his pants, because it's like, dude, you're not
(18:06):
seriously about to run this marathon, a marathon in full pants.
I gotta air out the feet, gotta get some ventilation.
Here we go. It's August. It's not three pm. It's
(18:30):
three oh three pm. And a guy named David R. Francis,
who is president of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company, which
he does the equivalent of throwing the starting pitch, right,
He fires the starting pistol and off they go in
(18:53):
the worst weather ever. Right. So this is why I
reached out with my friend Vic. Initially, I was like, hey, Vick,
we have terrible weather here in Atlanta. It is so
sinking hot during the summer. How does that match up
with St. Louis Around this time here he goes, so
like May, in June St. Louis's humidity is not as
bad as Atlantis, but in July and August, oh, it's
like unlivable. So it's like it's like it's ninety degrees
(19:18):
with ninety percent humidity outside. It is just awful. And
we have to talk about this course. So it wasn't
just bad but like like bad weather, this course is horrendous,
just so god awful. It's twenty four eight five miles,
that's the length, but it's not really in actual course.
It's just like they're running just kind of through like
(19:41):
the roads of St. Louis with just dust and dirt everywhere.
A car is driving by, traffic, giant hills, people walking
their dogs, railroads everything. Basically it's just kind of like
looks like it would be something out of like a
slapstick like silent movie, like sketch. Yeah, yeah, we're talking
(20:01):
about we're talking about multiple hills. This is not a straightaway.
They're not running miles just on an even stretch. They're
going up and down and around and as you noted, Max,
there's also a ton of obstacles there. There are stones
(20:26):
that are across the roadway. So picture you're fourteen miles in,
you know, and all of a sudden you have to
jump over like you have to jump over some stuff
of the road Mario Brothers style, uh or the up
(20:51):
so you have to you have to like also dodged traffic.
I shouldn't even said, like it's not a similar These
people had to run almost five miles and play Frogger
basically the entire way. And then there were like, okay,
(21:13):
here's how unofficial it was. There are people walking their
dogs right on the same pathway and here comes one
of the favorites of the race or whatever, and now
you have to now you have to watch out for
this sharpai or this hound dog. And there are no
(21:37):
real infrastructure systems. I think it it was were you
saying there were just a there were like two places
where people could get water. Okay, so it's like some
really vault tech level like evilness behind the scenes shadowy ness.
They were actually using this marathon to test how human
(21:59):
bodies were going to react from dehydrations. So the chief
organizer for the games, this guy named James Sullivan, had
it set up that there was only two places in
this entire stretch where you can get water, one out
of water tower six miles in and another one at
a like roadside well twelve miles in. So that meant
like the last half the race you couldn't even get water,
(22:21):
and like there's just so many things wrong with it.
So like there was like cars driving alongside with like
doctors and the coaches because of course they need doctors
because they thought somebody was gonna die during this thing.
Keep it leg, I get it, yeah, but the cars
that they were driving were just kicking up dirt in
these guys faces and making the running even worse. And
(22:41):
I mean, I think this is an important time to stay. Remember,
there's thirty two people who entered this marathon. Fourteen of
them finished, which is the lowest number even now in
Olympic history, is the lowest number of people successfully completing
a marathon. So Max, what do you say, knowing that
(23:03):
we only have fourteen people who have finished, What do
you say we do? Uh little laundry list? You want
to round robin some of these folks and their fates,
Like maybe we can, maybe we can picture it the
way that so many eighties films about high school and
(23:23):
where they have they have like the freeze frame of
the person in the animal house where it says like
what they all went on to do after just so okay,
you start alright. Cool. So one of the first guys
we're gonna talk about is this guy named John Lordon
John London, like how I read his dame the first
seven times I read this document, John Lordens. Remember he's
(23:45):
one of the favorites that was crazy weird nineteen hundred
sportscasters from earlier in this podcast listed him. He is
just running along and then he just starts like throwing up,
just like cannot stop throwing up, and he's like, nah,
I'm done, I cannot do this race. Okay, yeah, yeah,
And uh William Garcia of California, who's kind of like
(24:07):
another person who's imagined to be really successful with True Contender.
He is in the front for a while, but as
you mentioned, Max, there's a lot of dust getting kicked
up from people who are still using these roads. Nothing
is blocked off from civilians, and this guy is eating dust,
(24:33):
which sounds, you know, counterintuitive. He's he's in the front
and he's eating so much dust that his stomach rebels
and he has a hemorrhage in his guts. He has
a stomach hemorrhage, and luckily people get to him before
(24:57):
he bleeds out, so he survives, but he does not win. Right,
there's a reason we said very early on that nobody
dies in this phrase. So you gotta want to make
sure because there's some stuff that in here that it's
a a little horrific. But uh, here is one that
was almost an inspiring story. Uh it's one of the
(25:17):
South African runners, Remember the guys who were like the
oddities who didn't have shoes. This guy's name is Lenn Tanyan.
I believe I'm saying that correctly. Apologies if i'd not so.
He was not expecting to do really anything, none of
these oddities where they were kind of unfortunately there just
to be entertainment for people. But he was actually running
really well. He was like competing for a medal. But
(25:39):
then a wild pack of dogs chased him and he's
running away from and they chased him a mile off course.
And just to point out how bonkers this race was,
this guy got chased a mile off course by a
pack of wild dogs and finished ninth. He came back.
That's the most bonkers thing about it. Max. He he
(26:01):
is chased by a pack of dogs, feral canines, and
then I guess he loses them or out runs them
because he's that good at running. And it's too hot
out here, man. So let's let's talk about next. Let's
talk about Felix. Oh yeah, Mr carbon Hall. So I
(26:23):
would say Tanyan's got the fourth once of the interesting
story of this race, and carbon Hall is the third most,
which says a lot because he's just jogging along and
you gotta think this guy probably wasn't needing very well.
Remember he's hitchhiking and walking all the way from New Orleans.
There's a story about him at one point in his
race seeing some people who are eating some peaches in
the car and he just kind of runs up asking
(26:43):
them for one. They say no, He takes two and
runs off. But he's just jogging along and he's just
like ridiculously hungry. He's he's this patch of apples and
he's like, well, I mean, I guess why not? Why not?
He goes over there and pick some apples, eats them,
goes back jogging. He's like, oh, I don't feel so good.
It turns out the apples are rotten and he lays
(27:04):
down on the side of the road. He just says,
I'm taking a nap. Man, I'm done. I'm taking a nap. Yeah.
Also again, apples originally are from Kazakhstan. There is a
super interesting story about the mutation of apples. We should
do we should do an apples episode. Man, let's let's
(27:26):
do it as soon as uh. But Felix still places. Yeah,
he finishes fourth. The guy lays down and takes a
nap during this stinking competition. They finished his fourth. That
shows you how stupid this competition was. Oh my gosh,
tell that's how you really feel. All right, let's talk
about Let's also talk about the um What would you
(27:48):
call him? Man Fred Laure's Sam Yeah, yeah, crowd favorite.
Uh let's see, uh a richer only he was in
the papers as the winner of the nineteen old for
Olympic Marathon. He was Yeah. Yeah, The title read on
(28:08):
August thirty one, nineteen four and American has won the
Olympic Marathon. I mean that that that's a pretty big
deal right now. So yeah, uh, Fred Lauris crossed the
finish life one and it's a big deal. Alice Roosevelt,
the daughter of the president, is there. She's like like
looping a gold medal around his neck and like they're
(28:29):
taking photos together and everything's great, and all of a sudden,
somebody from the crowd counsel. He goes, hey, that guy cheated. Yeahfoni, yes, so,
oh gosh, this is so this, This is immensely and
endlessly hilarious to me. And Max, you're the one who
(28:52):
hit me to this. So the honors go to U, sir.
Why why is Fred not the winner today? Yeah? So um.
This is how it was reported in the Louisville Courier Journal.
Fred Lord, which is just how they spelled his name.
I guess Fred Lord of New York City was the
first to cross the goal line, but he was immediately
(29:14):
disqualified on the charge he had written about three miles
in an automobile traversing the course over country roads. Lord
readily admitted that he had done so a physical exhaustion
at the time. There's something wrong with that past statement
with there and this is it. They said, he rode
in the car for three miles. Let's try eleven miles.
Eleven miles almost half of the course he did, right,
(29:38):
So he was joggingline. He went the first nine miles
and member like, that's a lot. I mean, mamb eighteen
of these guys didn't finish this race. And he just
started cramping up, and you know, I kind of imagine
he had this whole like a screw this, this is stupid,
and so he jumped in the car with his coach
and he's just like, take me to the end of
this thing. And I personally, later on, he would go
(30:00):
on to say that he did this all as a joke.
He was never gonna accept the honors. He just gave
up and quit. That's what he said. Who knows if
that's true or it's probably not. But so he gets
in the car and there's driving by it. He's waving
it everyone like he's not like hiding it at all. Oh,
he's waving it other runners as well. Yeah, spectators, runners, coaches, everyone,
(30:22):
and I'm guessing when they're driving he's driving by like
everyone just assumed that he had to quit the race
or something like that. I mean, there's people like, I mean,
there's a guy who in the first couple of miles
almost dies of a stomach hemorridge, Like there's gonna be
people who are gonna up be we're on the cars.
But you know, with like like, what is like four
miles left? He says, you know what, I'm feeling pretty good.
Let me out. I'm gonna jog the rest. And at
that point Thomas Hicks one of his coaches season and
(30:45):
he goes, hey, get off the course and and like
Lord's like, what do you do? Run me down? And
so he just runs some finches at the race, and
we are we are introducing the decided winner. Eventually after
after this Shenanigan gets revealed to the public, Thomas Hicks
(31:09):
wins and is considered the winner of the four Olympic marathon.
It's the slowest in Olympic history up to this time.
We're looking at three hours, twenty eight minutes and fifty
three seconds, which is, honestly, for most of us listening,
(31:32):
an awesome time. If you run a little less than
twenty five miles in less than four hours, well done.
But um, but Hicks had some stuff going on as well.
This this whole thing is is a mess of spaghetti. Like,
(31:53):
let's talk about Hicks for a second. Yeah, I mean
the line that this is a side show is correct.
I mean this is this is just this. This is
not good. I mean putting something like the stuff that
Hicks and his camp did during this phrase would disqualify
anyone in modern day Olympics. I mean, there are most
things he did, but I mean, so look, remember early on,
(32:14):
Hicks is one of the favorites in this phrase. He
was just one of the front runners from the entire time.
But around like the ten mile mark, he starts cramping
and feeling terrible, and he like waves down his support
crew and he's like, hey, I need some water, guys.
And you know, I feel like his crew had a
lot of weird conceptions of what was good for the runners,
what was bad for the runners, so they refused to
give him water. No water, they and eventually they go like, okay,
(32:36):
you can have this distilled, warm water that's gonna sponge
around your mouth. And then like he somehow recovers, he
keeps going. He was about like eight more miles and
then he's like, guys, I can't seriously, I cannot go
any farther. I cannot go in from the Remember, like
nobody's really making it that far in this run, Like
this guy's out in the front and they're like okay,
you gotta push through and making this concoction of Strict nine,
(32:59):
which is is still in use today. It's mostly used
in rat poisons, but it is has some other less
legal purposes as well. They take the Strict nine and
mix it with egg whites into this concoction and he
chugs it like you know, it goes full blown, like
Rocky Balboa, if Rocky Balboa had, um, you know, some
rats living inside of me you want to get rid of.
(33:21):
I don't know, but like the reason, the reason why
he used the Strict nine is in very small doses
it has a stimulant esque effects. So not only is
this guy poisoning himself, but he's, you know what, doing
what we call nowadays an Olympics doping. He's literally doping
in the middle of the race. It was funny is
they also had a flask of brandy, French brandy by
(33:43):
the way, not not kon yak, it wasn't from but
French brandy. And they said, you don't need it yet,
we'll give it to you later. Okay, Yeah, you're good,
You're good, bro, Just you don't check up, get your
stuff together. This CK nine that is going through this
man's system is damaging him obviously spoiler alert. He is
(34:11):
having a hard time running because he has poisoned himself.
And when he hears that our buddy Lores called, well,
he hitchhiked, but he basically called an uber, I would
say when when when he hears that guy has cheated
and been found out, he says, I still got it.
(34:35):
I still got it despite the rat poison. And he
tries to run, but the best run he can do
is kind of a clop clop clop clop clop clop trot,
you know, And and his trainers are like, you know
what will fix this? A little more strict nine? Yeah, yeah,
(34:57):
So they gave him some more strict nine. And this
time they gave him some brandy to go along with
those delicious egg whites, and they got something like warm
water and they just dumped it all over him because
you know what, it feels great when you're at in
this probably what what would you guess, probably a hundred
five hundred ten degree heat index weather. Let's just stop
some dump some hot water on you, because even if
(35:20):
it started warm, it's gonna be hot by the time
we dump it on him. There is a quote from
a race official by the name of Charles Lucas, where
he goes on to say, over the last two miles
of the road, Hicks was running mechanically like a well
oiled piece of machinery. His eyes were dull, lusterless, the
ash and color of his face and skin had deepened.
(35:40):
His arms appeared, his weights well tied down. He could
scarcely lift his legs. His knees were almost stiff. So
this guy is trippy. Now, okay, just to be very clear, folks,
this guy is actively hallucinating. He does not really know
where he is is in our reality and our shared dimension.
(36:05):
He's off on this thing, you know, he's in the
upside down or whatever you wanna call it. And he
thinks the Finnish line is still twenty miles away. So
in the very last mile he starts asking like anybody
will come buy, Please feed me, I'm starving. Oh please
(36:27):
let me just let me lie down for a second,
let me let me get a nap. And what does
his team do. Well, they first hand him some brandy, right,
they get him drunk again, and they say, also, we
have some tea if you want, and he's like, dad,
just anybody what's our egg white situation? Yeah, I mean
(36:52):
that's kind of a slip in the face, like do
you want this hot tea? I'm just assuming the teeth hot.
It's like, it's like, why are you doing this to
this guy? Why is this competition happening? Like how did
no one die in this thing? That it is really
a miracle that I really needs to be reashed. That's
why we say it at the front. So old Boy
(37:14):
is not running at this point, spoiler folks. He is
walking and uh he walks up again. We said there
were seven hills and they had a pretty steep incline,
and so he is walking up these hills, just powering
through it. Kind of day drunk at this point, definitely
(37:37):
dealing with the consequences of rat poison. And he gets
the max. He gets like to the downward slope and
he says, Okay, I'll jog a little. I'll jog a little.
I might run. I might want to get to the
finish line running. You know, it's a marathon. That's what
we're about. How's he doing? Uh not well. So he
(38:01):
gets in there and he's trying to run and he's
doing that whole like stumbling the leg thing like you'll
see like people in marathon stuff to do that at
the very because you know they've run like all his existance.
He's doing it because as you said, he's day drunk
and hallucinating. So this is this is another thing that
obviously would have disqualified him and many other like racing
(38:21):
events nowadays. Is he has two turns kind of run
up and they go underneath his arms and they're basically
just carrying him. His legs are just kind of like
they're moving. They're moving. He's just like a puppet kind
of going, but he's not doing in the moving. They're
moving him the rest of the way and like you know,
Loris has a crossed the finish line. They don't know
where one of the South African dudes are. Carbon Hall
(38:42):
is still taking a nap. These things that disaster. So
they're like, sure he's the winner, why not, we're not
like else. Roosevelt has to get somewhere, guys like we
just got it. We gotta end this. Come on. So
he gets crossed the finish line, he's declared the winner.
He takes four doctors an hour to get him like
good enough shape so you can leave, they said, he
(39:03):
lost eight pounds during the race, which is ridiculous. Member,
three and a half hours, that's how long this was.
Eight pounds, three and a half hours. And he would
go on to say, never in my life have I
run such a tough course. The terrific hills simply tear
Amanda pieces. Yeah, and again his team carried him across
(39:25):
the finished line the same way for any for any
of our ridiculous historians who are parents. You know, you
remember how when you took your kid into a pool,
you sort of held the kid by the belly and
the kids like, I'm swimming and you're thinking, you're saying,
sure you are, You're doing a great job. But super
(39:49):
props to you kids. But later, Hicks and Lores compete
in the Boston Marathon and Lore's doesn't call a car.
He actually does run and respect where it's do. He wins.
(40:09):
But Max, one thing that was really interesting to me
about this when we were talking about this off air,
and and again when you found this idea and we're
in this pitch meeting and you said, here's here's something
that really stood out to me. One thing that was
fascinating was that you said the marathon wasn't the only
(40:33):
weird thing about the nineteen o four Olympics. Well, and
I do want to give equal credit to Mr Noel.
He found it. We both were both looking in the
same direction that we both found it. Brilliant story. Uh
uh Yeah, the ninet enno four Olympics were really weird.
(40:54):
I mean, I mean, this is really early on Olympics
coming back. This does not temple what we have right now.
So one of the first really weird things is calling
this the Olympics is really not what you want. Olympics
is a global event with countries competing. Here's the thing
nineteen o four, getting the St. Louis that's not an
(41:14):
easy city to get to if you it's smack dab
in the middle of United States. Like the only way
you're gonna get into you go to New Orleans and
go up the Mississippi. It's not it's not in these ways.
So by the time this Olympics started, there was only
twelve countries. Five twenty three of the six thirty total
athletes were Americans. Half the competitions only featured Americans. So
(41:36):
Mr Ridlous and Americans won two hundred and thirty nine
metals at this Olympics. This was not an Olympics. Yeah,
I know, that's fair, that's fair. Another reason why this
was an Olympics was, you know, Olympics are like like
two weeks long, a little more than two weeks. This
was five months long, so a lot of the track
and field events did happen in a pretty short time period.
But remember it was kind of designed and there's more
(41:59):
stories to this. There were only the Olympics were supposed
to be in Chicago. There's a lot more to this
that you that you all can go research on your
own if you are so inclined you want to learn
more about this. It says there's a lot to this,
but it was. This Olympics is designed to be mostly
like a promotion for the fair, so it has to
run the entire length of affair. Fairs last a lot longer, right,
(42:21):
the World's Fair, the Louisiana purchase one years, blah blah blah,
a huge big deal, anthropology, games, racist bs type Stuffeah,
they hasn't really be a promotional for that, Yeah, very
much boos. But so it runs this entire time. They
have some ridiculous events, so they have a uh, military
(42:43):
athletic Carnival, they have an Irish sports festival, which I'm
just assuming was really racist, and a y m C
A Basketball Championship, a y m C A Basketball champions Well, hey, hey,
of the three, just named us probably the most Legitmac.
That's probably they're probably actually playing basketball, folks. Max is
(43:05):
our resident expert on sports in general. Please check out
our curling episodes if you haven't heard them earlier. Uh,
I know you have feelings about this, man, I know,
are you a basketball guy? We haven't really talked about
this huge basketball. I would always say basketball is about
the major sports in America. Basketball's number two on my list,
(43:26):
behind baseball. I used to be a bigger football fan,
but I mean football I love, but it's hard to
watch football when you know, you get like five minutes
of football and then tis that's fine. Yeah, it's true.
It's true of football. Football in the US is a
different sport from football and the rest of the world. Right. Uh,
(43:50):
the US residents call actual football soccer, and we have
a thing that is an excellent vehicle for commercials, and
that is that is what your US friends called football.
But dude, it's killing me. I'm wondering you know, I
always think about this, what makes us sport an Olympic sport?
(44:13):
And you pointed out you and I both know this.
There are many sports that kind of had tryouts in
one year of the Olympics or the next year and
don't make it into the official canonical roster of Olympic sports.
Have I gotta ask, man, why isn't dodgeball in there?
(44:37):
I feel like I feel like maybe it's because the
Olympics UH typically prizes individual performance, that that's part of it.
And if you have an idea for a solo dodgeball performance,
let us know. But you pointed out, you pointed out
(45:02):
one are your favorite Olympic sports of yesteryear? Please? They
had tug at war, they had tugo war and this
was and a couple of things I want to say.
It's first of all, this had been in a couple
of Olympics is already and was in the Olympics still
nineteen twenty. And also tug a war is like such
like when you look at it, it looks like a
(45:24):
Greek Olympic sport, like like an old school of classic Olympic.
It looks like we just invented rope Let's make it anything,
and then there's a there's a pit in the middle
full of spikes, because we're talking about that that period
of athletics where athletics usually ended with somebody being impaled.
Squid games, I get it. Yeah, yeah, I mean these
(45:48):
When you think of Olympics, do you think of modern Olympics,
you think they would look a lot more like what
Olympics look like right now. But there was a lot
of oddities. Uh, We're actually gonna have another episode about
a different, really weird Olympic sport that was on there
for a very long time and not talked about. We're
not gonna talk about it right now. We have we're
working on the research for that one. That one's coming up.
We're gonna have that one. Mr Knowles back. But yeah, yeah,
(46:11):
this was some weird This is a weird as Olympics.
Bat that's that's all that's saying. And you know the marathons,
just like you know the cherry on top of it all.
Oh yeah, yeah, this is our our way. And I
think it's fair to say that the concept of the
Olympics overall is really strange. It speaks to something universal
(46:35):
and human about a lot of civilizations and cultures, but
also it's been used for any number of purposes. I
full disclosure, Max, I'm I'm writing an episode about the
IOC for a different show called Stuff They Don't Want
(46:56):
You to Know, And if you are interested, I'm gonna
ask you on air. If you are interested, I would
like you to guest on it. Oh, most definitely. I
I have a very strong feelings on the IOC. I mean,
I say, most corrupt sports organizations in the world. It's
fifas number one. That's why they accepted IOC. Kind of
(47:18):
like they stay sliding just underneath FIFA though. It's like
right there and put in summary how close they're like
n C double A, which literally serves no purpose in
college football any longer or college basketball. We're at the
end of the episode. You're popping off, You're popping off
the hot shots real quick, right, you're running the clock out. IOC,
by the way, folks, is International Olympic Committee. Yeah, n
(47:42):
C double A super corrupt, terrible, um nowhere close to
as bad as FIFA and io C R. IOC is
just there's ben I bet you you'll cover a lot
of that in the Stuff that I want you to know. Episode.
But that's just my opinion on there right now. But
I don't Ben, you want to turn this a little
bit more positive on the end and just talking about
(48:03):
the Olympics. Oh okay, he got me on that one.
Uh yeah, okay, tell me tell me Hippus Hall. All right,
So I want to hit us with a couple of these. Uh.
So we have aspired on Belicus. He was lords before Lors.
That's probably the best way to say. It's so in
the eighth Olympic marathon he finished third, and everyone's like, yeah,
(48:25):
and he was he was Greek. The first second place
finishers were Greek. So it's like the Greek sweep the podium. No,
the guy took a chariot. This guy was not a chariot.
He didn't have he didn't have a gas powered car
or whatever cars are powered off of that race, but yeah,
he did that. Uh. Probably my second favorite one I found.
We have Madeleine and Margaret tajy SU's they are correction Madeline,
(48:50):
and this is important distinction. She is an Olympic athlete
for Puerto Rico in the nineteen eighty four l A
Summer Games. So she's gonna compete in two events. She's
gonna do the long up and then she's going to
be in the four by four relay. Problem is she
pulls her hand string during long jumps. They're like, oh no,
they got to the sub. They're gonna sub in or
maybe they don't have sub who all knows. But she
(49:10):
makes the miraculist recovery and runs the marathon. Except she
didn't because she has an identical twin sister named Margaret,
who ran in her place and make matters worse. It's
not like Margaret was on the team. Margaret was just
so they were watching the festivities. She I mean, granted
she was, she had like tried off of the team.
She didn't make the team, but she was a runner herself.
(49:33):
But they just wouldn't grabbed her from the stadium and
just said come down there. I mean, it's at least
better than grabbing like you and me, but like not
much better. And they were like immediately disqualified. Oh no, man,
I think you would do I think because it's a relay.
You know, we get by with a little help from
our friends, so so we could, you know, we could strategize.
(49:56):
I don't know if we would get the gold. I'm
just gonna be honest with you. But between you, null,
me and our fellow ridiculous historians, I think we could
I think we could place. I'm gonna say, I think
we could place. We got a lot of fast minds
in the audience. Yeah, you know, they're gonna have to
(50:17):
carry me. That that that that's the last Like I'm
gonna be holding up the rear and my portion of it.
But I'm fine with that. I've come to peace with that.
But bro, I'll carry you. I know, I know the
survival roles, all this stuff like U R O L
L S. By the way, folks, Uh, you know I
can actually we might be hanging out in person in
(50:38):
a little bit, so uh, I will if you if
you want to test it, let's test it. I will
pick you up and see how far we can run.
Sounds good. But there is one more group of cheaters
I want to name, and then we can go ahead
and exit this episode AUCT and that is the Tunisian
modern ptathlon team. So we're over in nineteen sixties Olympics.
(51:00):
For people who don't know what the patathlon is is
being penta five sports. It is fencing, freestyle, swimming, equestrian
pistol shooting and cross country running. So the Tunisian team
was not doing well. So they're doing the horseback riding
section and one of the guys falls off the horse.
They're doing the swimming section and one of the swimmers
(51:23):
nearly drowned. They get to the shooting sections air pistol shooting,
they think they're gonna do really well and they nearly
shoot a judge and get disqualified. Again. No one dies
in this episode. No one dies in this episode. We
were like ridiculous crime in this aspect. Nobody's dying in
(51:45):
this episode. So they go into the fencing, and obviously
they're like in the last place, and they say, we
gotta make some sort of comeback. So they probably can't
win it, but at least have more respectable showing. And
so they say, you know what fence they were maths,
Let's just send our best guy up there with every
single time different number or whatever. But Sam mask I,
(52:06):
no will notice. They noticed very quickly and they got
the qualified like that. Uh well, that's how it happens sometimes.
What we're saying, folks, is that there is a lot
of trickery. There are a lot of shenanigans that occur
not just in yesteryear, but often in Olympics today, as
(52:32):
anyone checking out the Russian dope and scandal will be
well aware. Uh, you know, I want to give props
where they're due. Mr Max Williams here has in addition
to producing every episode that you like and none of
the episodes that you don't like, by the way he has, uh,
(52:53):
he has brought to bear uh quite a bit of
research that we may not get to day. So perhaps
the best way to say it is the Olympics as
a concept really nice. The Olympics as a practice, as
a real world event, it's a It's always a lampoon.
(53:18):
It turns out no. Do you know, Max, I want
to give you the last word here. What what would
you say to our fellow ridiculous historians who are wondering
about more Olympics trivia? What would you what do you
(53:39):
what do you want to leave people with? As our
special guest today, I'm gonna go really sample here. And
because this this came up very much in the most
recent Winter Olympics. Put the Olympics in places where these
sports should be performed. We should not have people running
a marathon in ninetyree weather with nine humidity. We should
(53:59):
not have a Winter Olympics in an area that does
not go below freezing. This is just simple stuff. Uh yeah,
some of the additional restarch we have. There was, unfortunately
some talk about, you know, the ninety six Berlin Olympics,
where like you know, they gave the Olympics to Berlin,
then they elected Hitler and put Hitler in power. Don't
(54:20):
hold you can hold these people accountable if you want to.
I mean there has been some pandering the dictators over
these last you know, a couple of decades by the Olympics.
What are you talking about? To your point, Ben, the
Olympics are a beautiful event. It is really cool and concept.
But they will abuse it. They will siphon money, they
(54:43):
will turn a blind eye to cheating and stuff if
we don't hold them accountable. And you know, it's simple
put these people on blast. And that's fine with me
because I love the Olympics. I watched the Olympics NonStop.
I have a Peacock subscription just for watching the Olympics.
And now Sunday morning Baseball. I didn't think I would
love it, but eleven a m. Baseball's amazing. On a Sunday,
it is amazing. I sleep in, I wake up, I
(55:05):
put on the Orioles versus the Cubs or whatever random
teams they put on there, and it's great, guys. But
limpics are awesome. The IOLEC sucks. That's my parting words. Wow,
hot takes uh also takes. I agree with you know,
whether we're saying the temperature of those takes is a
(55:26):
nice uh nice spring day, or whether we're saying those
takes are the temperature of the night. D no for St.
Louis Marathon. So that's it for us today, folks, thank
you so much as always for tuning in. Let's have
a big hand for not only our super producer Mr
(55:47):
Max Williams, but also our guest host Mr Max Williams,
also our research associate for today's episode, Mr Max Williams.
And if you're hearing this by yourself, I highly recommend clapping.
It's weird to me that clapping is not an Olympic
sport because there is an art and athleticism and a
(56:10):
craft to it. Max. Who else should we think? Oh
so many more people. But before I start thinking, people
just don't clap if you're on a plane. No one
likes you if you're clapping on the plane, but other
people we should think. We should obviously think our full
time research associates, Jeff Bartlett and Zach Williams say are amazing.
We should thank Alex Williams who is making this lovely
(56:31):
theme song and is also my older brother. Uh, Matt
Frederick because he has a beautiful singing voice and is
my work older brother. I guess I call him that
one time, and I'm sticking to it. I don't know
why it's weird. I work with my actual brother who knows.
We'll go with it. Uh, let's see. I want to
give a special shout out to all of our sisters
(56:51):
shows Ridiculous Crime, Ridiculous Romance, and Ridiculous News for are
all great shows. If you like this show and you
have to check those shows out, then what are you doing?
Why aren't you? They're amazing? Yeah, they're better than us. Yeah,
the whole slate is better. To be honest. If you
like I feel like our little show, then you're gonna
(57:13):
love Ridiculous Romance and you really will. Uh, You're gonna
adore Ridiculous Crime, and you are going to be over
the moon about ridiculous news. Now, Max, Noel and I
work assiduously to try to get guest spots, to try
(57:35):
to have those folks on our shows. And the most
important thing to remember is that all of these shows
are free, and we have it on good authority that
all of the people creating these shows are kind of awesome.
There again, they're like a little I'm gonna say it objectively.
(57:58):
Nol gets mad when I pointed out, but they're a
little They're a little cooler than us. They're fast and
more qualified than us too. We're just some like the
foons that they gave them mikes to. They are actually
very funny, very intellectual people. Okay, come on, Fine enough,
moving on. Shout out as always to Eve's Jeff Go
(58:21):
Christopher aciotis our boy, Gabe Lousier. Shout out as well
to uh my number one, Mr Noel Brown, since his
regards will be returning soon. We cannot wait to hear
what you think, folks. You can find us on Facebook,
you can find us on social media, whatever social media
(58:43):
you happen to sip. Ridiculous history is probably there. Max,
I gotta say you have outdone yourself. This is awesome
and you and I are overdue to go see either
I don't know, Atlanta United or The Brains together. Do
you have a pick? Do you have a preference? How
(59:05):
we could try to do both them one day. We'll
see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from my
heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in before we begin this marathon.
Let's give it up for the man, the myth, the legend,
the one and only super producer, Mr Max Williams. They
called me Ben, our good friend, rider die better half
(00:47):
of the show. Mr Noel Brown is returning very soon
and sends his regards. In the meantime, we have a
special event here in today's episode. We are talking Olympics.
We are talking the history, what went right, what went wrong?
(01:09):
We're drilling down into something specific and ridiculous. We're not
doing this alone. Uh. Fellow Ridiculous Historians, please join me
in welcoming our special guest, a world renowned expert on
the four Olympics, Mr Max Williams. By how do how do?
(01:47):
How do? How do I am here? Yes, astute, astute historians.
You may recognize this voice. This is the guy who
produces this show. This is also the guy who helms
some notable episodes of one of my favorite podcasts, of Femeral.
(02:08):
Uh Max, can you tell? Can tell any of the
uninitiated a little bit about ephemeral. Yeah, Femeral is a
story where we kind of just trying to dig into,
you know, stories that aren't told enough. So Femeral its
definition kind of means this is a bad s scribing
of it. But um like things that are lost or
(02:30):
or easy to be lost. So easiest direct comparison would
be like fleeting. So what we try to do is
gifts stories that could be fleeting or easily lost to
history some life and some longevity, because you know, that
is the bed of podcasting is it's you know, in
its digital form, it is easy to be up. But
then you know that brings up a whole other debate
(02:50):
about how ephemeral our podcast We don't know that yet.
We are still in the early stages of the life
cycle of podcasts, so we won't know that for a while.
So full disclosure, folks. Uh, Noel and I both play
a little bit of a role in the show of Femeral.
I think it is fascinating, uh, and I think he
(03:15):
nailed the definition max. Uh. If you if you have
ever parted by yourself and asked whether a fart that
no one hears is natural part these are the questions
ephemeral tackles, as well as additional Max, You're shaking your head,
(03:37):
as well as questions about things like the fascinating film
Carnival of Souls, as well as things like the um
oh gosh, the evolution and dissolution of so many, so
(03:58):
many errors pop culture, Like, Max, can you tell everybody
a little bit, a little bit more about specific episodes
that are close to your heart. Yeah, so like some
of the ones I've worked on in the last year plus.
I did uh an episode about her Carvey, which is
a dive into he was obviously the director of Carnival
Soul is one of your favorite movies. Ben. He has
a career uh similar to like George Romero, where it
(04:20):
wasn't like he was a director and doing all stuff.
He made educational films for this company called Centron, located
out of Oklahoma. So it's kind of an interesting tale
of like this guy who made educational films, then made
this one movie, and then went back and made educational
films again. So it was It's it's cool because not
a lot of his work is known. Um, that was
my first one. We did one about like, you know,
(04:41):
the evolution of trash, which he wouldn't think is that
infemeral thing, but it's really changed its whole consumerism trash thing.
But then most recently I worked on I call It,
a two and a half part series about the history
of video games, which was my favorite. That's that that
that that's like my child to me, honestly at this point.
(05:02):
Now Max broke his heart for some of this stuff, folks.
And when you check out these episodes that Max and
I have have described to you in brief, you will
understand there's, uh, there's a marathon here. Uh and Ephemeral
again is one of my absolute favorite shows. I don't
(05:25):
say this lightly. So we are very very fortunate to
have to have Max Filly not just double duty, not
just superproducer, not just hosts, not just guest host uh,
but also research associate here because Max, you have been
(05:47):
researching a marathon and it's not it's not um, you know,
it's not an editing marathon. It's not it's not a
late night sound cute marathon. It's an actual marathon that
took place in nineteen o four. What's going on? Man?
(06:09):
What what caught you about this story? So funny story.
We actually have these like monthly or bi monthly pitch
meetings we do. It's so it's you me, Noel, Jeff Bartlett,
and Zach Williams are lovely researcher socialists. And we were
all sitting down on the most recent one and I
had a list of there's a couple of like quick ones,
and I was like, yeah, this nineteen o four one.
(06:29):
This seems like this seems like something we would have done.
And we start off the meeting and Noel opens up mouth,
I can't believe we haven't done this story yet, guys,
but I can't find it record it. Have you guys
heard of this thing called the nineteen o Full Marathon?
And I just read at him, like, like you thieve
you stole that from me? Obviously you did not steal
it from you. I think we're probably looking at similar sources.
But yeah, the nineteen o four Olympics, I mean, again,
(06:52):
this is really early on in modern Olympic history, Like yeah, yeah, um,
they were not a very normal Olympics, so like there
was a lot of things happening. I mean, first and foremost,
the Olympics was tied directly with the World's Fair, which
was celebrating the one year anniversary of the Louisiana purchase.
(07:15):
So there was some weird timeline things. There was some
other weird things we'll get to as well, which are
definitely not good. Um yeah, I mean there was some
great moments, like there was this guy named Georgia iSER
who earned six medals, three of them gold, which is
very impressive concerning he had a wooden leg. Oh put
the sound cue in. Yeah, but there was some parts
(07:52):
of this Olympics that were not as good, such as
the Anthropology Days. Love it next, tell everybody what the
Anthropology Days was. Uh, this really super racist thing they
did from white people and enjoy to really break it
down more so, they would recruit a group of savages
(08:14):
the air quotes are doing heavy work. They're too uh
compete in this international village showing all the different you know,
people of the world. I guess that's what they were
trying to when they would have them do these terrible
competitions like grease, pole climbing, ethnic dancing whatever that means,
and mudslinging, and it was pretty much primarily for entertainment.
(08:39):
So yeah, as you can see, these Olympics were weird.
They're not what you would think of as like we
did with you know, the most recent Beijing Olympics or
the Olympics, they're not to that level yet. But the
weirdest thing, or at least the most famous weirdest thing,
and this thing was the marathon, which is a super
(09:00):
ancient part of the Olympics. The idea of yeah, the
idea of basically running your butt off, and that's it.
That's what like. The marathon is not necessarily a team sport.
It's one individual going very far on foot. That's the
(09:24):
concept of the marathon. We can, we can play a
little bit with the history of it. But what you
need to know, folks, is that in four as as
Max just described, in St. Louis or St. Louis, however
you feel, uh, the the idea of holding these ancient
(09:50):
Olympic sports was seen as a kind of mark of authenticity.
So in the in the marathon, there's this concept of acknowledging,
paying tribute to the old, old story of the original marathon,
(10:13):
which is messed up on its own, it's super messed up.
But the thing is with this, the reason Max, you
and I are talking about it now is that from
the beginning, this thing was not necessarily what you would
(10:34):
picture as a quote unquote honest sporting event. It was,
as Karen Abbott puts it writing for Smithsonian, it's kind
of a side show. That might be the nicest way
to discover it was a sideshow. Um, it was a disaster.
So I have two things I want to preface with
(10:56):
before we really dive into this. So the first one
is no one died, and it's really important. We're gonna
we're gonna have some fun with this one, and we
want to start with that that nobody died during this.
The reason why I bring that up is I reached
out to a friend of mine who a little backstory
is my friend Vic. He was born and grew up
in the St. Louis area. He went to college at
Tulane in Louisiana, New Orleans area, and now he lives
(11:19):
in Atlanta. So he knows humidity. I was asking about this,
and when I was telling about this race, he goes,
he also used to run marathons. He's running like the
Boston Oh, he he almost made the Boston Marathon a
couple times. He's running like Atlanta Marathon. He's run a
bunch of marathons in his life. Um, he gets it. Completely.
And his first response was did someone die doing this?
(11:41):
And I know, by a miracle no one died doing this.
But I asked him about, like what the weather in
around August in St. Louis's and he told me something
about that. But I'll piece that in later in this
But I think at first we should kind of look
at the field of people competing in this event. So
there was thirty two runners, and there were some legit runners,
and there's some people who had competed in the Boston
(12:03):
Marathon or another Olympic events. But this is where that
whole Anthropology Games thing feast. And they were also just
kind of grabbing some people who are representing their countries
at the Anthropology Games and making them run this god
awful race. God awful is not a bad term for this, Max. Uh.
(12:25):
There are there are people, as you said, who placed
in earlier Olympics, right, But most of the folks are
kind of I would say, publicity hires. They're like, if
you look at the roster, then you can immediately see
(12:46):
that there are a lot of folks who have placed
in middle distance running we call it, which is uh
okay to lay it out very simply, there's this, Brent, right,
go as fast as you can for a short distance.
There's the middle distance runners, and then there's the marathon.
(13:10):
And to put in something that the sprint, it's like
a hundred meters. Um Like the middle distance might be
like one mile, which is not converted to meters very well,
but we're gonna go with like five miles. A marathon
is like twenty right, right, And so the majority of
people involved in this in nineteen o four, in this
(13:33):
marathon are really good at a hundred a hundred meters
where they're really good at a at a small collection
of miles, and they are they're they're additionally considered um oh,
how should we say it? Oddities like oh look at this,
(13:56):
Look at this America, here's somebody running. We have to
let's you know what, let's do a little sports center thing.
Can we sound cue that real quickly? Sound don very sarcastically.
So here we go. Uh so, Max and I are
(14:19):
making sure we don't get sued, but we're going into
the scene as ninety No. Four sports center commentators. All right,
here we go. Now what you're here with? Max y
O Williams lead American Commentito Nino for marathon and them
(14:45):
big natural who dos the talk competitors? Yeah, oh man,
I see San Miller as one of my favorite stuff
for a L. Newton, do not doubt him at all.
We have John Lorded, Michael Sprigge and of course Mr
Thomas hes guy think he has good fortner. But I
(15:05):
will have someone who should not look over. He's a bricklayer.
He is earning his Olympic spot after qualifying in a
five bile specially that is Mr Fred Laws Fred Loris
us are my favorites in this race. Who do you have,
Mr Ben where it appears that we are on the
same page of the same mind, Mr Maxwell, who calls,
(15:26):
of course you cannot speak of you cannot speak of
a Saint Louis Marathon without speaking of Fred Lows the
Underdome sponsored by the Amicure Athletic Union. Now I understand
we have some ordergies here. Oh that's the other given
(15:46):
a terrible term even at this point in time. But
we have ten people Frown Greece competing in this race.
They are not named, by the way, but we also
have two men from the Sinner tribe and we did
not get them shoes. They are running Airputa. But my
favorite of all these is the Cuban national and for
(16:13):
you worked on that, okay and seen, so it's right
though it's all accurate. This this happened. Uh. The the
idea of oddities is already you know, ages like milk Uh.
This guy Felix, he uh, he has a lot in
(16:37):
common with some of the folks we talked about in
our earlier episode on Puerto Rico Nationals going to the Olympics.
He is raising money and he goes to the US
based entirely upon the fact that he is very good
(17:01):
and like this guy ran across Cuba, he got to
New Orleans and what happened next? Ah, So he got
to New Orleans. He had raised all this money to
get in the competition, and you know, he's having fun.
New Orleans is a fun stady. I'm assuming it wasn't
nineteen o four, still too um and he ended up
(17:23):
losing all of his money in a dice game. So
now he's in this foreign country, has no money, has
to get St. Louis, so he hitchhikes and walks all
the way there. So he shows up at this marathon.
He's also by the way, he's five ft tall. He's
a very short guy. Yeah five full stop, not five
(17:43):
sixs not five to not five and in like a
third of an and no five ft tall. And he's
wearing a white longsleeve shirt, dark pants, a beret and
street shoes. It's actually it's funny because one of the
other Olympians looked like the bad for the guy and
found some scissors and cut is. It's in the cutoffs
form of his pants, because it's like, dude, you're not
(18:06):
seriously about to run this marathon, a marathon in full pants.
I gotta air out the feet, gotta get some ventilation.
Here we go. It's August. It's not three pm. It's
(18:30):
three oh three pm. And a guy named David R. Francis,
who is president of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Company, which
he does the equivalent of throwing the starting pitch, right,
He fires the starting pistol and off they go in
(18:53):
the worst weather ever. Right. So this is why I
reached out with my friend Vic. Initially, I was like, hey, Vick,
we have terrible weather here in Atlanta. It is so
sinking hot during the summer. How does that match up
with St. Louis Around this time here he goes, so
like May, in June St. Louis's humidity is not as
bad as Atlantis, but in July and August, oh, it's
like unlivable. So it's like it's like it's ninety degrees
(19:18):
with ninety percent humidity outside. It is just awful. And
we have to talk about this course. So it wasn't
just bad but like like bad weather, this course is horrendous,
just so god awful. It's twenty four eight five miles,
that's the length, but it's not really in actual course.
It's just like they're running just kind of through like
(19:41):
the roads of St. Louis with just dust and dirt everywhere.
A car is driving by, traffic, giant hills, people walking
their dogs, railroads everything. Basically it's just kind of like
looks like it would be something out of like a
slapstick like silent movie, like sketch. Yeah, yeah, we're talking
(20:01):
about we're talking about multiple hills. This is not a straightaway.
They're not running miles just on an even stretch. They're
going up and down and around and as you noted, Max,
there's also a ton of obstacles there. There are stones
(20:26):
that are across the roadway. So picture you're fourteen miles in,
you know, and all of a sudden you have to
jump over like you have to jump over some stuff
of the road Mario Brothers style, uh or the up
(20:51):
so you have to you have to like also dodged traffic.
I shouldn't even said, like it's not a similar These
people had to run almost five miles and play Frogger
basically the entire way. And then there were like, okay,
(21:13):
here's how unofficial it was. There are people walking their
dogs right on the same pathway and here comes one
of the favorites of the race or whatever, and now
you have to now you have to watch out for
this sharpai or this hound dog. And there are no
(21:37):
real infrastructure systems. I think it it was were you
saying there were just a there were like two places
where people could get water. Okay, so it's like some
really vault tech level like evilness behind the scenes shadowy ness.
They were actually using this marathon to test how human
(21:59):
bodies were going to react from dehydrations. So the chief
organizer for the games, this guy named James Sullivan, had
it set up that there was only two places in
this entire stretch where you can get water, one out
of water tower six miles in and another one at
a like roadside well twelve miles in. So that meant
like the last half the race you couldn't even get water,
(22:21):
and like there's just so many things wrong with it.
So like there was like cars driving alongside with like
doctors and the coaches because of course they need doctors
because they thought somebody was gonna die during this thing.
Keep it leg, I get it, yeah, but the cars
that they were driving were just kicking up dirt in
these guys faces and making the running even worse. And
(22:41):
I mean, I think this is an important time to stay. Remember,
there's thirty two people who entered this marathon. Fourteen of
them finished, which is the lowest number even now in
Olympic history, is the lowest number of people successfully completing
a marathon. So Max, what do you say, knowing that
(23:03):
we only have fourteen people who have finished, What do
you say we do? Uh little laundry list? You want
to round robin some of these folks and their fates,
Like maybe we can, maybe we can picture it the
way that so many eighties films about high school and
(23:23):
where they have they have like the freeze frame of
the person in the animal house where it says like
what they all went on to do after just so okay,
you start alright. Cool. So one of the first guys
we're gonna talk about is this guy named John Lordon
John London, like how I read his dame the first
seven times I read this document, John Lordens. Remember he's
(23:45):
one of the favorites that was crazy weird nineteen hundred
sportscasters from earlier in this podcast listed him. He is
just running along and then he just starts like throwing up,
just like cannot stop throwing up, and he's like, nah,
I'm done, I cannot do this race. Okay, yeah, yeah,
And uh William Garcia of California, who's kind of like
(24:07):
another person who's imagined to be really successful with True Contender.
He is in the front for a while, but as
you mentioned, Max, there's a lot of dust getting kicked
up from people who are still using these roads. Nothing
is blocked off from civilians, and this guy is eating dust,
(24:33):
which sounds, you know, counterintuitive. He's he's in the front
and he's eating so much dust that his stomach rebels
and he has a hemorrhage in his guts. He has
a stomach hemorrhage, and luckily people get to him before
(24:57):
he bleeds out, so he survives, but he does not win. Right,
there's a reason we said very early on that nobody
dies in this phrase. So you gotta want to make
sure because there's some stuff that in here that it's
a a little horrific. But uh, here is one that
was almost an inspiring story. Uh it's one of the
(25:17):
South African runners, Remember the guys who were like the
oddities who didn't have shoes. This guy's name is Lenn Tanyan.
I believe I'm saying that correctly. Apologies if i'd not so.
He was not expecting to do really anything, none of
these oddities where they were kind of unfortunately there just
to be entertainment for people. But he was actually running
really well. He was like competing for a medal. But
(25:39):
then a wild pack of dogs chased him and he's
running away from and they chased him a mile off course.
And just to point out how bonkers this race was,
this guy got chased a mile off course by a
pack of wild dogs and finished ninth. He came back.
That's the most bonkers thing about it. Max. He he
(26:01):
is chased by a pack of dogs, feral canines, and
then I guess he loses them or out runs them
because he's that good at running. And it's too hot
out here, man. So let's let's talk about next. Let's
talk about Felix. Oh yeah, Mr carbon Hall. So I
(26:23):
would say Tanyan's got the fourth once of the interesting
story of this race, and carbon Hall is the third most,
which says a lot because he's just jogging along and
you gotta think this guy probably wasn't needing very well.
Remember he's hitchhiking and walking all the way from New Orleans.
There's a story about him at one point in his
race seeing some people who are eating some peaches in
the car and he just kind of runs up asking
(26:43):
them for one. They say no, He takes two and
runs off. But he's just jogging along and he's just
like ridiculously hungry. He's he's this patch of apples and
he's like, well, I mean, I guess why not? Why not?
He goes over there and pick some apples, eats them,
goes back jogging. He's like, oh, I don't feel so good.
It turns out the apples are rotten and he lays
(27:04):
down on the side of the road. He just says,
I'm taking a nap. Man, I'm done. I'm taking a nap. Yeah.
Also again, apples originally are from Kazakhstan. There is a
super interesting story about the mutation of apples. We should
do we should do an apples episode. Man, let's let's
(27:26):
do it as soon as uh. But Felix still places. Yeah,
he finishes fourth. The guy lays down and takes a
nap during this stinking competition. They finished his fourth. That
shows you how stupid this competition was. Oh my gosh,
tell that's how you really feel. All right, let's talk
about Let's also talk about the um What would you
(27:48):
call him? Man Fred Laure's Sam Yeah, yeah, crowd favorite.
Uh let's see, uh a richer only he was in
the papers as the winner of the nineteen old for
Olympic Marathon. He was Yeah. Yeah, The title read on
(28:08):
August thirty one, nineteen four and American has won the
Olympic Marathon. I mean that that that's a pretty big
deal right now. So yeah, uh, Fred Lauris crossed the
finish life one and it's a big deal. Alice Roosevelt,
the daughter of the president, is there. She's like like
looping a gold medal around his neck and like they're
(28:29):
taking photos together and everything's great, and all of a sudden,
somebody from the crowd counsel. He goes, hey, that guy cheated. Yeahfoni, yes, so,
oh gosh, this is so this, This is immensely and
endlessly hilarious to me. And Max, you're the one who
(28:52):
hit me to this. So the honors go to U, sir.
Why why is Fred not the winner today? Yeah? So um.
This is how it was reported in the Louisville Courier Journal.
Fred Lord, which is just how they spelled his name.
I guess Fred Lord of New York City was the
first to cross the goal line, but he was immediately
(29:14):
disqualified on the charge he had written about three miles
in an automobile traversing the course over country roads. Lord
readily admitted that he had done so a physical exhaustion
at the time. There's something wrong with that past statement
with there and this is it. They said, he rode
in the car for three miles. Let's try eleven miles.
Eleven miles almost half of the course he did, right,
(29:38):
So he was joggingline. He went the first nine miles
and member like, that's a lot. I mean, mamb eighteen
of these guys didn't finish this race. And he just
started cramping up, and you know, I kind of imagine
he had this whole like a screw this, this is stupid,
and so he jumped in the car with his coach
and he's just like, take me to the end of
this thing. And I personally, later on, he would go
(30:00):
on to say that he did this all as a joke.
He was never gonna accept the honors. He just gave
up and quit. That's what he said. Who knows if
that's true or it's probably not. But so he gets
in the car and there's driving by it. He's waving
it everyone like he's not like hiding it at all. Oh,
he's waving it other runners as well. Yeah, spectators, runners, coaches, everyone,
(30:22):
and I'm guessing when they're driving he's driving by like
everyone just assumed that he had to quit the race
or something like that. I mean, there's people like, I mean,
there's a guy who in the first couple of miles
almost dies of a stomach hemorridge, Like there's gonna be
people who are gonna up be we're on the cars.
But you know, with like like, what is like four
miles left? He says, you know what, I'm feeling pretty good.
Let me out. I'm gonna jog the rest. And at
that point Thomas Hicks one of his coaches season and
(30:45):
he goes, hey, get off the course and and like
Lord's like, what do you do? Run me down? And
so he just runs some finches at the race, and
we are we are introducing the decided winner. Eventually after
after this Shenanigan gets revealed to the public, Thomas Hicks
(31:09):
wins and is considered the winner of the four Olympic marathon.
It's the slowest in Olympic history up to this time.
We're looking at three hours, twenty eight minutes and fifty
three seconds, which is, honestly, for most of us listening,
(31:32):
an awesome time. If you run a little less than
twenty five miles in less than four hours, well done.
But um, but Hicks had some stuff going on as well.
This this whole thing is is a mess of spaghetti. Like,
(31:53):
let's talk about Hicks for a second. Yeah, I mean
the line that this is a side show is correct.
I mean this is this is just this. This is
not good. I mean putting something like the stuff that
Hicks and his camp did during this phrase would disqualify
anyone in modern day Olympics. I mean, there are most
things he did, but I mean, so look, remember early on,
(32:14):
Hicks is one of the favorites in this phrase. He
was just one of the front runners from the entire time.
But around like the ten mile mark, he starts cramping
and feeling terrible, and he like waves down his support
crew and he's like, hey, I need some water, guys.
And you know, I feel like his crew had a
lot of weird conceptions of what was good for the runners,
what was bad for the runners, so they refused to
give him water. No water, they and eventually they go like, okay,
(32:36):
you can have this distilled, warm water that's gonna sponge
around your mouth. And then like he somehow recovers, he
keeps going. He was about like eight more miles and
then he's like, guys, I can't seriously, I cannot go
any farther. I cannot go in from the Remember, like
nobody's really making it that far in this run, Like
this guy's out in the front and they're like okay,
you gotta push through and making this concoction of Strict nine,
(32:59):
which is is still in use today. It's mostly used
in rat poisons, but it is has some other less
legal purposes as well. They take the Strict nine and
mix it with egg whites into this concoction and he
chugs it like you know, it goes full blown, like
Rocky Balboa, if Rocky Balboa had, um, you know, some
rats living inside of me you want to get rid of.
(33:21):
I don't know, but like the reason, the reason why
he used the Strict nine is in very small doses
it has a stimulant esque effects. So not only is
this guy poisoning himself, but he's, you know what, doing
what we call nowadays an Olympics doping. He's literally doping
in the middle of the race. It was funny is
they also had a flask of brandy, French brandy by
(33:43):
the way, not not kon yak, it wasn't from but
French brandy. And they said, you don't need it yet,
we'll give it to you later. Okay, Yeah, you're good,
You're good, bro, Just you don't check up, get your
stuff together. This CK nine that is going through this
man's system is damaging him obviously spoiler alert. He is
(34:11):
having a hard time running because he has poisoned himself.
And when he hears that our buddy Lores called, well,
he hitchhiked, but he basically called an uber, I would
say when when when he hears that guy has cheated
and been found out, he says, I still got it.
(34:35):
I still got it despite the rat poison. And he
tries to run, but the best run he can do
is kind of a clop clop clop clop clop clop trot,
you know, And and his trainers are like, you know
what will fix this? A little more strict nine? Yeah, yeah,
(34:57):
So they gave him some more strict nine. And this
time they gave him some brandy to go along with
those delicious egg whites, and they got something like warm
water and they just dumped it all over him because
you know what, it feels great when you're at in
this probably what what would you guess, probably a hundred
five hundred ten degree heat index weather. Let's just stop
some dump some hot water on you, because even if
(35:20):
it started warm, it's gonna be hot by the time
we dump it on him. There is a quote from
a race official by the name of Charles Lucas, where
he goes on to say, over the last two miles
of the road, Hicks was running mechanically like a well
oiled piece of machinery. His eyes were dull, lusterless, the
ash and color of his face and skin had deepened.
(35:40):
His arms appeared, his weights well tied down. He could
scarcely lift his legs. His knees were almost stiff. So
this guy is trippy. Now, okay, just to be very clear, folks,
this guy is actively hallucinating. He does not really know
where he is is in our reality and our shared dimension.
(36:05):
He's off on this thing, you know, he's in the
upside down or whatever you wanna call it. And he
thinks the Finnish line is still twenty miles away. So
in the very last mile he starts asking like anybody
will come buy, Please feed me, I'm starving. Oh please
(36:27):
let me just let me lie down for a second,
let me let me get a nap. And what does
his team do. Well, they first hand him some brandy, right,
they get him drunk again, and they say, also, we
have some tea if you want, and he's like, dad,
just anybody what's our egg white situation? Yeah, I mean
(36:52):
that's kind of a slip in the face, like do
you want this hot tea? I'm just assuming the teeth hot.
It's like, it's like, why are you doing this to
this guy? Why is this competition happening? Like how did
no one die in this thing? That it is really
a miracle that I really needs to be reashed. That's
why we say it at the front. So old Boy
(37:14):
is not running at this point, spoiler folks. He is
walking and uh he walks up again. We said there
were seven hills and they had a pretty steep incline,
and so he is walking up these hills, just powering
through it. Kind of day drunk at this point, definitely
(37:37):
dealing with the consequences of rat poison. And he gets
the max. He gets like to the downward slope and
he says, Okay, I'll jog a little. I'll jog a little.
I might run. I might want to get to the
finish line running. You know, it's a marathon. That's what
we're about. How's he doing? Uh not well. So he
(38:01):
gets in there and he's trying to run and he's
doing that whole like stumbling the leg thing like you'll
see like people in marathon stuff to do that at
the very because you know they've run like all his existance.
He's doing it because as you said, he's day drunk
and hallucinating. So this is this is another thing that
obviously would have disqualified him and many other like racing
(38:21):
events nowadays. Is he has two turns kind of run
up and they go underneath his arms and they're basically
just carrying him. His legs are just kind of like
they're moving. They're moving. He's just like a puppet kind
of going, but he's not doing in the moving. They're
moving him the rest of the way and like you know,
Loris has a crossed the finish line. They don't know
where one of the South African dudes are. Carbon Hall
(38:42):
is still taking a nap. These things that disaster. So
they're like, sure he's the winner, why not, we're not
like else. Roosevelt has to get somewhere, guys like we
just got it. We gotta end this. Come on. So
he gets crossed the finish line, he's declared the winner.
He takes four doctors an hour to get him like
good enough shape so you can leave, they said, he
(39:03):
lost eight pounds during the race, which is ridiculous. Member,
three and a half hours, that's how long this was.
Eight pounds, three and a half hours. And he would
go on to say, never in my life have I
run such a tough course. The terrific hills simply tear
Amanda pieces. Yeah, and again his team carried him across
(39:25):
the finished line the same way for any for any
of our ridiculous historians who are parents. You know, you
remember how when you took your kid into a pool,
you sort of held the kid by the belly and
the kids like, I'm swimming and you're thinking, you're saying,
sure you are, You're doing a great job. But super
(39:49):
props to you kids. But later, Hicks and Lores compete
in the Boston Marathon and Lore's doesn't call a car.
He actually does run and respect where it's do. He wins.
(40:09):
But Max, one thing that was really interesting to me
about this when we were talking about this off air,
and and again when you found this idea and we're
in this pitch meeting and you said, here's here's something
that really stood out to me. One thing that was
fascinating was that you said the marathon wasn't the only
(40:33):
weird thing about the nineteen o four Olympics. Well, and
I do want to give equal credit to Mr Noel.
He found it. We both were both looking in the
same direction that we both found it. Brilliant story. Uh
uh Yeah, the ninet enno four Olympics were really weird.
(40:54):
I mean, I mean, this is really early on Olympics
coming back. This does not temple what we have right now.
So one of the first really weird things is calling
this the Olympics is really not what you want. Olympics
is a global event with countries competing. Here's the thing
nineteen o four, getting the St. Louis that's not an
(41:14):
easy city to get to if you it's smack dab
in the middle of United States. Like the only way
you're gonna get into you go to New Orleans and
go up the Mississippi. It's not it's not in these ways.
So by the time this Olympics started, there was only
twelve countries. Five twenty three of the six thirty total
athletes were Americans. Half the competitions only featured Americans. So
(41:36):
Mr Ridlous and Americans won two hundred and thirty nine
metals at this Olympics. This was not an Olympics. Yeah,
I know, that's fair, that's fair. Another reason why this
was an Olympics was, you know, Olympics are like like
two weeks long, a little more than two weeks. This
was five months long, so a lot of the track
and field events did happen in a pretty short time period.
But remember it was kind of designed and there's more
(41:59):
stories to this. There were only the Olympics were supposed
to be in Chicago. There's a lot more to this
that you that you all can go research on your
own if you are so inclined you want to learn
more about this. It says there's a lot to this,
but it was. This Olympics is designed to be mostly
like a promotion for the fair, so it has to
run the entire length of affair. Fairs last a lot longer, right,
(42:21):
the World's Fair, the Louisiana purchase one years, blah blah blah,
a huge big deal, anthropology, games, racist bs type Stuffeah,
they hasn't really be a promotional for that, Yeah, very
much boos. But so it runs this entire time. They
have some ridiculous events, so they have a uh, military
(42:43):
athletic Carnival, they have an Irish sports festival, which I'm
just assuming was really racist, and a y m C
A Basketball Championship, a y m C A Basketball champions Well, hey, hey,
of the three, just named us probably the most Legitmac.
That's probably they're probably actually playing basketball, folks. Max is
(43:05):
our resident expert on sports in general. Please check out
our curling episodes if you haven't heard them earlier. Uh,
I know you have feelings about this, man, I know,
are you a basketball guy? We haven't really talked about
this huge basketball. I would always say basketball is about
the major sports in America. Basketball's number two on my list,
(43:26):
behind baseball. I used to be a bigger football fan,
but I mean football I love, but it's hard to
watch football when you know, you get like five minutes
of football and then tis that's fine. Yeah, it's true.
It's true of football. Football in the US is a
different sport from football and the rest of the world. Right. Uh,
(43:50):
the US residents call actual football soccer, and we have
a thing that is an excellent vehicle for commercials, and
that is that is what your US friends called football.
But dude, it's killing me. I'm wondering you know, I
always think about this, what makes us sport an Olympic sport?
(44:13):
And you pointed out you and I both know this.
There are many sports that kind of had tryouts in
one year of the Olympics or the next year and
don't make it into the official canonical roster of Olympic sports.
Have I gotta ask, man, why isn't dodgeball in there?
(44:37):
I feel like I feel like maybe it's because the
Olympics UH typically prizes individual performance, that that's part of it.
And if you have an idea for a solo dodgeball performance,
let us know. But you pointed out, you pointed out
(45:02):
one are your favorite Olympic sports of yesteryear? Please? They
had tug at war, they had tugo war and this
was and a couple of things I want to say.
It's first of all, this had been in a couple
of Olympics is already and was in the Olympics still
nineteen twenty. And also tug a war is like such
like when you look at it, it looks like a
(45:24):
Greek Olympic sport, like like an old school of classic Olympic.
It looks like we just invented rope Let's make it anything,
and then there's a there's a pit in the middle
full of spikes, because we're talking about that that period
of athletics where athletics usually ended with somebody being impaled.
Squid games, I get it. Yeah, yeah, I mean these
(45:48):
When you think of Olympics, do you think of modern Olympics,
you think they would look a lot more like what
Olympics look like right now. But there was a lot
of oddities. Uh, We're actually gonna have another episode about
a different, really weird Olympic sport that was on there
for a very long time and not talked about. We're
not gonna talk about it right now. We have we're
working on the research for that one. That one's coming up.
We're gonna have that one. Mr Knowles back. But yeah, yeah,
(46:11):
this was some weird This is a weird as Olympics.
Bat that's that's all that's saying. And you know the marathons,
just like you know the cherry on top of it all.
Oh yeah, yeah, this is our our way. And I
think it's fair to say that the concept of the
Olympics overall is really strange. It speaks to something universal
(46:35):
and human about a lot of civilizations and cultures, but
also it's been used for any number of purposes. I
full disclosure, Max, I'm I'm writing an episode about the
IOC for a different show called Stuff They Don't Want
(46:56):
You to Know, And if you are interested, I'm gonna
ask you on air. If you are interested, I would
like you to guest on it. Oh, most definitely. I
I have a very strong feelings on the IOC. I mean,
I say, most corrupt sports organizations in the world. It's
fifas number one. That's why they accepted IOC. Kind of
(47:18):
like they stay sliding just underneath FIFA though. It's like
right there and put in summary how close they're like
n C double A, which literally serves no purpose in
college football any longer or college basketball. We're at the
end of the episode. You're popping off, You're popping off
the hot shots real quick, right, you're running the clock out. IOC,
by the way, folks, is International Olympic Committee. Yeah, n
(47:42):
C double A super corrupt, terrible, um nowhere close to
as bad as FIFA and io C R. IOC is
just there's ben I bet you you'll cover a lot
of that in the Stuff that I want you to know. Episode.
But that's just my opinion on there right now. But
I don't Ben, you want to turn this a little
bit more positive on the end and just talking about
(48:03):
the Olympics. Oh okay, he got me on that one.
Uh yeah, okay, tell me tell me Hippus Hall. All right,
So I want to hit us with a couple of these. Uh.
So we have aspired on Belicus. He was lords before Lors.
That's probably the best way to say. It's so in
the eighth Olympic marathon he finished third, and everyone's like, yeah,
(48:25):
and he was he was Greek. The first second place
finishers were Greek. So it's like the Greek sweep the podium. No,
the guy took a chariot. This guy was not a chariot.
He didn't have he didn't have a gas powered car
or whatever cars are powered off of that race, but yeah,
he did that. Uh. Probably my second favorite one I found.
We have Madeleine and Margaret tajy SU's they are correction Madeline,
(48:50):
and this is important distinction. She is an Olympic athlete
for Puerto Rico in the nineteen eighty four l A
Summer Games. So she's gonna compete in two events. She's
gonna do the long up and then she's going to
be in the four by four relay. Problem is she
pulls her hand string during long jumps. They're like, oh no,
they got to the sub. They're gonna sub in or
maybe they don't have sub who all knows. But she
(49:10):
makes the miraculist recovery and runs the marathon. Except she
didn't because she has an identical twin sister named Margaret,
who ran in her place and make matters worse. It's
not like Margaret was on the team. Margaret was just
so they were watching the festivities. She I mean, granted
she was, she had like tried off of the team.
She didn't make the team, but she was a runner herself.
(49:33):
But they just wouldn't grabbed her from the stadium and
just said come down there. I mean, it's at least
better than grabbing like you and me, but like not
much better. And they were like immediately disqualified. Oh no, man,
I think you would do I think because it's a relay.
You know, we get by with a little help from
our friends, so so we could, you know, we could strategize.
(49:56):
I don't know if we would get the gold. I'm
just gonna be honest with you. But between you, null,
me and our fellow ridiculous historians, I think we could
I think we could place. I'm gonna say, I think
we could place. We got a lot of fast minds
in the audience. Yeah, you know, they're gonna have to
(50:17):
carry me. That that that that's the last Like I'm
gonna be holding up the rear and my portion of it.
But I'm fine with that. I've come to peace with that.
But bro, I'll carry you. I know, I know the
survival roles, all this stuff like U R O L
L S. By the way, folks, Uh, you know I
can actually we might be hanging out in person in
(50:38):
a little bit, so uh, I will if you if
you want to test it, let's test it. I will
pick you up and see how far we can run.
Sounds good. But there is one more group of cheaters
I want to name, and then we can go ahead
and exit this episode AUCT and that is the Tunisian
modern ptathlon team. So we're over in nineteen sixties Olympics.
(51:00):
For people who don't know what the patathlon is is
being penta five sports. It is fencing, freestyle, swimming, equestrian
pistol shooting and cross country running. So the Tunisian team
was not doing well. So they're doing the horseback riding
section and one of the guys falls off the horse.
They're doing the swimming section and one of the swimmers
(51:23):
nearly drowned. They get to the shooting sections air pistol shooting,
they think they're gonna do really well and they nearly
shoot a judge and get disqualified. Again. No one dies
in this episode. No one dies in this episode. We
were like ridiculous crime in this aspect. Nobody's dying in
(51:45):
this episode. So they go into the fencing, and obviously
they're like in the last place, and they say, we
gotta make some sort of comeback. So they probably can't
win it, but at least have more respectable showing. And
so they say, you know what fence they were maths,
Let's just send our best guy up there with every
single time different number or whatever. But Sam mask I,
(52:06):
no will notice. They noticed very quickly and they got
the qualified like that. Uh well, that's how it happens sometimes.
What we're saying, folks, is that there is a lot
of trickery. There are a lot of shenanigans that occur
not just in yesteryear, but often in Olympics today, as
(52:32):
anyone checking out the Russian dope and scandal will be
well aware. Uh, you know, I want to give props
where they're due. Mr Max Williams here has in addition
to producing every episode that you like and none of
the episodes that you don't like, by the way he has, uh,
(52:53):
he has brought to bear uh quite a bit of
research that we may not get to day. So perhaps
the best way to say it is the Olympics as
a concept really nice. The Olympics as a practice, as
a real world event, it's a It's always a lampoon.
(53:18):
It turns out no. Do you know, Max, I want
to give you the last word here. What what would
you say to our fellow ridiculous historians who are wondering
about more Olympics trivia? What would you what do you
(53:39):
what do you want to leave people with? As our
special guest today, I'm gonna go really sample here. And
because this this came up very much in the most
recent Winter Olympics. Put the Olympics in places where these
sports should be performed. We should not have people running
a marathon in ninetyree weather with nine humidity. We should
(53:59):
not have a Winter Olympics in an area that does
not go below freezing. This is just simple stuff. Uh yeah,
some of the additional restarch we have. There was, unfortunately
some talk about, you know, the ninety six Berlin Olympics,
where like you know, they gave the Olympics to Berlin,
then they elected Hitler and put Hitler in power. Don't
(54:20):
hold you can hold these people accountable if you want to.
I mean there has been some pandering the dictators over
these last you know, a couple of decades by the Olympics.
What are you talking about? To your point, Ben, the
Olympics are a beautiful event. It is really cool and concept.
But they will abuse it. They will siphon money, they
(54:43):
will turn a blind eye to cheating and stuff if
we don't hold them accountable. And you know, it's simple
put these people on blast. And that's fine with me
because I love the Olympics. I watched the Olympics NonStop.
I have a Peacock subscription just for watching the Olympics.
And now Sunday morning Baseball. I didn't think I would
love it, but eleven a m. Baseball's amazing. On a Sunday,
it is amazing. I sleep in, I wake up, I
(55:05):
put on the Orioles versus the Cubs or whatever random
teams they put on there, and it's great, guys. But
limpics are awesome. The IOLEC sucks. That's my parting words. Wow,
hot takes uh also takes. I agree with you know,
whether we're saying the temperature of those takes is a
(55:26):
nice uh nice spring day, or whether we're saying those
takes are the temperature of the night. D no for St.
Louis Marathon. So that's it for us today, folks, thank
you so much as always for tuning in. Let's have
a big hand for not only our super producer Mr
(55:47):
Max Williams, but also our guest host Mr Max Williams,
also our research associate for today's episode, Mr Max Williams.
And if you're hearing this by yourself, I highly recommend clapping.
It's weird to me that clapping is not an Olympic
sport because there is an art and athleticism and a
(56:10):
craft to it. Max. Who else should we think? Oh
so many more people. But before I start thinking, people
just don't clap if you're on a plane. No one
likes you if you're clapping on the plane, but other
people we should think. We should obviously think our full
time research associates, Jeff Bartlett and Zach Williams say are amazing.
We should thank Alex Williams who is making this lovely
(56:31):
theme song and is also my older brother. Uh, Matt
Frederick because he has a beautiful singing voice and is
my work older brother. I guess I call him that
one time, and I'm sticking to it. I don't know
why it's weird. I work with my actual brother who knows.
We'll go with it. Uh, let's see. I want to
give a special shout out to all of our sisters
(56:51):
shows Ridiculous Crime, Ridiculous Romance, and Ridiculous News for are
all great shows. If you like this show and you
have to check those shows out, then what are you doing?
Why aren't you? They're amazing? Yeah, they're better than us. Yeah,
the whole slate is better. To be honest. If you
like I feel like our little show, then you're gonna
(57:13):
love Ridiculous Romance and you really will. Uh, You're gonna
adore Ridiculous Crime, and you are going to be over
the moon about ridiculous news. Now, Max, Noel and I
work assiduously to try to get guest spots, to try
(57:35):
to have those folks on our shows. And the most
important thing to remember is that all of these shows
are free, and we have it on good authority that
all of the people creating these shows are kind of awesome.
There again, they're like a little I'm gonna say it objectively.
(57:58):
Nol gets mad when I pointed out, but they're a
little They're a little cooler than us. They're fast and
more qualified than us too. We're just some like the
foons that they gave them mikes to. They are actually
very funny, very intellectual people. Okay, come on, Fine enough,
moving on. Shout out as always to Eve's Jeff Go
(58:21):
Christopher aciotis our boy, Gabe Lousier. Shout out as well
to uh my number one, Mr Noel Brown, since his
regards will be returning soon. We cannot wait to hear
what you think, folks. You can find us on Facebook,
you can find us on social media, whatever social media
(58:43):
you happen to sip. Ridiculous history is probably there. Max,
I gotta say you have outdone yourself. This is awesome
and you and I are overdue to go see either
I don't know, Atlanta United or The Brains together. Do
you have a pick? Do you have a preference? How
(59:05):
we could try to do both them one day. We'll
see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from my
heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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