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