Six Things, Volume 75
Olympics Special
Six Things will be taking a month off after this volume. It’ll be back in September. Paying subscriptions will be paused. Enjoy the rest of your summer!
To celebrate the start of the summer Olympics in Paris, here are Six Olympic Things.
Thing 1 – Arts
I was all set to write a thing about the forty-year period during which the arts featured as Olympic events. Then Ted Gioia did it, so – and I believe it’s important to be honest with your readers – I didn’t bother.
My favourite fact emerging from a brief delve into the subject is that the only person to win Olympic gold medals in both sporting and arts events was American Walter Winans. Four years after his 1908 gold in the Double-shot Running Deer – the ‘deer’ was a deer-shaped target, not an actual animal – he won gold in the Sculpture discipline. Had Facial Hair been an Olympic sport he would surely have completed a unique treble.
Possibly even more impressive was Hungarian Alfréd Hajós, who won two gold medals for swimming in 1896, almost completing the cross-discipline double 28 years later when he won silver for Architecture.
Thanks to Twitter user Steve Collingham for this delightful addition: “Apparently, at a dinner to honour the Olympic winners, the Crown Prince of Greece asked Hajós where he'd learnt to swim, to which he replied, "In the water, your majesty".
For good measure, Hajós was captain of the Hungarian national football team in their first ever international (they lost 5-0 to Austria).
You can explore all the Arts results here.
Thing 2 – Cricket
Cricket is slated to return to the Olympics in 2028, after 128 years away. The story of its only previous appearance is rather bizarre.
Thing 3 – Plunging
At last, an Olympic sport I could conceivably be perhaps maybe a little bit good at? Shame it got dumped after its only appearance in the games 120 years ago for being “formidably soporific”.
Thing 4 – Marathon
Do read the story of the frankly bonkers Marathon in the 1904 Olympics.
“He stopped at an orchard and snacked on some apples, which turned out to be rotten. Suffering from stomach cramps, he laid down and took a nap”
Thing 5 – Swimming
Obscurely pleasing, this. Krisztina Szűcs has rendered every race from the Tokyo Olympics as a simple animation. The men’s 1500 metres is strangely mesmerising, and – rarely for such long races – contains a plot twist near the end.
Thing 6 – Eel
Talking of Olympic swimming, this is a lovely thread about Eric ‘The Eel’ Moussambani, the swimmer from Equtorial Guinea whose performance in the Sydney Olympics of 2000 was one of the stories of the games that year. If you weren’t aware of Eric, or just want to relive the moment, here it is.
*Keeps checking to see if Six Things is back yet....*
I won the plunge at our school swimming gala back in the 70 s, so still a thing then!