Everybody knows that the Olympics is a hotbed of activity - when you get the world's best athletes and cram them all into one town, all kinds of shenanigans are going to happen. We've already had a luge-related fatality and a number of shocking upsets, which sent me back into the archives to compile a list of insanity from Olympics past. Read on, Macduff.
The very first Winter Olympics, held in Chamonix, France in the year 1924, was a learning experience for the Olympic Committee. At first, they had intended to simply replicate the sports of the very popular Summer Olympics. However, when eleven synchronized swimmers froze to death, Olympic committee chairman Pierre de Coubertin remarked that they needed to "go Baywatch Nights on this bitch" and mix things up a little. In one absinthe-fueled all-nighter, de Coubertin invented the modern sports of cross-country skiing, luge, curling and six-man yak drowning, which is only still played in Uzbekhistan.
At the 1988 Olympic Games in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, a performance by Russian Sergei Grinkov became one of the most talked-about ice dances in theoretical physics history. Vaulting off the ice to perform a difficult triple axel, Grinkov rotated his body so quickly that it breached a hole in the space-time continuum, spawning eleven parallel universes including one where Abraham Lincoln was gay. Grinkov was disqualified for violating quantum law, sending Russia home medal-less. The dimensional tear is still on display at Calgary's Olympic Park.
The 1940 Olympic Games were scheduled to take place in Sapporo, Japan, but a little thing called World War II got in the way. This didn't deter the ultra-nationalistic Japanese government, though, and they fielded a full complement of athletes who went on to win every medal, bringing great honor to the nation. In a shocking twist, however, these Olympic athletes are still in Sapporo... because they think World War II is still going on!
The world of sport was rocked last year by South African runner Caster Semenya, who was raised as a female despite being born intersexed, with gender features of both men and women. But this wasn't the first time that sporting officials had to make a tough call about a talented competitor - Norway was stripped of its silver medal in ice hockey at the '76 games when medical testing revealed that goalie Aase Lindstreth was actually 1/4 octopus, and his tentacled appendages gave him enhanced ice mobility. Lindstreth went on to have a successful career in Japanese adult movies until he was butchered and eaten in 1995.
The Jamaican bobsled team has been a running Winter Olympics joke since the 1988 Games, but were you aware that Jamaica actually has a proud bobsledding history? Reggae superstar Bob Marley was, in fact, named after his father's predilection for "dah sled." Jamaica's ice hockey team is also surprisingly excellent at water polo.
That concludes our look back at the crazy moments in Olympic history. I hope you've learned something, and if you haven't, I hope you're not mad at me!
