39 More Facts about the Olympics - mental_floss List Show Ep. 432

TL;DR

The video provides interesting facts about the Olympics, including missing runners, cheating athletes, and bizarre events throughout Olympic history.

Transcript

hi I'm John Green Welcome to My Salon this is Mental Floss video and did you know that an Olympian once ran the marathon in 54 years 8 months 6 days 5 hours 32 minutes and 20.3 seconds that was Japanese Runner shiso kaku's time from the 1912 Stockholm Olympics what happened was he ran most of the race then passed out he was embarrassed and just wen... Read More

Key Insights

• 🥹 The 1936 Olympics held basketball outdoors on a dirt court, making dribbling extremely difficult.
• 🧖‍♀️ The East German women's luge team was disqualified in 1968 for heating their sleds before the race.
• 😀 At the 2012 London Olympics, businesses not official sponsors faced fines for using Olympic-related terms in their advertising.
• 🇨🇷 The Olympics often exceed the budget, with the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Games costing over 320% of the original budget.
• 🥺 Former Olympic hosting sites may become urban ruins, leading to cities declining to host future Olympics.

Questions & Answers

Q: Why did the Crown Prince of Greece winning the gold medal for sailing in 1960 mark a significant moment?

Greece had not won a gold medal since 1912, making it a big deal for the country.

Q: Why were there two US men's hockey teams in the same Olympics in 1948?

The American Hockey Association and the Amateur Athletic Union sent teams; professionals were allowed to play but not medal, while amateurs couldn't play but watched and booed.

Q: Why did Australia remove their 1-cent coins from circulation?

Australia believed that pennies did not facilitate the exchange of goods and services effectively, so they removed them from circulation.

Q: Who is the athlete with the most Olympic medals?

American swimmer Michael Phelps holds the record with a total of 22 medals from three separate Olympic Games.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• A Japanese runner in the 1912 Olympics passed out during the marathon, went missing in Sweden for 50 years, and returned to finish the race.

• John Boland, a non-Olympic athlete, won the tennis tournament at the 1896 Olympics.

• Usain Bolt ate 100 chicken McNuggets daily during the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

• Eddie Edwards, a British ski jumper, became known as "Eddie the Eagle" despite coming last in his events.