The Bizarre World of the Olympics

0:01 Hello Bizarre story friends, if you are tuned in now, you are listening to The Bizarre AF, a place where we talk about the strange, the unusual, the unknown in all things bizarre AF. I'm Alicia, your Hostess for today's episode. And as always, we ask that we you keep an open mind, keep a skeptical ear, but keep on listening to those facts as we take you on our newest journey, the bizarre world of the Olympics.

0:59 Well, bonjour, Kevin, how are you? Bonjour. Bonjour. Actually, you know what I forgot I have in my backpack? A little Eiffel Tower. Cute. Yeah, I mean, where? Can we put it? I don't know. I mean, right now it really, it really matters, doesn't it? Like 'cause this is a podcast, but we love a theme. You can be standing by the Eiffel Tower is to come there. Are. You guys watching? Yeah, I mean, if you are, then you can see I'm right next to the Eiffel Tower today. Let's see if we do it that way. Wait, wait.

1:39 There there. Yay. Team USA, right? Hey, so how are you, Boo? Have you been tuning into the Olympics? I have. You don't actually spent a little money on our, you know, the subscriptions. I mean, it's just a month. I'm like, forget it. I'm just gonna have another subscription. A subscription service to watch all the games. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, So I've been doing that and it's been great. You get to watch whatever you want, when you want. I love it. So what? What is like your favorite? So I've just been watching the archery. OK? Super fun.

2:19 Yeah. A downhill mountain bike. Great bout. It's like the going down, like all those crazy rocks and like they built this course. It's just like unbelievable the things that they have done. Super insane. These events, spaces that they've created for these games is just spectacular. And then I've watched, of course, men's water polo, which is. Always fun to watch any water polo just in general is so fun. Actually, you know who Flavor Flav is. Yeah, yeah. Flavour Flav. Yeah. So he is a huge proponent and supporter of the women's water polo. Really. Yeah. He like he even was in the pool with with the the players, which was kind of cool.

3:05 Oh my God. Yeah, yeah, that's great. Cool. So yeah, Flavour Flav, it's insane. You never, you would never think. And then we've got non Olympians carrying the torch like the Snoop. The Snoop Doggity Dog. Oh my God. I. Know, I know. I was like, I mean, what kind of world do we live in? I love it, I love it. I love Snoop, love flavour Flav. Like, I mean, it would be even better if Ice Cube could be involved. But, you know, he's too like, kind of punk rock, honestly for that kind of shit. Anyway, yeah. So the Olympics are here. I'm super excited. I love, I love how it just seems like all of us, as, you know, the world, we all come together and celebrate athleticism and have like a pride, a different kind of pride, right? And in, you know, a patriotism that you, I guess, maybe normally not, not normally.

4:07 I mean, not that I'm not patriotic, but it's like this. I will drink the Kool-aid for like, like for the Olympics, I will drink the Kool-aid. Well, like I said, I've decided to spend $15 just, you know, I would to watch it. Yeah, you know, it's. Cool. You want to participate. It makes you want to participate. Yeah, and it gives you some, like, American pride. Like currently I'm wearing a Team USA soccer shirt that I actually got down South at Colorado Springs. They have an Olympia Olympic Center. Have you been there? I've never been there. It's so awesome. I would suggest anyone who has come to Colorado or is like in Colorado Springs or near that area go and check it out.

4:48 They have like entire, so I went went there before like or right after the Brazil Games. Like there were games in Brazil, the Olympic Games in Brazil. I think that was like one of the last Summer Olympics anyway. They had entire rooms that created like it was humidity, like the humidity and like the elevation, like the technology that they have. Is. So cool. And Michael Phelps actually trained in that Olympic centre, Yeah. And a lot of them have. Yeah, yeah. So really cool. Anyway, getting back to the Olympics themselves. So the ancient Olympic Games, like, you know, we think of first Athens, Greece, right? Yeah.

5:28 We think of Athens. We think of, you know, the festivals that they had held and the torch, the flame. Those are like kind of the first things that come into my mind. I don't know if that's. Exactly. Well, yeah, yeah, I agree. Yeah, yeah. So these festivals, they were festivals that happened in in Greece and it's, it was every four years at the Sanctuary of Zeus in Olympia. So Olympics Olympia, go figure. So it was actually, the date was actually determined. It was a very complicated formula. So they had the midpoint of the festival would occur during the second full moon after the summer solstice, you know, so it's normally like late August or early September.

6:16 So they would have people announce it and then, you know, everyone would come in and and the competition at first when they had these games were legitimate sons of freeborn Greek parents, AKA slaves. No, you guys are slaves. You cannot do it. Women, no go figure. Always, always the case, you know, then after, excuse me, after Macedonia and then Rome conquered Greece, 10 Olympic judges had actually loosened those standards and allowed anyone who spoke Greece or Greek Greece, who spoke Greek to participate. And so 10s of thousands of Greeks would make the a journey to the festival.

7:08 And it's, you know, ultimately who would participate was like the different city states within Greece. And let me just like say there were festivals like this in all over that area. It wasn't just Greece that did like these athletic festivals, athletic slash religious festivals. It was everywhere else was doing it. We just kind of really liked the Greeks and really like the Romans. I had, you know, posted this on TikTok, but the Romans had a huge obsession with Greek culture. Just like we kind of have an obsession with like that like Western civilization, like the Romans, how all of their roads and like all the cool things that they built.

7:56 We have idolized them. They idolized the Greeks in that same way. So the Romans really took on the whole idea of like the Grecian, anything Grecian, you know, philosophy, etcetera. But on top of that they took on the Olympic Games. So, you know, this the whole idea of of the Olympic Games, you know, we have the flame, we have they have like a loose story about Zeus coming into with Hercules and them them creating the games and like who's the best, you know, sportsman?

8:36 And at that time, one of the big things in Grecian culture was, you know, having like a really pure sound mind clean, like being very thoughtful, like philosophical intelligence was really highly valued. And they thought this and, and also, you know, art, sport that, that kind of thing. So that was super, super valued. What's a direct reflection of that? Your body. Your body is a reflection of your mind. So sorry if you are handicapped, sorry if you're not. If you have two left feet, you know, figuratively, you know, you're just not the height of, you know, of a Greek, you know, body, you know, they're image, they're.

9:30 Oh yeah. Image, self-image. That was one thing that I thought was kind of interesting is I think the Greeks were like the one of our, you know, one of the first people to kind of body shame. They're like, oh, look, you don't have a six pack. Well, you must have a fucked up head and you must be a fucked up person. Well, let's be. Real. Like when you think of a Greek man? Yes. What is the image that pops into your brain? What is the first image? I mean, it's certainly not some handicap overweight person. I mean, it's like a Adonis. It's an Adonis, yeah. With like a like washboard ABS and yeah, like incredibly like muscular and fit.

10:14 Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Which might today, you know, be more of like a farmer's, like a farm hands like body. Yeah, right. Then you know a normal person's, but we had talked a little bit about the Olympic flame. So can you tell us a little bit more about like the origins of that? Yeah, it's really, it's really quite fascinating. And it all turned out to be the doing of Hitler. I mean, it's a very simplistic sentence, but it it's ultimately true. It was a big propaganda machine in the Olympics in the late 30s that happened and Hitler and his publish, the guy that was kind of publishing and I think his name was Diaz Diaz or something of that nature.

11:03 He was brilliant. And he said, you know what, we're going to use this flame and the symbolics of this flame to kind of get this, get things promoted. And we're going to carry it from here to here. And it's going to be us connecting the Austrians and the Germans and the look again. Britch's brilliant marketing. But knowing that this awful dictator is what built the history and the symbolicness around this flame is really quite upsetting. I know, I know.

11:46 Well, he took something and that was something that that Hitler was so good at, right? He would take like these old traditions. So the idea of the flame was like, we're going to past the torch quite literally from the ancient times to the modern times, because what they didn't have electricity, they didn't have like gas powered, you know, lamps like, you know, people did. Now it's like we're going to bring this ancient torch and that's how everything was lit. And like, it's like this romanticism that I'll be honest, I can get into. I can totally get into that. It's it is brilliant where you're and it's like, OK, we're all together.

12:29 We have this like pride in our nation. Exactly. Yeah, the the National Socialist, you know, party, the Nazi Party, you know, that's, that was their whole, you know, scheme, which is incredibly enticing. And the fact that good old boy Adolf Hitler was one of the first folks, I mean, you know, to bring it back. I mean you, I guess you can still be an awful person and have great ideas. Yes, I that that's, that's The thing is you can most certainly have great ideas and you know, it's funny when you think of like that ancient time and then and you would think, I would think, and this is what I thought before I even, you know, started doing some research for this episode was Oh, we've been having the Olympic Games for jet like eons, like forever, you know, in in the the terms of humanity, but like, you know, we've been doing it for maybe thousands of years.

13:25 Well, our the original Olympics actually started in 776 BC and that date is kind of debated. So it's somewhere around the seven 70s BC and they ended like the ancient, that Greek form of it that we know of ended in around 393 AD. So you know, it wasn't going on for nearly as long. Like it's it wasn't going on for an incredibly long time. But there are also dates. They also say maybe, you know, 426 AD, So less than 1000 years. When I think of the Olympics, I'm like, OK, it has to be like this is this has to be for, you know, forever. It's definitely not the case.

14:16 The modern games, though. So that kind of ended. Were there competitions, athletic competitions? Sure. It was not on this huge, you know, scale like the Olympic Games were before. So the idea, like, you know, we brought the idea of the Olympic Games from Olympus, which is where everything was held. But the first, like, the modern era was probably in the 17th century, and that was the Cotswold Games or the Cotswold Olympic Games. And it was in England involving different sports. And just this lawyer dude was like, hey, let's try to get something together. And he wanted to really, you know, get together like the best athletes of Britain. Then there was a French version of it. So the French did it 1796 to 1798, which kind of makes sense because they had just had a revolution bring people together.

15:11 Let's see, you know, so they're trying to emulate those original like classic Olympic Games that in Sweden, the 1818 thirties. Then we had another try in in England and Liverpool and then it like in the Crystal Palace, which if you're a soccer fan, then you know, Crystal Palace like they that was one of the games. But really like the, the interest that had started to happen was because of the Greek War of Independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1821. So people were like, oh, let's kind of celebrate this. Like these people, you know, won. The Greeks were trying to fight for their own independence.

15:55 What makes us Greek? What, who are we? And so they're like, well, let's bring back some of these amazing things that we have, right? Like, you know, these, these ancient wonders that were that, that was who we were. So, so they tried like bringing back a stadium to host some games, and that stadium actually hosted the Olympics in 1870 and 1875 and 30,000 people had attended. So it was kind of all over the place, but they really couldn't get it to stick. There was another one that they did in the Olympics Stadium in Athens 1896.

16:35 Then there was the Paris Exposition. Try doing it. So they start like they're trying to test different games. Like, you know, having there's the idea of the summer and then the winter. Like, hey, look, we have all these winter sports that we now do like ice hockey. Like that was one of the first games they brought back in the modern times in eight, 1928, but and then the Paralympics around 1948. But they really brought it back in like 9 in the early 1900s on a regular basis. They had one in Saint Louis. You know, it was mainly Americans who had competed because it's fucking St. Louis, MO who wants to go there, you know, so, so like that wasn't well attended.

17:19 But but as there's this fervor of more national pride, more, you know, it's easier to communicate ideas, yet we have like the telegram, we have moving pictures, things like that. That's when the Olympics really start gaining popularity. So as far as as like the agreement with who's going to attend, who's not going to attend, they do have an an actual Olympic Committee who decides, OK, what country can actually attend? Like, how many Olympic Olympians can you have like who you know what, what determines like the qualifying factors?

18:01 And by and large, that's how we have today's events. So the original Olympics, you know, they did have these standards. Like they boxing was one of the original games. You know, like we had all of these a lot of like track and field games and measuring how to measure fairly who wins was a huge deal. So it went from a very political thing and pride in your own like city into something that I would argue is probably pretty political today, but maybe in a different way. And there's still a lot of national pride rather than just city pride. I mean, could you imagine having like a Colorado Olympics? Like that would be fucking ridiculous. But with that, there have been a lot of testing. There's a lot of testing of like new sports you. Know well, that's just it too, because when you back, you don't know 10, 20 years ago, you think of Summer Olympics, you think of things like track and field.

19:05 Right. To now, Oh my God, the, some of the sports that they are doing now are you would never think, I mean, they're like new, you know, 'cause as, as cultures change, as sports change, as new things come about, you know, break dancing, I'll just give you, that's an example, right? So things like that that you would never once think about for Summer Games. The the the number of games and the the variety is amazing. It's insane. Yeah. And, And yeah, it's like, as these, like hockey certainly did not, you know, was not a thing back in the ancient times. But yeah, like snowboarding, snowboarding's a new sport. It was an experimental sport that they tested out and they're like, OK, yeah, we're gonna do you know, snowboarding or like, what?

19:58 What is that like? The jumping skiing? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's nuts. That's crazy personal stuff. Yes, it is. And Steamboat, Steamboat, I don't know if it still is, but Steamboat Colorado has like the biggest concentration of athletes of Olympians. Because their slope is freaking amazing. They have OK, so they they have their there's a city which FYI, like if you go and you want to try to like ski in Colorado for relatively inexpensive, which is almost you know, you can't really do anything right, right. But there is a place in Steamboat SH don't I told you this little you know, trick.

20:38 It's called House and Hill and it's owned by the city and is. That the one on the other side of the river. I don't maybe maybe OK. I mean, it's like it's old. It used to be owned by the YMCA. I might still. Just a little mini slope. It's not, it's not like huge, but they also have like that's where their high school team, their high school ski team trains. So they do like the, you know, obstacle, like, I don't know, with those little slalom, slalom. And then there's the jumping thing. And these are like, I saw I was there and I'm not, I'm I snowboard and I'm not very good at snowboarding, but I was like O35, you know, 25 bucks for a, a date ticket, like that's unheard of. That's yeah.

21:26 Impossible. You can't. I mean, in Colorado it's yeah, at least 100. Oh yeah, at least. Yeah. And that's really be actually on the cheaper end on more. So, yeah, went there and all these, there were a ton of kids. It was a ton of kids because there were junior high and high school teams. Anyway, they were flying down and sorry, but like Athens does not have a mountain like that or like a hill like that. Even it's house and hill like there's no way. But yeah, it's wild. So you know, the original, we were talking about the original games we had, you know, track and field events. Think of like shot put, think of discus throwing, think of like 40 meter dashes, hurdle, like, you know, things like that.

22:12 Those were OG sports. Boxing too. Oh yeah. By the way, in the old days, of course women could not compete they but they could compete with their horses. So it's like their horses were more about considered athletes than they were. But they did allow boys to compete eventually, and that makes complete sense if you know, the Greeks and like those philosophers and all the shit they got up to. Makes sense. Makes sense. OK, so anyway, you know women are now allowed to do the Olympic Games. But we have gotten a lot of weird sports that have come into it, right? One thing every host country can choose an experimental sport.

22:58 Oh, I didn't know that. Yes, yes. That's fascinating. Yeah, so, so each one, they get to have their choice. And so Paris, what they chose was break dancing. So that's the experimental sport for this year. Yeah. I mean, you think about things like fencing, like that most certainly was not an ancient one. And like, you know, I they still keep it in, you know, which is kind of crazy. So some of the weird ones. Solo synchronized swimming. Oh my God. Yes, yes, yes. Who you synchronized with, man? It's water dancing. Sorry, it's water dancing.

23:42 So synchronized like it's water dancing. So it was only women that they and they did this. Let me see, it was 1980, four, 1988 and 1992. So it lasted the three Olympics, the. Three, yeah, the three years because. We were like, dumb, yeah. Solo what the fuck? Could you imagine being The Olympian who's like, oh, like I've actually met an Olympian. She was a shot put thrower and she lives here and she was part of like the LA, the Los Angeles Olympics. But I saw she had like a gold ring and it had the Olympics like The Olympian like symbol, you know, with the circles or whatever.

24:28 And I was like, Oh my God. And she was like this beautiful, like tall, like Amazonian woman. And I was like, oh, my God. I said, where did this come from? And she's like, I, I played in the Olympics and like, I was a fucking idiot. I'm like, yeah, no, you're right. I have a total fucking kid here. You're a goddess. Like I was like, oh, my God, that's so great. But what if she like, what if I asked her her sport? And she was like, Oh, yeah, solo synchronized swimming. Like, you can't. You'd have to lie about it. You have to lie. You have to say like, oh, yeah, synchronized swimming. Like, no one's gonna fucking look it up. You could say I was on a team. Synchronized swimming. Yeah, that's not a lie. It's. Not a lie. Yeah, just omit the whole solo bit. So there was one called the horse long jump and horse high jump.

25:20 So you know how humans do the long jump? Yeah. It was like an so it was an equestrian thing. It was an equestrian. How far the horse could jump. Yes, how far it could jump, jump and how high it could jump. So they would measure that. So there was like a sand pit for the horses to measure their back legs when they jumped. Like that's dumb too. It's super dumb. That's dumb. Like how high is like measuring, like how high the horse can jump like over to it's like the high jump for humans. Well. First of all, yes, we're not having an animal Olympics. No this.

26:00 Is about human abilities. You know, you're saying some things that people are going to be very upset about. But a quest like the equestrian, totally legit. You've got your rider who's, you know, controlling the horse and they train together and they do this little. Yeah. Thing I mean that makes sense but how fucking high the horse can jump? So stupid, so dumb. It's. So dumb. OK, so that actually happened in 1900. There's another one and it's called. It's called plunge for distance.

26:41 Oh. God. In 19 O four at Saint Louis, you know, the mainly American Olympic Games competitors actually had to dive into a pool and see how far they could drift underwater until they surfaced. And it had to be up to like a maximum of one minute. So they had to like do a big old, I'd assume pencil dive, dive cannonball down and see how long they could drift underwater until they came up. All 5 contestants were from the US and the event was actually won by William Dickey with a a distance of 62.5 feet. Doesn't sound like there's a lot of athleticism there. Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to wrap my brain around that one too. A dud also sounds dumb.

27:37 It sounds so dumb. It sounds so boring to watch. So boring. Yeah, like, like, OK, would marathon running be boring to watch? Fuck yeah, I'm not watching that shit. There's still. Right, exactly. I'm watching the dashes, I'm watching the real relight races, I'm watching the hurdles, I'm not watching that shit. Agreed, but this Oh my God, it's so fucking boring. So it was only only happened once in 19 O four at the US for obvious reasons right right. And all once again, all 5 competitors were from Saint Louis. They're all from Americans. So there's another one because I'm like. I am an idea, yeah. Yeah. I want to compete in the Olympics, so I'm just going to see how far I can swim underwater. What do you think?

28:23 I think you should do it. I think you should do it. But you're not even swimming, right? You're jumping in and you're drifting to see how far you can drift. So you're not brilliant. It's brilliant. It's like the laziest fucking sport. It takes no skill. It only takes like the the capacity to hold. Buoyancy or lack? Of lack of buoyancy, being able to sink and like, hold that for as long as momentum. It takes momentum. OK, so there's another one. This was the steeplechase, but it was the 3000 meter steeplechase. So it had hurdles, water jump.

29:11 It's like an it's like a parkour assault course. And it was just like all over the place. And this was originally done during Rio de Janeiro, so I don't think it's going on anymore. But it's kind of weird. Like it's like an athletic event, you know? Doesn't sound. Familiar. Yeah. I mean, why would you need to jump over hurdles into water through like it's just like fucking stupid. It like it seems like. What is that? The Spartan Race? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's like the Spartan Race for Olympians, Like right. It's fun to do. That's why we pay $75.00 to do it.

29:52 You don't want to watch someone else do it. That almost sounds like an Olympics. Like the Spartan thing seems that seems legit. Have you done it? No, but I mean, I feel like that could be an Olympic. Couldn't that be an Olympic thing? It's like I've done it and it's really. That's where you just like crawl through the mud and you go up the wall and you like all that hard that stuff, right? Well, it's yeah, you're. Testing your endurance and your. And your and strength and, you know, I mean, it's like there's also barbed wire that you have to go under. Like I got scratched on my head and my arms like while I was trying to go underneath it. Better than floating in fucking water. I'll, I'll tell you what. I think I'm water skill.

30:35 Wait, like I think I'd rather do the floating underwater. Yeah. Then like during the the Spartan Race, I, my friend was like running up this hill and we had these packs on and I'm like, why is this bitch running so fucking fast? And I'm like, God, I said this is so hard for me. She's like, oh, it's really not that hard. I'm like, Oh my God is this is so hard. I hate running. I'm not a huge fan of running. I hate running. And I realized I picked up the men's pack, so I was holding like it was double the weight that I was going uphill. And I'm like, oh, OK, yes, that makes sense. Oh. My God this sounds so fun. Yeah, so much fun. So fun. And I paid for it. What an idiot.

31:16 I'm such an idiot. I paid like $75.00 to do that dumb bullshit. Would I do it again? I probably would. Were I Pagan? Yes. Were I Pagan? Yeah. Am I stupid? Yeah. Would I do the long swim? Yes. Or like float? Yeah, Absolutely. OK. Another one was live pigeon shooting. I know. And this was at Paris, which you know, we're doing today in 2024. Here's my Eiffel Tower. But it was also, you know, the Olympics were held there in the 19 in 1900. So you would try the the contestants were trying to kill as many pigeons as possible, and they were eliminated. Parisians were like, please.

32:04 Yeah, they're like, do you see how many fucking pigeons we have here? They're all over the place and they're aggressive and like, I don't know, have you seen like a fucked up looking pigeon? I they're kind of my favorite. No, like I, I loved when I was downtown, working downtown a while, like in Denver, I would walk around and I would just like have some coffee or, or tea or whatever. And. I'd watch that effed up. Pigeon on my lunches. Yeah, I would like watch like the nubby, like they have like like peg legs. Oh. Yeah, sure. No, no toes or whatever. Like the fucked up looking ones, like, you know, one eye, like the really fat ones, you know, rough life. Yeah, it's a totally rough life.

32:44 Anyway, super shameful. You know if if the contestants who were killing pigeons missed 2 pigeons in a row they were eliminated. So there were 21. The winner, the one who won the gold was 21 pigeons and he there were by the end of the event there was over 300 that were killed. So kind of shitty but makes sense. Both in place and in time, right? Like skeet shooting was a fucking thing, right? Like or still is a thing. Dude, that's still a. Sport. It's still a sport, but I'm sure clay pigeons, yes, not real pigeons. OK, so the other, another, like kind of weird one is the pentathlon.

33:35 Do you know what that is? No, it's like super old school and it was actually based on their military requirements for a good cavalry men. So like and this was back in the day. These were the requirements that they had. So they, the participants were, would take part in swimming and fencing, show jumping on a horse, long distance running, and then pistol shooting. And we're not talking like a normal pistol. We're talking an old school looking fucking pistol. Yeah, right. Like, like they should be like, like dueling pistols, OK. Like, like we're talking Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr fucking style pistols that they're shooting. OK.

34:23 Which I mean is ridiculous. So it's just random. Like it's a really random event that they still do today. Pistol dueling. Speaking of pistol. Oh. The God. They did have pistol dueling in 1912. The Olympics in OR 12. Did you do it? I mean it sounds way more exciting than it actually is. So they weren't actually firing rounds at each other the participants. Cause the idea of of a duel is you stand back-to-back. Come on Hamilton fans, we all know this. Stand back-to-back, walk like 10 paces forward in the in opposite directions and turn around and shoot. And you can either shoot in the air or you can shoot at the person.

35:13 You can intentionally shoot them. But like this was supposed to the idea of if a duel was like this will end all of your problems. Like go have it out with some with some some pistols and he'll be fine. How did they measure success? So that they had to actually fire at mannequins that were dressed in like coats. Like, remember those like old schools? Oh, so they would just walk away from a mannequin and shoot the mannequin? Yes, and they had targets painted at their chest. So this one, these were not gentlemen who were just trying to prove a point. These were killer men. Got it. So that's basically what they had done. And there's there's also like AI could. Get into that one.

35:55 That one you could. You're a good shot though. I love to shoot. Yeah, I could do that one. Yeah, and you have a good, you have a good aim. I still haven't gone shooting with you. I need to go. We do we need to do it? Yep. Anyway, they had a swimming race, an obstacle swimming race, 200 meters, and this was 19 Paris 1900. You know, they're trying a lot of shit. They're throwing everything at see what sticks, see what's easy. So do you remember, like, did you ever watch like MX or not MX? Oh, oh gosh, you know, those competition shows that are like Japanese and they like go like they're like falling into water and stuff like that.

36:38 It's kind of. Love it. It's almost like Wipeout. Yes, like Wipeout, yes, totally yes. So that's kind of what they were doing there. And the event actually took place in the Seine, which this year they're doing Olympic like swimming events in the Seine, the river that goes through Paris, which I love. It's one of my favorite places in Paris. Just grab like some wine and just like sit around and watch motherfuckers walking around and peeing on the wall. It's great. Oh. My God, and we wonder why the river has E coli. Oh yeah, I was like, I would never swim in that shed. Gross. Yes, it's so disgusting. It's so and it's been disgusting forever. It like it's so gross but.

37:22 Oh, and by the way, to digress for a second, they were spraying that E coli water in the air as boats were going down the river. The athlete and I told Roy, Oh my God, they're spraying that piss water. Yes, right into the air with all the pee molecules. Oh yeah, yeah, you're basically pee at that point. So disgusting. It's so disgusting. Like I would never swim in it, would I? I've never, like, taken a boat on it. Like that's future like me. I'd love to do that, but no, no, I've never done that and I would not do it. So yeah, it was basically done in the sun. They had obstacles, they ran around and got it. Not been done again.

38:05 There is walking like race walking. Walking. Walking. Right, but doesn't that isn't called like walking? No, Oh, like the jogging walking thing. Is that what it is? Well, it's let me see. It's called a race walk. So like one of them is like the men's 50 kilometre race walk and they have very it's still going. Yes, they do they do. I actually had a friend in college. She was a really good race Walker and I'm like, what the fuck is that? And she's like, Oh, well, you like they have like these very specific rules, like how your arm should move in conjunction with your opposite leg and your toe and your I'm like doing it right now. You look so stupid, but it's really hard to time and to do it, you know, continuously.

38:58 So like as your heel is coming off the your walk, your toe needs to be right behind it and needs to be a certain like distance behind. So that's why they have that, like, stupid. Wow. Yeah. They look like ducks, like walking. It's so weird. But. Oh, let me see. So there's also. Yeah. So you have to maintain contact with the ground and straighten your front knee when the foot makes contact with the ground, keeping it straightened until the knee passes underneath the body. Yeah. OK. So like, your leg has to be straight until it goes underneath the body. Then you can bend your knee, which sounds like shit. And also, yeah, their butts are like wiggling and stuff.

39:39 It is kind of funny. Like I would like to see some, you know, slow MO fast. You have to. Have the rules, otherwise people will go, you know, you have to have, you have to define it because otherwise you could jog or you could, you know what I mean? You have to like, say, you have to do it like this. It has to be specifically like this. Yeah. OK, so the final like weird one that I'm going to talk about is. Poodle clipping? No. Yeah. So once again, test events. Wait, guess where it was? French the France. Which where? Perry. Kale Perry. Yes, of course. What do you think of Eiffel Towers? Poodles.

40:23 You need women with their lung cigarettes walking their. Grooms looking fabulous like just walking with like, you know, wearing like Chanel, even though fuck Chanel. I'm saying that like Coco Chanel was a Nazi sympathizer. We do not like her. I will definitely be doing an episode on her. I'm not a fan. Yeah. So I will not buy well, yeah, I won't buy anything Chanel. Fuck that. But anyway, that's what you're thinking of the glory like the fabulousness. So Paris in 1900s we're talking. No, it was a test event, like I said. So it didn't really have a full Olympic status. It was like one of those, you know, test ones. They're just trying out to see if it would work in future great games. And Oh my God, it did not make the. Shut up.

41:09 Yeah, No way. I know I will say though, it would be hard to do having all those dogs in front of there was 6000 people watching and there were 128 competitors, which means that there are also 100. And 28 people, yes, they're gonna get the butt carved. All these, like all these people are in a stadium watching what, 2400 or what? Like 300 people? Wait, no, no, 1200 one, 260 people, basically 260 things on the stage, half of them being poodles and half of them being people and just being cut.

41:57 I mean, it's pretty ridiculous if you think about it. It is. Anyways, there was. Now, now, maybe do that at the National Dog Show. Oh my God I love the national dog show. That'll that's a good idea for sure. That's like, that's something we can all get behind. Yeah, I, I will watch that shit. Like like, no, nobody's business. So one thing I did want to talk about with this episode was, you know, the the Paris Olympics and also some of the athletes and what they had kind of what they deal with. So the Paris opening Olympic, like the games, we had actually watched the opening ceremonies.

42:40 And one thing we can say it was insanity. It was like nothing else. Yes. What was your favorite? Part so unique. It was so unique. Yes. Well, yeah, I mean, it was nothing. There was nothing traditional about it, which I thought was fascinating. They had, they still did the shows and the bits. They just had it spread all over the river and, and it was fascinating. It was and it was so diverse. Yes, yeah. I mean they had like. They mix the old with the new and modern with the classical. And I mean.

43:20 And it's really bringing, like we're talking about bringing the ancient games to the 21st century. That's most certainly what they did. Like we had there was like the update of Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper. And it was the DJ and producer Barbara Butch, who's an LGBTQ plus icon who calls herself a love activist, wore a silver headdress that looked like a Halo as she got into or got a party going on a footbridge across the Sen Did you see that? Okay, so and these these people who were on in the party were from countries that criminalize LGBTQ. So there are drag artists, dancers and others like on both sides.

44:08 I mean, so you have like these very political, this political commentary that's being made. We were talking about the heavy metal band like mixed. With the opera. Yes, the opera. And like you had nuts more Antoinette. Yeah, with heads, like head. So it's like all of this stuff. Oh, and then you had Céline Dion, which Oh my God. So impressed with her like I thought for did you see? Did you sorry digress. Did you see the Celine thing? The the. Show. I've seen a lot of excerpts. I've not seen it. It's heartbreaking, yeah. I thought for sure her voice was gone. She did an amazing job, bless her heart.

44:48 Yeah, she great. And she is like, I'm a Stan. I am absolutely behind Céline Dion. Like I've seen like a lot of footage after her performance where she's like, meeting with people. And one guy had like a single like pink rose. And it was a beautiful rose, like a very beautiful. But he hands it to her and she looks at him in the eye and she says thank you. Like it was so thoughtful. I'm like, you are a goddess among us mortals. Like, you are amazing. She's wonderful. Anyway, that was very powerful. There was also. Gaga, yes, And then hers was very French, very French.

45:28 Yes, yes I had, and we loved every second of it. And then you also have you had that like the horse galloping on the Sen. Did you see that? Oh my God, it was so hauntingly beautiful. But I mean, if there is anyone who can do it, it's the French. The French do not fuck around. They want to make political statements. They're not going to mess with, you know, any like, they're not going to do like a pretty fairy tale showing. Another thing that I couldn't believe is like, how did they get all of this past censorship like and be able to televise it? Because I think that a lot of it was really pretty. Well, you remember the European culture is very different than the American culture.

46:16 So they do a lot of stuff that us uptight butthole Americans would go no, right, yes. So we have, but we had no choice but to air it. Yes. I mean, that's true. Yeah, that's true. You just make them do it. That's what you're supposed to do. So I don't know if you know, but like the Paris 2024 Olympics are being held. They're all in Paris, but they're also having surfing as a part of competition, and they have a floating Olympic village. Yeah, in Fiji. So there are two different Olympic villages, one there and then also one. So the surfing's happening in Fiji?

46:57 I didn't know that. Yeah. Interesting. The surfing competition for the Paris Olympics is happening in Fiji. Yeah. Fascinating. Yeah, I guess it makes sense. You want to have the best environment. Yeah. So they're in places that the way they are, they do it. Yeah. And we've heard like a lot of stories about like these Olympic villages and how wild they are. They have, you know, I've. Heard some stories. Yeah, cardboard box beds like in the Villages, because I don't know. Have you heard any? What have you. Heard Yes, some nasty stuff like nastiness. So it's really like as the.

47:40 It's like a really, I think I feel like it's like a big party, like they go, especially after they're done with their business, right? They go do their business and then they're like, I'm balls to the walls. Like, literally. My life has been, has been. A rigid focus, narrow thing that I could do nothing other than this thing, and now I'm going to go do other stuff. Yes. And I'm going to do some crazy stuff. Yeah, I'm gonna do some insane things, like my competition. I've been training for this forever. I've been eating like so clean and like regimented. I've been having to sleep all this time. I've not been able to have a life bucket. My competition's over.

48:25 I maybe won, lost, whatever the case may be, but I don't have to do anything, right? And I'm surrounded by all these, really. Fit, fit people. Yeah, in their fucking prime. What do we think is gonna happen exactly? That's why we need cardboard beds, because they try, they're trying to, to stop a lot of that. So I guess this year the Olympic Village is going to be stocked with 3000 condoms, which is the highest ever to be ordered. So it's like, they know it's gonna happen. They try to stop it from happening as much. I'm just like imagining like huge rooms full of like Olympians like.

49:08 Shop. Putting shop putting, yeah. There's a competition for. You. Yeah, exactly. So 3000 condoms this year? How many? But how many competitors are there? Oh, that's a good question. That doesn't seem like enough. I need to see. I need to look. Yeah. So I guess that in 2020, in the Tokyo Games, organizers had to order an extra 20,000 condoms because they ran out of the 70,000 that they already had. So they had to like. See, that makes sense to me. Not 3000. Yeah, yeah. I mean like like like as much as possible. Just just have all of them.

49:51 Yeah. Can we just have the whole supply? Yeah, every the world supply needs to go to these Olympians. So there's actually a formal Olympian that was interviewed and and I'll have the the article LinkedIn our show notes, but it was Susan Tadecki. And so she had spoken back in July 21st saying that the sex at the Olympics is inevitable no matter what. And she was actually a long jumper who had competed in the games in 1992 and 2000 and met her ex, now ex-husband Ben Green during the Barcelona game. So like, you know, they probably were partakers in those, right? But ultimately she was saying that like a lot of these athletes, they're told and they know that having sex beforehand is not a good idea.

50:45 It can hurt like your competition like it can hurt that, that edge, that. I believe it. Competitive edge, I believe that. So they want to like they have to save all of their energy for the Games and once their competition's released, they or or they they really release. Yeah. So she said roommates when when she was there, she said roommates were considerate if you needed the room to yourself, you know, so you always heard the party of others and sometimes you could hardly sleep because of that. So there's just like one party after another and then alcohol comes in because like. Oh yeah, they weren't drinking.

51:26 They're not drinking, they're not doing anything, and then they get. Obliterated. Well, and like, like let's say they had, they've been training for like, let's say strictly right, like eight months to, you know, maybe a year or something. So now one cocktail. Oh my God, you would be high as kite. Yes, you're done, but. They're not stopping at one girl. Oh. Fuck, these are Olympians. They're extreme. You have to have this like, kind of craziness to you to compete like that. So she was saying it happens that that people have sex and there are enough people who strive for that. It's like people just are having it back and forth. So another guy was like, yeah, Barcelona. The Barcelona Games were in 1992 were a lot of us were Olympic virgins.

52:14 So it was as much about sex as it was about sport, about the sport. And he said that this guy said that he had spent so much time in a state of less that he could have passed out. And he said, I am often asked if the Olympic Village, the vast restaurant and housing conglomeration that hopes host the world's top athletes for the duration of the Games, is the sex fest it's cracked up to be. And my answer is always the same, too right? It is, he said. I played my first games in Barcelona in 1992 and got laid more often in those 2 1/2 weeks than the rest of my life up to that point. Wow. Yeah, yeah, it's a wild.

52:55 So while you guys are watching the Olympics, like just know these Olympians are getting crazy, getting that freaking inky, you know, in the in the cardboard beds that they're going to. But I will say the floating village does not have cardboard beds because they're just in a cruise ship basically. That's what they're living in. But so they're probably having an even more fun. Yeah, I've known surfers, I've surfed before. I know how they are. So their village is floating. Yeah, it's the, well, the floating. No, no, they have an actual compound for the Olympic Village that they've taken over. So that's where all the athletes are housed, that's where all the food's at, things like that. Yeah. OK.

53:36 So anyway, that's kind of the Olympics, the Paris Olympics. Great job, fun stuff. That was very. Super fun. Yeah, Thank you. And you know, we're actually going to be having more little known tidbits and facts about the Olympics on our TikTok, our Instagram as the Olympics are going on. So we'll be posting pretty regularly on there as well. Exactly when you go, great. Well, thanks so much for a good episode. Thank you. Thanks guys. OK, see you later. Yeah, bye.