At the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, a yacht race was taking the world's teams through dangerous waters at breakneck speeds. Stig Käll and his brother Lars were in the running to win when, behind them, the Australian team capsized and slipped below the deadly waves. Making a split-second decision, the Källs turned their boat around and rescued the Australians, losing the race and vanishing from the pages of Olympic history, but winning recognition from the Japanese press, who awarded them the headline "Gold Medal of Humanity". The Käll brothers were the first to receive recognition from the
International Fair Play Committee, a group that now gives awards and recognition to people who display unusual sportsmanship, such as:
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posted by shii
on Dec 6, 2011 -
41 comments
Do not be alarmed if South Africans announce that they were held up by robots.
Aimed at warming the welcome for the 2012 Olympics tourist explosion,
VisitBritain, has released a number of helpful tips on being social, internationally. Prepping for Serious Business? You can visit
Executive Planet and learn all about being courteous across the world. And here are some reasonable solutions for your
112 gripes about the French (
Previously).
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posted by griphus
on Aug 11, 2010 -
24 comments
Pierre de Coubertin is well-known as the father of the modern Olympics. What is less well-known is that he pseudonymously won an Olympic medal - in
poetry (PDF)
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posted by Dim Siawns
on Mar 14, 2010 -
5 comments
What If Everybody in Canada Flushed At Once? The water utility in Edmonton, EPCOR, published a graph of water consumption last week. By now you’ve probably heard that up to 80% of Canadians were watching the Olympics gold medal hockey game between Canada and the USA. So, it stands to reason that they’d all go pee between periods. More from
The Globe and Mail.
posted by netbros
on Mar 10, 2010 -
56 comments
At first, it seemed
the Azeris would win the Olympic Pants War handily, but then Norway, with its
argyle advantage (in crazy and
crazier varieties), seemed to have taken the lead. Now, US snowboard cross racer Nate Holland (competing, of course, in
this wonderful outfit) is stepping in to
set the pants rules for his own sport. But in the end, no matter what country they're competing for, it's the
figure skaters who have won. As history has shown us, they always have the
best pants of them all.
posted by ocherdraco
on Feb 19, 2010 -
73 comments
A Polish newspaper
ran a picture of what they thought were the cartoon mascots of the Vancouver Winter Olympics. One of the five is decidedly odd.
posted by Chocolate Pickle
on Feb 7, 2010 -
66 comments
Double Full Full Full, annotated (NYT video, reg REq'd) U.S. Olympic Team aerial skier Ryan St. Onge and a science reporter describe via video the physics going on as he executes a triple backflip with four twists.
Also, the
snowboard halfpipe.
(Don't ask me why a triple backflip with four twists is called a "double full full full")
posted by planetkyoto
on Feb 3, 2010 -
16 comments
Hot nude bronze gay hockey action. Do you associate the Winter Olympics with middle-aged curlers in warm-up jackets, Lycra-clad former linebackers sardined into a bobsled, and sparkly figure skaters’ outfits (and whatever the girls are wearing)? Oh, you’re
so last century! For Vancouver 2010, the Olympics’ first-ever Pride House for gay athletes will feature a bronze sculpture (by Edmund Haakonson) of a hockey player. It’s a dude, and he’s naked save for skates, helmet, and gloves. Of course he’s carrying a big stick.
posted by joeclark
on Jan 6, 2010 -
44 comments
The Revolutionary "Consider, then, the Fosbury Flop, an upside-down and backward leap over a high bar, an outright—an outrageous!—perversion of acceptable methods of jumping over obstacles. An absolute departure in form and technique. It was an insult to suggest, after all these aeons, that there had been a better way to get over a barrier all along. And if there were, it ought to have come from a coach, a professor of kinesiology, a biomechanic, not an Oregon teenager of middling jumping ability."
posted by dhruva
on Sep 14, 2009 -
27 comments
Explore the
History of the Ancient Greek World from the Neolithic to the Classical Period. Covering important topics, such as
Art and Architecture,
Mythology,
Wars,
Culture and Society, Poetry,
Olympics,
History Periods, Philosophy,
Playwrights, Kings and Rulers of Ancient Greece.
posted by netbros
on Feb 21, 2009 -
3 comments
Sports activism is dead? - so asks Andy Kroll in his review of
Dave Zirin's new book,
A People's History of Sports in the United States.
"And since the ‘80s, the money, TV time, and narcissism have only increased. Most professional athletes could care less — that is, if they even know at all — that their sponsors’ shoes and jerseys are made in squalid conditions in third world countries."
Author Zirin argues that “[w]e can pretend sports isn’t political just as well as we can pretend there is no such thing as gravity if we fall out of an airplane.”
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posted by Surfurrus
on Oct 5, 2008 -
38 comments
Photos of the 2008 Paralympics. Sadly the Paralympics rarely garners the coverage of the Olympics, but thanks to the internet you can witch videos of the competitions at
Universal Sports (though it may be region-blocked, require registration and only seems to work on Windows).
posted by GuyZero
on Sep 12, 2008 -
30 comments
Sex at the Olympics. "I am often asked if the Olympic village . . . is the sex-fest it is cracked up to be. My answer is always the same: too right it is." Table tennis Olympian
Matthew Syed dishes the dirt. (possibly NSFW, TimesOnline).
posted by fourcheesemac
on Aug 23, 2008 -
113 comments
