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116. The Infamous 1904 Olympic Games · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

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Speaker 1: You're listening to an airwave media podcast.
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Speaker 2: Hello delicious friends, and welcome to Hooded What Now the
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Speaker 2: history podcast That's not your history class with me your
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Speaker 2: host Katie Charlewood, history Harlotte and reader of books. Now,
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Speaker 2: before we get into the nit equity of it all,
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Speaker 2: it's been it's been a good weekend for me. Actually,
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Speaker 2: I did have a week case of the doomies today.
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Speaker 2: Like I've been feeling sort of anxious and had a
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Speaker 2: sense of foreboding which was not at all pleasant. But
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Speaker 2: it's there and I'm just kind of dealing with it,
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Speaker 2: I think. But like professionally, that's a lot.
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Speaker 3: There's a lot of stuff happening.
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Speaker 2: Anyway, I had another date and it was really nice.
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Speaker 3: It was really nice, was really nice.
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Speaker 2: It's all good dates should have movies followed by watching
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Speaker 2: Olympic badminton.
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Speaker 3: Was it was a good time. It was a good time.
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Speaker 2: Although I don't understand what the deal is with some
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Speaker 2: of the outfits because I was watching Ireland the israel
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Speaker 2: right in the singles badminton and Ireland had like clearly
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Speaker 2: an Ireland like outfit for sporty outfit and and the
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Speaker 2: Israeli person did not. And then I was looking in
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Speaker 2: the background and I saw that Denmark were again somebody
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Speaker 2: who was wearing the same outfit as Israel, And then
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Speaker 2: I had to go look up because I couldn't see
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Speaker 2: and it was the US, like the US was doing it,
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Speaker 2: and I was like, what is this? Why don't they
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Speaker 2: have their own badminton outfits, kits? Why don't they have
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Speaker 2: their own kits? Like I don't where's the uniform? I
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Speaker 2: don't get it. Shouldn't these countries have their own uniforms?
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Speaker 2: Why are they wearing the same one? What is this?
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Speaker 3: Anyway?
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Speaker 2: Professional time? So I've got a couple of gigs coming up.
2:16
Speaker 2: I've got one letter Kenny County, Donny got all So
2:19
Speaker 2: that's gonna be a fun one where we talk about
2:21
Speaker 2: the mysterious disappearance.
2:23
Speaker 3: Of an archaeologist.
2:27
Speaker 2: I've also got a Cork show coming up in September.
2:33
Speaker 2: Newcastle and Edinburgh are in November, and I've got Belfast
2:38
Speaker 2: in December. And there are a few more of the
2:41
Speaker 2: things that are going to be happening, but I can't
2:44
Speaker 2: talk about them now because I'm in bargoed. Also, I
2:49
Speaker 2: don't know if y'all listen to or watch Kinky History
2:52
Speaker 2: with doctor Esme James. But doctor Esme she's doing a
2:58
Speaker 2: book launch in August, on twenty seventh of August, and
3:02
Speaker 2: it's fab It's going to be in Hodgson Figgins and.
3:06
Speaker 3: I'm gonna be there because of course I am.
3:09
Speaker 2: You think my pal My Online pal My History BFF
3:15
Speaker 2: is going to be flying all the way, you know,
3:17
Speaker 2: into this continent and I'm not going to see her, bitch.
3:20
Speaker 2: Please I'm aa be there.
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Speaker 3: Ah yeah, Oh, and vote for me.
3:25
Speaker 2: In the Listener's Choice for the British Podcast Awards, just
3:28
Speaker 2: because I.
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Speaker 3: Think it'd be funny. Now that's out of the way.
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Speaker 2: Ah, quit your jibber jabber in fact me, in fact
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Speaker 2: you I will. But first we've got to get our
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Speaker 2: source on. So our sources are the nineteen oh four
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Speaker 2: Olympic Games, Analysis and Summaries by Bill mallon the Americanization
3:53
Speaker 2: of the World by W. T. Stead, America's First Olympics,
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Speaker 2: The Saint Louis Games nineteen oh four by George R. Matthews,
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Speaker 2: The Olympic Games nineteen oh four by Charles J. P. Lucas,
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Speaker 2: The Wildest Race Ever by Megan McCarthy, And of course
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Speaker 2: we have articles from Olympedia, History dot Com, Biography dot Com,
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Speaker 2: the Smithsonian, and surprisingly the New York Times. As it
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Speaker 2: in comfortably good, then let's begin.
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Speaker 3: So at the.
4:29
Speaker 2: Time of recording, the Olympics is currently happening in Paris, France,
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Speaker 2: while the Summer Olympics at least.
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Speaker 3: And I've had this.
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Speaker 2: On my list to talk about for such a long time,
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Speaker 2: but there's been so many things that have either come
4:43
Speaker 2: up or been more important, or have been more relevant
4:47
Speaker 2: to the time. And then trying to get all this
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Speaker 2: information together is difficult because you have to read a
4:52
Speaker 2: lot of things and link a lot of stuff together.
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Speaker 2: And I'm going to try and do this in as
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Speaker 2: chronological of fashion as I can, but I'm doing my best.
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Speaker 2: So the Olympics as we know them now will now
5:08
Speaker 2: they've been split into summer in winter. But at one
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Speaker 2: point there was just the Olympic Games, and they were
5:13
Speaker 2: trying to get a resurgence going for a while, and
5:16
Speaker 2: they were trying to do it from like the mid
5:18
Speaker 2: eighteen hundreds, like eighteen sixty six, that kind of idea.
5:21
Speaker 2: They were trying to get it going in Britain, but
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Speaker 2: it didn't quite work out. But then by eighteen ninety six,
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Speaker 2: Pierre do Cobalta.
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Speaker 3: Brings it back.
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Speaker 2: So there are Olympic games in eighteen ninety six and
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Speaker 2: nineteen hundreds and then in nineteen oh four. So in
5:41
Speaker 2: nineteen oh three, like they were trying to find a
5:44
Speaker 2: place to have the Olympics, and they're looking all about
5:48
Speaker 2: the place and they settle on Chicago, Chicago, and Chicago
5:54
Speaker 2: was getting ready to do this.
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Speaker 3: It's getting set up.
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Speaker 2: However, there was a man, James A. Sullivan, originally from
6:04
Speaker 2: New York City, but that's an Irish name. It's an
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Speaker 2: Irish name. But he is now in Saint Louis, and
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Speaker 2: he is the fellow who helped establish the Amateur Athletic Union,
6:18
Speaker 2: which was sort of invented to establish common standards for
6:23
Speaker 2: amateur sports because like they weren't regulated. There wasn't universally
6:29
Speaker 2: agreed upon set of standards rules regulations for sports and
6:35
Speaker 2: sporting events.
6:37
Speaker 3: Which you know, games work better with.
6:39
Speaker 2: Rules, they just do, because that's how you know you've won.
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Speaker 2: And Sullivan, he's a wee bit of an arsehol because
6:45
Speaker 2: he basically takes control and takes over like all of
6:50
Speaker 2: these other Amateur Athletic Unions, like all over the US
6:54
Speaker 2: and he just becomes the guy for it, and did
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Speaker 2: he have opinion, Like he was really blunt.
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Speaker 3: He was very strict. He did not compromise.
7:05
Speaker 2: But it is working for him in this time period
7:08
Speaker 2: because in eighteen ninety two he is asked to run
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Speaker 2: the American Sports Publishing Company and so he uses this
7:16
Speaker 2: as a way to push the Amateur Athletics Union, resulting
7:21
Speaker 2: in most national championships falling under the umbrella of the AAU. Now,
7:26
Speaker 2: being a man from the past, he had some very
7:28
Speaker 2: very strong opinions, one of which was sort of I'm
7:33
Speaker 2: gonna go with eugen X in supremacy.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm gonna go there. See, he believed that.
7:41
Speaker 2: American athletes were just the pinnacle of I was gonna
7:47
Speaker 2: say the profession, but they're not professional because they're amateurs,
7:50
Speaker 2: which is the point of the Olympics. Like you have
7:54
Speaker 2: to not be getting paid as a job in.
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Speaker 3: This to do it. That's what that is.
8:02
Speaker 2: And he intends to showcase American athletic superiority at the
8:07
Speaker 2: World's Fair because okay, in nineteen oh four, the city
8:10
Speaker 2: of Saint Louis was going to host an event called
8:13
Speaker 2: the Louisiana Purchase centennial exhibition, which just rolls off the tongue, right.
8:20
Speaker 2: So it was celebrating the Louisiana purchase, which happened in
8:23
Speaker 2: eighteen oh three, So it's like one hundred and one
8:27
Speaker 2: years like before this. No, I have personally never organized
8:32
Speaker 2: a centennial exhibition or celebration of any kind, but I
8:37
Speaker 2: would expect that in order to have a centennial celebration
8:42
Speaker 2: slash exhibition, it.
8:43
Speaker 3: Would need to be on.
8:47
Speaker 2: That one hundred year celebration, Like it would have to
8:49
Speaker 2: be one hundred years later, not one hundred and one,
8:52
Speaker 2: Like if you're going to organize events, maybe maybe to
8:57
Speaker 2: start with the date.
8:58
Speaker 3: Trying to get that right.
9:01
Speaker 2: AnyWho, So this gets sort of mushed together with the
9:05
Speaker 2: World's Fair, and so you've got like sort of exhibitions happening,
9:10
Speaker 2: and there's going to be sports and a bunch of
9:14
Speaker 2: other stuff like artwork and theater things and inventions, like
9:20
Speaker 2: all the stuff you expect to see at the World's Fair. Okay,
9:24
Speaker 2: So this is actually one of the reasons why it
9:26
Speaker 2: was delayed for a year. It was in order to
9:29
Speaker 2: have enough people at it, enough people sort of displaying.
9:33
Speaker 2: So as part of the exhibition, there was going to
9:35
Speaker 2: be like forty three states and sixty two countries, sixty
9:40
Speaker 2: two countries all in all, and so the whole point
9:44
Speaker 2: is that they would come over and it would be
9:46
Speaker 2: like a big thing, and a bunch of countries.
9:49
Speaker 3: Are already signed up to this, right.
9:51
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, the Olympics are trying to set up the Olympic Games,
9:55
Speaker 2: and they were sort of looking at US cities and
9:57
Speaker 2: where they were going to have it, and.
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Speaker 3: They you end up choosing Chicago.
10:02
Speaker 2: And you may be thinking, Katie, why are you talking
10:06
Speaker 2: about Saint Louis if they decided that the Olympics was
10:09
Speaker 2: going to be in Chicago. Well, here's the plot twist
10:13
Speaker 2: of my friends. They changed their minds. Basically, Sullivan digs
10:18
Speaker 2: as we heels in and he says, well, this is
10:21
Speaker 2: supposed to be happening at the same time as this
10:25
Speaker 2: what everybody's going to come to us because we're the
10:28
Speaker 2: big deal. Because at the time as well, there's been
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Speaker 2: two Olympics. This is only the third, and people aren't
10:35
Speaker 2: really like into it yet. It hasn't become like a
10:39
Speaker 2: super big deal. And so it gets to the point
10:43
Speaker 2: where the Olympics committee end up changing their mind and
10:48
Speaker 2: choosing Saint Louis as where.
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Speaker 3: The Olympics is going to happen.
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Speaker 2: So this is what Pierre had to say about the Olympics.
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Speaker 2: This is a quote, by the way, the Olympiad would
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Speaker 2: match the mediocrity of the town of Saint Louis.
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Speaker 3: Like that's it.
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Speaker 2: He's just like, nope, it's gonna be shit. Effectively, he
11:10
Speaker 2: says it in a very polite nineteen hundred way.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's wild.
11:18
Speaker 2: And so because of the Amateur Athletic Union, because you know,
11:25
Speaker 2: it was huge, it was massive, but all of the
11:28
Speaker 2: major players had already agreed to go and be involved
11:32
Speaker 2: in this like track situation, and so they.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, they had no choice, they had no choice. They
11:38
Speaker 3: had to like fucking give in.
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Speaker 2: And so the Olympics has to be held in Saint Louis,
11:42
Speaker 2: who there, to be clear, have not done enough preparation
11:48
Speaker 2: for this, Like they don't have it because Chicago was
11:52
Speaker 2: preparing from like the year before. It was getting like
11:56
Speaker 2: the stadiums and getting all sorted.
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Speaker 3: Saint Louis.
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Speaker 2: We're not doing that, and it's not great. It's not
12:06
Speaker 2: great for people involved. So Prierre is just so annoyed
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Speaker 2: that this is happening like that it's in Saint Louis
12:13
Speaker 2: that he just has nothing.
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Speaker 3: To do with it.
12:15
Speaker 2: He just like exit stage left, and so Saint Louis
12:21
Speaker 2: are kind of left to their own devices because there's
12:23
Speaker 2: no official way of it yet. There's no set rules,
12:27
Speaker 2: there's no sort of established planning because this is only
12:31
Speaker 2: the third one and all the stuff that Pierre had
12:34
Speaker 2: planned and was going to do, like he didn't write
12:36
Speaker 2: it down, or if he did write it down, he
12:38
Speaker 2: did not share it, and so.
12:40
Speaker 3: It was not great for everybody. And so.
12:47
Speaker 2: This whole thing between the World's Fair and the exhibitions
12:51
Speaker 2: and the Olympics, it's like a seven month situation, like
12:57
Speaker 2: the Fair that's happening and sort of all these other
13:00
Speaker 2: events before the Olympics happen. It's like a whole seven
13:03
Speaker 2: month period like it's wild. So the fair slash exhibition
13:10
Speaker 2: opens in April April thirtieth and nineteen oh four, and
13:16
Speaker 2: the opening ceremony is held in May, so like politicians come,
13:23
Speaker 2: there's people having a big speech in stadiums and the
13:26
Speaker 2: place is packed. Unfortunately, they're not watching the Olympics. They're
13:33
Speaker 2: watching the Missouri High School Track and Field Championships. Like
13:40
Speaker 2: these people came to see Olympics, but the Olympics haven't started.
13:44
Speaker 2: It was just like the ceremony and then like the
13:48
Speaker 2: ze skills just doing its little track. So that's that's
13:56
Speaker 2: the first part of it. And here's the thing. Things
13:58
Speaker 2: are about to get so much worse because also, out
14:02
Speaker 2: of all the countries that wanted to go and we're
14:05
Speaker 2: planning to come, Saint Lewis didn't have great transport routes
14:11
Speaker 2: to it. So for a lot of people who would
14:14
Speaker 2: travel in in the Olympics, again not a big deal.
14:16
Speaker 3: Oh there's not really a lot.
14:18
Speaker 2: Of dry for them to go there to this like
14:21
Speaker 2: difficult city that they don't really know about, like it's
14:25
Speaker 2: not a big deal to them, or it's like just
14:27
Speaker 2: too much hassle. And then you've got this, and then
14:32
Speaker 2: you have the fact that the we're so Japanese war
14:37
Speaker 2: is happening, so like for the entirety of the Olympics,
14:41
Speaker 2: there's a.
14:42
Speaker 3: War between Russia and Japan, and.
14:45
Speaker 2: So because of that, many countries aren't able to attend. Meanwhile,
14:51
Speaker 2: the fair is still going on. You've got machinery and
14:55
Speaker 2: quote technology, You've got like all this fun food happening.
15:00
Speaker 2: You've got doctor pepper candy floss or cotton candy. You've
15:06
Speaker 2: got peanut butter waffle cons sort of I'm gonna say,
15:12
Speaker 2: like sugar puffs, like puffed cereal sort of rice crispies,
15:16
Speaker 2: sugar puffs like that kind of scenario. Like I'm making
15:20
Speaker 2: like eating movements with my hand to my face and
15:23
Speaker 2: I'm just like, let me tell you about the foods.
15:28
Speaker 2: Oh oh, oh, there's a pony, beautiful, pony, beautiful jimkye.
15:34
Speaker 2: He's it's so they would have horses that would do
15:37
Speaker 2: sort of performances.
15:40
Speaker 3: So this horse could count up to thirty.
15:44
Speaker 2: And they said the horse could read and write.
15:50
Speaker 3: Now here's the thing.
15:51
Speaker 2: Horses don't have apposable thumbs, so I don't know, like,
15:57
Speaker 2: is it supposed to be writing with like I can't
15:59
Speaker 2: go pencil because it like writing words with its hoofs,
16:03
Speaker 2: Like have you trained it to write words?
16:06
Speaker 3: Like if that horse.
16:07
Speaker 2: Can read, like don't hand up black Beauty, I think
16:10
Speaker 2: it'd be sad.
16:12
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's good. It's gonna reading. It's good of
16:15
Speaker 3: reading horse. It was so much.
16:19
Speaker 2: Oh no, this would be around about the time they
16:20
Speaker 2: had horses like dive into pools. Yeah, there used to
16:25
Speaker 2: be this movie I remember watching. I think it's based
16:27
Speaker 2: on a true story. I mustle it up. There was
16:30
Speaker 2: a girl who was like she would sit on the
16:33
Speaker 2: back of a horse and the horse would like dive
16:34
Speaker 2: off of like a podium and into like a pool
16:38
Speaker 2: of some kind, and so they would do that, but
16:42
Speaker 2: it made her blind, like I think there was something
16:45
Speaker 2: in the water, like too much chlorine or whatever, and
16:48
Speaker 2: so she ends up being a blind.
16:52
Speaker 3: Horse diver. I thing, I muscle it up, like.
16:54
Speaker 2: That's that's a flashback from my childhood, all diving horse.
17:00
Speaker 2: As a side, I guess it's time to talk about
17:04
Speaker 2: what we're all waiting for, the blatant racism. So they
17:09
Speaker 2: have these exhibitions how do we call them, like indigenous exhibitions.
17:18
Speaker 3: And on the.
17:19
Speaker 2: Twelfth and thirteenth of August they had these things called
17:23
Speaker 2: Anthropology Days. Effectively they were human zoos, and the reason
17:30
Speaker 2: they were there was to basically go ooh, look savages,
17:34
Speaker 2: Look how more civilized we are, Look how fabulous we are.
17:37
Speaker 2: Look at them. Ooh, look at them and they're no
17:39
Speaker 2: shoes and ooh. So there's basically three thousand of them
17:44
Speaker 2: all together in just underhalf are in these anthropological exhibits
17:49
Speaker 2: which showed them in their natural habitats. So you've got
17:54
Speaker 2: people from the Pacific Islands, You've got them from east
17:59
Speaker 2: in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, South America, Africa, and.
18:03
Speaker 3: Then of course you have.
18:06
Speaker 2: Native Americans and First peoples, with one of the most
18:10
Speaker 2: popular attractions being the Philippine Village, where people could happily
18:15
Speaker 2: gaze upon Filipinos in their natural habitat. I feel dirty
18:21
Speaker 2: saying that, like and not in a good way. So
18:24
Speaker 2: they built these sort of habitat environments so like they
18:28
Speaker 2: made like villages. So you would have you know, Assyrians,
18:33
Speaker 2: you would have the Tarks, you would have Pigmies from
18:38
Speaker 2: Central Africa. To think there for a second, and you
18:41
Speaker 2: had h along the Native Americans, you had Geronimo on display.
18:47
Speaker 3: Sure that was a great time for everybody involved.
18:50
Speaker 2: So people were just like what them as they would
18:55
Speaker 2: live there like to show how far advanced the white man,
19:00
Speaker 2: I mean America was now. And the thing is as well,
19:04
Speaker 2: this was all put together by I shit you not,
19:07
Speaker 2: the Department of Exploitation, That's what it was called. So
19:13
Speaker 2: on top of this as well, they actually had displays
19:16
Speaker 2: from residential skills, you know, the ones where they you know,
19:21
Speaker 2: took all of the young Native Americans and forced people's
19:24
Speaker 2: up and forced them to be Christian and cut their
19:27
Speaker 2: hair and have English names and not use their native tongue.
19:31
Speaker 3: Yeah.
19:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, assimilation to show how well they assimilated when under
19:36
Speaker 2: the guidance of white people white people. Yeah.
19:42
Speaker 3: And of course James E.
19:44
Speaker 2: Sullivan is absolutely living for this because he's made head
19:47
Speaker 2: of the Fairs Department of Physical Culture, right, and so
19:51
Speaker 2: he is so into proving, you know, the racial superiority
19:55
Speaker 2: of you know what Anglo America cans is that what
20:02
Speaker 2: you call him, like white Americans, and he is so
20:06
Speaker 2: into this, like because he thinks that they're just better
20:09
Speaker 2: like in every way physically, mentally, you know, education wise.
20:14
Speaker 2: He just thinks they're just tip top perfect and everyone
20:18
Speaker 2: who's you know, darker than he Man is less than Morca.
20:24
Speaker 3: Sidebar.
20:25
Speaker 2: There was a little bit of a funny twist of this.
20:27
Speaker 2: So like some of the sort of indigenous peoples that
20:30
Speaker 2: were you know, exhibiting, were on display. They were paid actors,
20:37
Speaker 2: like they were showmen, Like this was a gig to
20:40
Speaker 2: them and they were getting paid, you know, So for
20:43
Speaker 2: some of them, I mean, again, not great because.
20:45
Speaker 3: You're still.
20:47
Speaker 2: Exploited, but slightly better off in a way, I guess
20:52
Speaker 2: because they're earning it and they weren't just forced into it,
20:56
Speaker 2: like you know, the kids from the residential school probably were.
21:00
Speaker 2: Ven wanted them to be involved in the Olympics to
21:02
Speaker 2: do like the sporty stuff too, because they were physically capable,
21:06
Speaker 2: like was it the annual of Japan. We're really good
21:07
Speaker 2: at climbing trees, and he wanted them to be in
21:10
Speaker 2: tree climbing competition, because anything can be a sport if
21:14
Speaker 2: you think hard enough.
21:16
Speaker 3: I mean, golf is a sport. Ooh, the golfers are
21:18
Speaker 3: gonna come at me. It's all angles, mate, it's just math. Anyway.
21:26
Speaker 2: I know people who are golf as well, and I'm like,
21:28
Speaker 2: is it a sport? And they're like, fuck off, Kerry.
21:31
Speaker 2: But yeah, and so they don't want to do the
21:34
Speaker 2: thing that's free because you're an amateur athlete, so you
21:38
Speaker 2: don't get paid to do the Olympics to do the
21:41
Speaker 2: sporty stuff. But Sullivan's like, I wanted to show how
21:45
Speaker 2: supery are we were you climbing the trees and that
21:48
Speaker 2: just doesn't happen. And like they think some of the
21:51
Speaker 2: events are just fucking ridiculous, and we just don't want
21:55
Speaker 2: to do it, so like they don't want to climb
21:57
Speaker 2: trees or water vault, which was a thing by the way,
22:02
Speaker 2: or water polo. Everyone thought water polo was stupid and
22:07
Speaker 2: I can't say they're.
22:08
Speaker 3: Wrong, like I can't.
22:11
Speaker 2: And so there's that, and then we have the bullfight.
22:15
Speaker 2: The bullfight, so fun fact, at this point in time,
22:19
Speaker 2: bill fighting was illegal in the USA, completely legal. But
22:25
Speaker 2: on June fifth, they decide they're going to have a
22:29
Speaker 2: bull fight in the Olympics and they're gonna do it.
22:34
Speaker 2: So they sell a bunch of tickets, they get them
22:37
Speaker 2: to the stadium, they have their bulls, and the governor
22:41
Speaker 2: orders that anyone involved in bull fighting is to be arrested. Unfortunately,
22:50
Speaker 2: they had already sold eight thousand tickets, and so they
22:54
Speaker 2: decide they're just going to have the bullfight. So the
22:57
Speaker 2: crowd are all in and they're getting agitated and they're
23:00
Speaker 2: ready to see a man kill a bull or a
23:04
Speaker 2: man be bored by a bull. Whom's to say, So
23:08
Speaker 2: they're getting ready for this, and the announcer is like,
23:11
Speaker 2: Donnie Manuela Serea is going to like fight the bull
23:16
Speaker 2: there are deputy steps out and he's like, no bullfighting
23:19
Speaker 2: today here, bub and the police just basically.
23:23
Speaker 3: Stop the show.
23:24
Speaker 2: Naturally, the audience is pissed. They're asking for refunds. As
23:27
Speaker 2: they're asking, they're demanding refunds, and everyone's like, no, just
23:30
Speaker 2: get out, and clearly they're not happy with this, and
23:35
Speaker 2: the pissed off crowd turns into an angry mob and
23:38
Speaker 2: they head down into the arena and they release three
23:41
Speaker 2: bulls who are.
23:43
Speaker 3: Skinny as fuck.
23:45
Speaker 2: So these bulls are like, they're so hungry, they're so weak,
23:49
Speaker 2: you know, they just don't have the energy to be
23:52
Speaker 2: chasing anybody. So it wouldn't have been much of a
23:55
Speaker 2: bullfight in fairness, so I think they would have been
23:57
Speaker 2: demanding their money back anyway. But like, there's nothing they
24:00
Speaker 2: can do. There's no excitement here. They can't even turn
24:04
Speaker 2: into an angry mob properly. They're just like, well, this sucks,
24:09
Speaker 2: and what do they do with all that rage? Well,
24:12
Speaker 2: the same thing anybody would do in their situation.
24:15
Speaker 3: Arson They burn it to the ground and it burns.
24:19
Speaker 2: Pretty fast because you know, a lot of the stadiums
24:22
Speaker 2: made a timber and timber I don't know if you've
24:26
Speaker 2: ever been near a big bunch of wood tends to.
24:28
Speaker 3: Burn pretty quickly. Science.
24:31
Speaker 2: Oh, I dontally forgot to mention, like this is a
24:34
Speaker 2: full male event, like there's no like women's sports, although
24:38
Speaker 2: women are allowed to box, like women are allowed to box.
24:43
Speaker 3: But everything else is just for men.
24:47
Speaker 2: Women can be involved as long as they're punching each
24:48
Speaker 2: other in the face.
24:50
Speaker 3: I guess.
24:51
Speaker 2: Speaking of women not getting the respect they deserve, there's
24:55
Speaker 2: this photographer, Jesse Tarbick Spiels, and she's from Buffalo, and
25:00
Speaker 2: I think she's one of the first female news photographers
25:03
Speaker 2: like in the US, And so she tries to get
25:08
Speaker 2: in on this and she tries to register, and the
25:10
Speaker 2: fair officials just like deny her an official press pass
25:14
Speaker 2: at the fair because they were like.
25:16
Speaker 3: Yo, can't move cameras around you were a lady. And
25:20
Speaker 3: so she goes around and she does manage.
25:23
Speaker 2: To like swing her way like at one point, but
25:27
Speaker 2: not not for like any official channels. And the funniest
25:30
Speaker 2: thing as well, is like the photos that she takes
25:32
Speaker 2: were like the best of the entire Olympics, Like they're
25:34
Speaker 2: so good. Back to the sports, Okay, So there's there's
25:39
Speaker 2: a couple of weird things here which are amazing. There's
25:43
Speaker 2: a diving event just called fancy diving. It's basically just
25:49
Speaker 2: doing the acrobats in the air before you hit the water,
25:51
Speaker 2: and it's like who can dive the fanciest, and a
25:55
Speaker 2: US person's wins, and like the German like contests it
26:00
Speaker 2: and it ends up being overturned I don't know, several
26:03
Speaker 2: years later, but America's like that never happened. So yeah,
26:08
Speaker 2: then we have gymnastics. So in July the first like
26:15
Speaker 2: gymnastic events start taking place, and there's George iSER, who
26:20
Speaker 2: is part of a gymnastics club in Saint Louis. Now George,
26:25
Speaker 2: unlike every other gymnast there, has a wooden leg. He's
26:33
Speaker 2: got a peg leg. He's and yet he's in the Olympics.
26:38
Speaker 2: And this may shock you, but he did come last
26:40
Speaker 2: in the triathlon.
26:42
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, the long jump wasn't it wasn't. It wasn't
26:45
Speaker 3: for him. It wasn't for him.
26:47
Speaker 2: So for the anthropology days, right when they had sort
26:51
Speaker 2: of the indigenous people from all the countries doing the sports,
26:57
Speaker 2: they had flown like a bunch of scientists into absor
27:00
Speaker 2: of them, basically just trying to reinforce this concept of
27:04
Speaker 2: the white person's superiority. Right, And for a lot of
27:08
Speaker 2: the sports, they did not explain to them how to
27:11
Speaker 2: do the sport, so it might not have been native
27:14
Speaker 2: to their region or country. So like hurdles, shot put,
27:20
Speaker 2: the long jump, like they weren't told there was like
27:23
Speaker 2: one hundred yard dash, but they didn't tell them they
27:27
Speaker 2: were doing a hundred yard dash. And when the starting
27:30
Speaker 2: pistol went off, like they didn't know what they were doing.
27:33
Speaker 2: Nobody considered that maybe them all speaking different languages and
27:37
Speaker 2: no one conveying the rules to them would be useful.
27:40
Speaker 3: But like that's that's another one for another day.
27:44
Speaker 2: Now, Sullivan, he is absolutely loving this because this is
27:47
Speaker 2: just solidifying his idea that American athletes are just superior.
27:52
Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe give people time to train, show
27:55
Speaker 2: them what they're doing. Maybe like give them more than
27:57
Speaker 2: five minutes. They'd kick your eye. But yes, back to
28:02
Speaker 2: the Olympic Olympics, which is in sort of August to September, right,
28:06
Speaker 2: the Olympic Olympics. Yeah, there's twelve countries because remember the
28:12
Speaker 2: whole war situation coupled with the fact that people didn't
28:15
Speaker 2: want to go to Saint Louis because they didn't know
28:17
Speaker 2: where it was and how far away it was. Yes,
28:20
Speaker 2: so the majority of the athletes are from the US,
28:24
Speaker 2: to the point that like a lot of the events
28:28
Speaker 2: would just have different Americans competing against each other, like
28:34
Speaker 2: the tug of war, which yes, was an Olympic sport.
28:38
Speaker 2: Like they're just like America against America. Oh no, I forgot.
28:46
Speaker 2: I forgot archery. Women could do archery, so they could
28:50
Speaker 2: shoot you or punch you in the face, Like that's
28:52
Speaker 2: the only stuff they could do the Olympics.
28:54
Speaker 3: Fuck, it's fine anyway.
28:56
Speaker 2: So nothing's really going well for any athletes.
28:59
Speaker 3: There's this guy.
28:59
Speaker 2: From Germany, Johann's Wrung, and he is supposed to be
29:04
Speaker 2: running the eight hundred meters right. Unfortunately, this place is
29:10
Speaker 2: so parly wrong that the day before he lines up
29:12
Speaker 2: in the wrong race, which is like a four hundred
29:14
Speaker 2: meter race, and he's so tired from doing this that
29:19
Speaker 2: when he actually does like his actual race the next day,
29:23
Speaker 2: he's too fucking tired because he's an eight hundred meter
29:26
Speaker 2: runner and.
29:28
Speaker 3: He ends up coming in fifth.
29:30
Speaker 2: I've already mentioned fancy diving, but also like all of
29:34
Speaker 2: the swimming stuff, they happened in like rivers and lakes.
29:37
Speaker 2: There was one man made lake that was for the
29:39
Speaker 2: fifty yard freestyle race, and so how much result in
29:45
Speaker 2: homage of Hungary. He was like the favorite to win,
29:49
Speaker 2: and he wins the race by a foot, but the
29:53
Speaker 2: US judge is basically like, no, the American to only
29:57
Speaker 2: won like a Hungarian is.
30:00
Speaker 3: Like what the fuck?
30:01
Speaker 2: And so a brawl starts like fistycuffs, and it gets
30:05
Speaker 2: so bad they just like just swim again, and they
30:07
Speaker 2: swim again, and like Zulton, he beats him by like
30:12
Speaker 2: like a stroke, like it's so neck and neck, but
30:14
Speaker 2: he wins again, and they're like, fuck now, if you
30:18
Speaker 2: think swimming rolls were bad, let me tell you about
30:23
Speaker 2: the fisty cuffs. False identity. Like there's identity theft happening
30:30
Speaker 2: in the Olympics. So this boxer, light weight boxer, Carl Burton,
30:36
Speaker 2: he's pretty popular, he's very popular in the area, and
30:39
Speaker 2: he wins his first match and then they're like, wait
30:42
Speaker 2: a minute, somebody's like, that's not Carl Burton. He's actually
30:48
Speaker 2: this other dude called James Bollinger. He's just like, eh,
30:53
Speaker 2: I'll pretend to be him. Nobody will notice that I'm
30:56
Speaker 2: not this very popular boxer from this very specific area.
31:00
Speaker 2: Naturally he's disqualified. So then the person who he was
31:05
Speaker 2: supposed to go up against, Peter Sterholdt and ends up
31:08
Speaker 2: being beaten by Jack Egan. So Jack Egan ends up
31:11
Speaker 2: with the silver medal and Sterholdt is like a fourth
31:16
Speaker 2: whatever sucks. But as it turns out, as it turns out,
31:22
Speaker 2: Jack Egan was not Jack Eagan. He was Frank Floyd
31:28
Speaker 2: who decided to pretend.
31:29
Speaker 3: To be Jack Egan for reasons.
31:32
Speaker 2: So yeah, that means that sterholt ends up getting the
31:36
Speaker 2: bronze even though he's never actually won a fight, just
31:39
Speaker 2: because two guys decided to like identity theft up and
31:44
Speaker 2: there Olympics imposter era, there were so many like great
31:52
Speaker 2: sort of fiction books like I could imagine from the scenario,
31:56
Speaker 2: like I've got so many ideas, the best, the best
31:58
Speaker 2: certain points are his right right. Yeah, So you've got that,
32:04
Speaker 2: which is bad enough for your international competition. But of
32:08
Speaker 2: course we have the worst, worst part of this entire event,
32:13
Speaker 2: which is the nineteen oh four marathon, which we're going
32:20
Speaker 2: to get to after a word from our sponsors, and.
32:32
Speaker 3: We are back.
32:34
Speaker 2: So the nineteen oh, four marathon is wild. It is
32:39
Speaker 2: It is absolute madness. So the marthin is actually like
32:42
Speaker 2: the big event of the Olympics, and it's.
32:45
Speaker 3: One of the few sort of.
32:48
Speaker 2: You know, one of the few events that actually sort
32:50
Speaker 2: of link back to like Greece. So because you would
32:54
Speaker 2: have marthon, you would have like wrestling, like these were
32:57
Speaker 2: all very traditional you know sports. However, however, this is
33:03
Speaker 2: not going to be.
33:07
Speaker 3: Honoring that memory.
33:09
Speaker 2: I don't think, well, you know, apart from possible death.
33:13
Speaker 2: But I'm getting ahead of myself. So there are quite
33:17
Speaker 2: a few favorites for this race. You've got Tom Hicks,
33:22
Speaker 2: John Lorden, Michael spring A L. Newton, Sam Miller, and
33:27
Speaker 2: this bunch of ads. They're used to running marathons like
33:29
Speaker 2: this is their jam.
33:31
Speaker 3: Yeah. That being said, it's.
33:34
Speaker 2: Not just people who are used to running marathons that
33:37
Speaker 2: get involved in this race. There's a bricklayer who landed
33:42
Speaker 2: a place in the marathon because he won a five
33:46
Speaker 2: mile race, Fred Laws. Now those are known as sort
33:51
Speaker 2: of the more legitimate of the people involved in the marathon.
33:57
Speaker 2: So you've also got ten Greeks who had never run
34:02
Speaker 2: a marathon. They just thought this would be fun and
34:06
Speaker 2: for Cuba. There's an ex mailman called Felix Carbajal, So
34:12
Speaker 2: he had basically ran up and down Cuba, raised a
34:16
Speaker 2: bunch of money to send him there, but he gets
34:20
Speaker 2: to New Orleans and just gambles all the money away,
34:24
Speaker 2: and so he has to hitch a ride like to
34:28
Speaker 2: Saint Louis in order in order for him to actually compete.
34:34
Speaker 2: And then we have the first Black Africans ever to
34:37
Speaker 2: be involved in the Olympics, and they are two members
34:42
Speaker 2: of the Swanna tribe from South Africa who were part
34:45
Speaker 2: of the Boer War Exhibition. So these two guys had
34:49
Speaker 2: actually served as messengers during the Boer War and so
34:53
Speaker 2: they would have to like run quite a bit to
34:55
Speaker 2: actually pass the message on and deliver information. And so
34:59
Speaker 2: they were like, they can totally do a marathon. And
35:03
Speaker 2: then on top of that, there are like a couple
35:05
Speaker 2: of students who end up joining the race because it
35:08
Speaker 2: looked fun. So, yeah, they're all set up. They're gonna
35:13
Speaker 2: run the marathon. It is forty kilometers or twenty four
35:18
Speaker 2: point eighty five miles, and on August the thirtieth, nineteen
35:23
Speaker 2: oh four, they all line up on this dusty, dusty
35:30
Speaker 2: road there it's not paved, it's not prepared, and it's
35:34
Speaker 2: not cordoned off. So like it's hot, So ninety fahrenheit
35:40
Speaker 2: thirty two celsius. That's right, isn't it. That's I don't know,
35:45
Speaker 2: farre night, so hopefully that's right. So yeah, it's so dusty.
35:50
Speaker 2: It's so hot, and the dust is like so thick,
35:53
Speaker 2: like inches thick, and the stones are all cracked and
35:58
Speaker 2: it's it's not safe to actually walk on. And yet
36:02
Speaker 2: they're going to go run on it.
36:03
Speaker 3: That's fine.
36:05
Speaker 2: So the runners, they're alway set up at the starting line. Felix,
36:10
Speaker 2: the Cuban milman, is in a long sleeved shirt.
36:16
Speaker 3: It's white.
36:16
Speaker 2: He's wearing his like souit trousers. They're like dress trousers,
36:22
Speaker 2: a beret, and a pair of street shoes. See, he
36:27
Speaker 2: had gambled all the stuff, so we didn't even have
36:29
Speaker 2: gear to wear to their race. But like he manages
36:34
Speaker 2: to get a pair of scissors and like cut his
36:36
Speaker 2: trousers up so that they're turned into shorts because he's like,
36:40
Speaker 2: I'm gonna make this work. So the starting pistol goes
36:48
Speaker 2: off three point thirty boom, off they go. Now as
36:55
Speaker 2: they start running, they immediately encounter a problem. That problem
36:59
Speaker 2: is traffic because there's like trucks, you've cut automobiles, because
37:08
Speaker 2: nobody thought, let's maybe block off the road to make
37:12
Speaker 2: sure that our athletes, you know, aren't victims of vehicular manslaughter,
37:17
Speaker 2: Like maybe let's.
37:18
Speaker 3: Not do that. It didn't come up.
37:21
Speaker 2: Speaking of cars, coaches would get in a car and
37:24
Speaker 2: like drive alongside the runners.
37:27
Speaker 3: You know, just like keep going by it. You got
37:30
Speaker 3: this like no pain, no gain.
37:33
Speaker 2: But unfortunately, because they're driving along this very dusty dirt road,
37:38
Speaker 2: like the dust is going up in the air, and yeah,
37:43
Speaker 2: these guys are running on what one Fair official called
37:46
Speaker 2: the most difficult a human being was ever asked to
37:49
Speaker 2: run over. And it's not flat. There are seven hills,
37:54
Speaker 2: so they're like from like three hundred feet one hundred feet,
37:57
Speaker 2: like there's.
37:59
Speaker 3: Some graph going on.
38:00
Speaker 2: You're going up and down. And to add insult to injury,
38:04
Speaker 2: there was only one point where any of the athletes
38:09
Speaker 2: could actually get a drink of fresh water. And it
38:12
Speaker 2: is twelve miles from the start of the race. So
38:15
Speaker 2: at that point that's where you could get water, not
38:18
Speaker 2: before and not after that being said Felix, the Cuban
38:23
Speaker 2: mailman managed to get a drink at a water tower
38:26
Speaker 2: six miles in like he's just luggy. Because Sullivan, here's
38:32
Speaker 2: the thing, him and the other officials, they wanted to
38:35
Speaker 2: test the effects of purposeful dehydration because this is the
38:40
Speaker 2: perfect time to do it on these people who did
38:43
Speaker 2: not consent. But yeah, they couldn't they couldn't drink water,
38:46
Speaker 2: but they were allowed to have a moist sponge like
38:51
Speaker 2: pressed inside their mouth. Like it seems like an easy
38:55
Speaker 2: thing to do when you're running, let's maneuver a sponge
38:57
Speaker 2: into his mouth, like, Okay, that's not a choking'hazld speaking
39:03
Speaker 2: of choking. When he is just eight miles shy of
39:07
Speaker 2: the finish California and William Garcia collapses on the side
39:13
Speaker 2: of the road from the dust and he is rushed
39:17
Speaker 2: to hospital. So as it turns out the dust from
39:21
Speaker 2: the road had coated his esophagus, ripped his stomach, lining
39:26
Speaker 2: and caused serious hemorrhaging. And they're like, if he had
39:31
Speaker 2: been left, like if this was one hour later, this
39:34
Speaker 2: man would be dead, Like he was so close to
39:36
Speaker 2: being like the first fatality in this like so close
39:42
Speaker 2: the next to leave of the race was John Lorton.
39:45
Speaker 2: He was inhaling so much dust it caused him to
39:48
Speaker 2: vomit and he was just like fuck this forgeme of soldiers.
39:51
Speaker 2: I'm out Nope and hope he goes. Then Lenau, you know,
39:56
Speaker 2: one from the Taswana tribe. He ends up being chain based,
40:00
Speaker 2: of course, by a pack of wild dogs. And these
40:07
Speaker 2: chased were like a mile before the dogs give up,
40:10
Speaker 2: like they keep going, and after they do that, he
40:14
Speaker 2: turns around and just joins the race again. Then of
40:18
Speaker 2: course we have the Cuban Maleman who I just can't
40:23
Speaker 2: be mad at right, Felix Carvajal. He's like just just
40:28
Speaker 2: trotting along because he keeps pausing to chat to spectators.
40:32
Speaker 2: He's like he's got broken English, but he's like he's
40:35
Speaker 2: like stopping having a chat, just living his best life now.
40:40
Speaker 2: At one point, he's like going past a car and
40:42
Speaker 2: like everyone in the car is like eating peaches, and
40:46
Speaker 2: he's like, bows, get me a wee peach, though, can
40:49
Speaker 2: have a peach? We peach And everyone in the car
40:51
Speaker 2: is like, no, you can't have a peach. And he's
40:54
Speaker 2: like ha, grabs two and just like starts eating them
40:57
Speaker 2: as he ran because he hadn't eaten, like he had
41:03
Speaker 2: no money, he'd hitched in, so he hadn't eaten like
41:06
Speaker 2: two days prior to the marathon, like he'd just been starving.
41:10
Speaker 2: And so he's a hungry boy. And so he's eating
41:13
Speaker 2: these peaches and then as he keeps running along, he
41:18
Speaker 2: comes across an apple orchard and decides to eat fruit
41:23
Speaker 2: from the ground. Now, he must have just been hungry
41:26
Speaker 2: because he didn't realize there was something wrong with these
41:28
Speaker 2: apples because they were rotten. He ends up getting these
41:33
Speaker 2: terrible stomach cramps and so he's like lying down, he's
41:37
Speaker 2: curled up in the fedal position, and then he falls asleep.
41:42
Speaker 3: He takes a nap. Now here's the thing.
41:45
Speaker 2: They say that these apples are rotten. Now we don't
41:49
Speaker 2: know exactly what kind of apples these are. These could
41:51
Speaker 2: be crab apples, these could be more difficult to digest
41:54
Speaker 2: that they just could be awkward, especially if you're eating
41:57
Speaker 2: that much fiber, like all at once and you haven't
42:01
Speaker 2: eaten in several days like that, that's not good for you,
42:04
Speaker 2: Like that's that's going to create a situation. But Felix
42:08
Speaker 2: isn't the only one to have cramps. In this race,
42:11
Speaker 2: Sam Miller, who's like in the lead, he starts getting
42:14
Speaker 2: these really really bad cramps and he's just starts. He
42:18
Speaker 2: slows down from a run to a jog to a walk,
42:22
Speaker 2: and eventually he just stops. He's like, I'm done.
42:25
Speaker 3: I'm done.
42:26
Speaker 2: He just sits down like he is properly done. Another
42:32
Speaker 2: runner to get Stumach cramps was Laws, who's like in
42:35
Speaker 2: fourth place and so and so he gives up and
42:40
Speaker 2: there's like a car going past and he's like, hey,
42:42
Speaker 2: you want to give me a lyft and he jumps
42:44
Speaker 2: in and so as he's driving along the route like
42:48
Speaker 2: he's waving at runners, he's waving.
42:50
Speaker 3: At spectators and he's just going all the while.
42:55
Speaker 2: Hecks. He's still in the lead. It's around about the
42:59
Speaker 2: ten minutes, and he is begging, begging for some fluids.
43:04
Speaker 2: He's like, get that liquor in me. Boys, and they're
43:07
Speaker 2: just like, oh, we can't give you.
43:08
Speaker 3: A drink, and so they're like sponging.
43:11
Speaker 2: Sponging the water into the mouth. This is just as
43:15
Speaker 2: good and not at all creepy. That being said, Hicks's crew,
43:21
Speaker 2: his coaches and doctors and whatnot, they decide that around
43:24
Speaker 2: about the seventeen mil mark that he needs a special concoction,
43:29
Speaker 2: a little health drink. You know how you got your
43:31
Speaker 2: protein shakes or your your I don't know, superfruit smoothie.
43:37
Speaker 2: He had his own special drink. He created a little
43:41
Speaker 2: cocktail made of egg whites and Stryck nine. For those
43:47
Speaker 2: of you who know anything about poisons, yeah, rat poison.
43:51
Speaker 2: They gave him rat poison. That being said, stricken nine
43:54
Speaker 2: does have some benefits, like a lot of these poisons
43:57
Speaker 2: doing like if you take a little bit and like
43:59
Speaker 2: it helps, like medicine. Who took one medicine good? Who
44:02
Speaker 2: take fifty medicine bad? But yeah, this trick nine teeny
44:07
Speaker 2: any bit of poison teeny, any bit of poison in
44:09
Speaker 2: the dusty road and the inhaling and the lack of moisture,
44:13
Speaker 2: like this is gonna be fine. It's going to be
44:15
Speaker 2: fine because see Stryck nine is a stimulant. It stimulates
44:22
Speaker 2: the nervous system, and so and so they would take
44:25
Speaker 2: it in small doses. That's right, they're microdosing poison. And
44:30
Speaker 2: of course this is there the nineteen hundreds. Everybody's on drugs.
44:34
Speaker 2: They're on laudanum and morphine and stricken nine apparently, so
44:38
Speaker 2: he's down his poison and he is just like jogging
44:42
Speaker 2: a lull and Lures who you know was in the car.
44:46
Speaker 2: That car that he got a lift in breaks down
44:49
Speaker 2: at the twenty one mile mark, and so he hops
44:51
Speaker 2: out and just starts running again because his crabs have
44:54
Speaker 2: gone away yea for him because he wasn't outside inhaling
44:58
Speaker 2: the dust. And so he like overtakes Hicks, whose team
45:03
Speaker 2: is just like, buddy, what are you doing? Get off
45:05
Speaker 2: the track, and he's like no, and he just keeps going.
45:08
Speaker 2: And so he gets there and he is the first
45:12
Speaker 2: runner through the stadium. He crosses the finish line like
45:16
Speaker 2: just in like three hours, and everyone is like chanting,
45:19
Speaker 2: like you a miracle, America one, and like Alice Roosevelt's
45:25
Speaker 2: there and she's ready to put the wreath over his head.
45:30
Speaker 3: She's like, you've.
45:31
Speaker 2: Done America, Proud, You're amazing, and just movie moment is
45:38
Speaker 2: he's bent over in that sort of half bow and
45:40
Speaker 2: she's about to put it over his head like like beautiful.
45:44
Speaker 2: Jim k the horse after winning the Grand National, I
45:48
Speaker 2: don't know, I'm grasping it. Straws here for horse related wreaths,
45:55
Speaker 2: like the Olympic official, one of the officials was like, eh,
46:00
Speaker 2: hang on a second, this isn't right. Like he realizes
46:04
Speaker 2: that Laur's like, isn't the winner, and Laurs is just like, well,
46:09
Speaker 2: I didn't actually say that I won the race, and
46:13
Speaker 2: he was like it's a big joke, and so the
46:14
Speaker 2: whole crowd just turns it on there, just like boo,
46:18
Speaker 2: we hate you, you suck, and he's like it's funny. Sorry,
46:25
Speaker 2: but yeah, naturally he's disqualified and Hicks is back in
46:30
Speaker 2: the lead, but he is not doing well because you know,
46:34
Speaker 2: he has consumed poison.
46:36
Speaker 3: Like his skin's all.
46:37
Speaker 2: Ashy, he's he's limping, like he is struggling to get by,
46:44
Speaker 2: and like he's at the point where he's he thinks
46:46
Speaker 2: he's in second place.
46:47
Speaker 4: So he's just like just keep chucking, just keep chucking.
46:51
Speaker 4: He's like chuck, chuck, chuck a chug, and he's just
46:53
Speaker 4: kind of steadily going along. And then he hears that
46:58
Speaker 4: Laws is been disqualified, and so he's like go, go,
47:01
Speaker 4: gadget legs, and off he goes.
47:03
Speaker 2: And so he's like really going hell for leather, and
47:07
Speaker 2: in order to help support him, his team give him
47:10
Speaker 2: more egg whites and stricten, I just like more poison.
47:15
Speaker 2: And then they dump they just like chuck water on him,
47:18
Speaker 2: like like an ice bucket challenge, but not cold. They're
47:22
Speaker 2: just like psh and like he's just going and I
47:26
Speaker 2: mean he is. He is suffering with the effects of poisoning.
47:29
Speaker 2: He's just had water thrown on him. He's been inhaling
47:32
Speaker 2: dust and he's.
47:34
Speaker 3: He's barely going.
47:36
Speaker 2: And a race official literally writes over the last two
47:42
Speaker 2: miles of their old hecks was running mechanically, like a
47:44
Speaker 2: well oiled piece of machinery. His eyes were dull, lustrous,
47:48
Speaker 2: the ice and color of his face and skin had deepened.
47:50
Speaker 2: His arms appeared as whites will tied down. He could
47:53
Speaker 2: scarcely lift his legs while his knees were stiff, which
47:58
Speaker 2: is bad enough because then he starts hallucinating like he's
48:04
Speaker 2: he's tripping balls, and he has convinced himself that he's
48:09
Speaker 2: got another twenty miles to run, and he's like, get
48:12
Speaker 2: me some food, you can have something to eat, let
48:13
Speaker 2: me lie down, and they're like, no, keep running, bitch,
48:17
Speaker 2: And so he comes up to like these two wee
48:20
Speaker 2: holes just before the stadium and he's like, oh no,
48:24
Speaker 2: oh no. He's like he walks up one, he jogs
48:27
Speaker 2: down the other, and when he gets to the stadium,
48:30
Speaker 2: he just can't run anymore.
48:32
Speaker 3: Like he's he's kind.
48:33
Speaker 2: Of trudging, like he just can't make it. His body
48:38
Speaker 2: isn't moving. Like what other things they do as well,
48:41
Speaker 2: Like before he gets into the stadium is they he
48:44
Speaker 2: offers them dale from tea and he's like no, and
48:47
Speaker 2: so they give him brandy instead because that's what's going
48:50
Speaker 2: to help the poison booze. So he's he's trying to
48:55
Speaker 2: go in and then his little crew they like put
48:58
Speaker 2: their arms around him and we kend it burn so
49:01
Speaker 2: that his legs are moving, and so they're just trying
49:05
Speaker 2: to get him across across the finish line. And it
49:09
Speaker 2: gets the point that a load of the spectators are like,
49:13
Speaker 2: we just want a winner. At this point, it's fine,
49:15
Speaker 2: we don't care if he's like you're putting a Jim
49:18
Speaker 2: Henson situation and puppeteering him across the line, because at.
49:21
Speaker 3: This point it'll do.
49:23
Speaker 2: So he Hicks has declared the winner as at three hours,
49:28
Speaker 2: twenty eight minutes and fifty three seconds, which is as
49:32
Speaker 2: far as I know, the longest official finishing time, you know,
49:37
Speaker 2: in an Olympic marathon, like of all time, like to
49:42
Speaker 2: this day. It's actually a good thing they gave him brandy,
49:46
Speaker 2: you know, because if they gave him like any more
49:47
Speaker 2: strict nine like, they would have just killed him. He
49:50
Speaker 2: would have just died, and then it would have been
49:52
Speaker 2: a weekend at Bernie's thing. They'd been like shuffling his
49:55
Speaker 2: corpse over the line. Probably. So out of all the
49:58
Speaker 2: people that were involved in the marathon, of thirty two
50:02
Speaker 2: people who were like officially you're contending, eighteen of them
50:07
Speaker 2: did not finish. That's more than half. It's more than
50:11
Speaker 2: half of them did not finish. What was it now,
50:15
Speaker 2: the Cuban mailman. He comes in fourth, fourth. This is
50:20
Speaker 2: the man who's in like a suit ish outfit, has
50:26
Speaker 2: taken a nap and still manages to come in fourth.
50:30
Speaker 2: Len Taw who was chased by will dogs for our mile,
50:33
Speaker 2: of course, he comes in ninth. I am going to
50:37
Speaker 2: end this on a happy note though, So remember our
50:41
Speaker 2: one legged gymnast friend George iSER and how he hadn't
50:45
Speaker 2: done well in like the triathlon and such.
50:48
Speaker 3: Well, it's a good thing.
50:49
Speaker 2: He's actually a gymnast because when he's in the second
50:55
Speaker 2: gymnastics competition on October twenty ninth, so like the day
50:59
Speaker 2: before the Mara, he wins six medals in one day,
51:04
Speaker 2: three gold for the parallel bars, the twenty five foot
51:09
Speaker 2: rope climbing, and the long horse vault. And this was
51:13
Speaker 2: the time where the horse vault didn't have a springboard,
51:17
Speaker 2: like he had to propel himself over and he did
51:20
Speaker 2: that with the wooden leg. Okay, so he gets two
51:26
Speaker 2: silver medals for the pommel horse and four event all round,
51:32
Speaker 2: and he gets one bronze for the horizontal bar. And
51:37
Speaker 2: up until two thousand and eight, George iSER was the
51:40
Speaker 2: only person to have competed in the Olympic Games with
51:45
Speaker 2: an artificial leg. And so ends our tale of the
51:50
Speaker 2: absolute shit show that was the nineteen oh four Olympics.
51:55
Speaker 2: If you liked my retelling of this tail, feel for
51:57
Speaker 2: you to rate and review five stars, because ye I
51:59
Speaker 2: forgot to say at the beginning, right, I got a
52:02
Speaker 2: three star review this week, and it was to do
52:04
Speaker 2: with Queen Margot because I said the people that she
52:07
Speaker 2: was romantically involved with were creepy because they were so
52:10
Speaker 2: much older than her and their whole argument was like
52:13
Speaker 2: she doesn't understand the context of the time, which I
52:16
Speaker 2: actually really really do. I do understand the context of
52:20
Speaker 2: the time. And at no point was this like seen
52:23
Speaker 2: as a really acceptable thing, like these marriages happened like
52:29
Speaker 2: for Allian's sake, not because anybody thought this was proper
52:33
Speaker 2: or normal. Like no, this was not a thing anyway.
52:37
Speaker 2: That being said, give me five stars because screw them.
52:41
Speaker 2: And yeah, you can follow me on the socials. I'm
52:45
Speaker 2: on all of them. Whether I'm that active because I'm
52:48
Speaker 2: working on the book right now, not as active, but
52:50
Speaker 2: I'm working on it. And alas it is recommendation time
52:55
Speaker 2: for reading, I'm going to recommend an African History of
52:58
Speaker 2: Africa from zeenab Badawi. For watching, of course, i'm going
53:03
Speaker 2: to recommend the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare and for listening,
53:10
Speaker 2: and for listening, I'm going to go off base with
53:13
Speaker 2: this one a little bit and recommend an audio book
53:16
Speaker 2: Hot and Sour Suspects and Real Shop Mystery by Vivian
53:20
Speaker 2: Chin and with that delicious Friends, I shall bid you
53:26
Speaker 2: good night adios au revoir avudazema friends a Bibei