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That Time A Dead Guy Won an Olympic Medal · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
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Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
0:30
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. You are hanging out with
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Speaker 1: three of three Olympians of ridiculosity, of ridiculousness. Uh, don't
0:41
Speaker 1: think about that too much. Just say hi to our
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Speaker 1: super producer, the one and only Mr Max Williams. They
0:47
Speaker 1: called me Ben Null. Have you ever been to the Olympics? Bro? No,
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Speaker 1: I am not um not not really a sports guy.
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Speaker 1: But I mean I do understand. I appreciate the history,
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Speaker 1: the long tradition of Olympian athleticism and all of that.
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Speaker 1: I mean, the old school, the o g Olympics in Greece.
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Speaker 1: That's the real stuff, you know, that's really truly like
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Speaker 1: fighting in the eyes of the gods, you know, hand
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Speaker 1: to hand combat and javelin throwing and all of the other.
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Speaker 1: The shot the discus. You know, that's the kind of
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Speaker 1: classic Olympics that I want to see. But they don't
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Speaker 1: do those anymore. Yeah, for a number of reasons. And
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Speaker 1: today's story. Today's story takes us right back to that
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Speaker 1: time you described. There is a an infamous Olympic victor
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Speaker 1: named a ricky On of Figalia, who was engaged in
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Speaker 1: one of those old school, pretty violent Olympic sports back
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Speaker 1: in the day and five sixty four b c E.
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Speaker 1: This guy was known for his aptitude in a sport
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Speaker 1: called paying creation kind of like the early equivalent of
1:56
Speaker 1: M M A today, right where it's like bare knuckle
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Speaker 1: gra playing like boxing and wrestling, had violent, hate filled consummation.
2:08
Speaker 1: And they had a kid, it would be this sport. Uh,
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Speaker 1: it translates to all of might. It's not not as
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Speaker 1: safe as as say curling, but but this is no,
2:20
Speaker 1: definitely not but but it's super interesting. I mean spectators
2:23
Speaker 1: for I mean essentially not that far off from like,
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Speaker 1: you know, a gladiator type fight, except this involved no weapons.
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Speaker 1: It was hand to hand combat. No holds were barred,
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Speaker 1: right except for I think eye gauging. I think there
2:36
Speaker 1: was like eye gouging was one step too far. Yeah. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: And this sport particular became part of the Olympics in
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Speaker 1: six b C. But we know people probably practice different
2:50
Speaker 1: versions of this for a while beforehand. This was of
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Speaker 1: the time where there were multiple things that we would
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Speaker 1: kind of think of as pen hell Enic games in general,
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Speaker 1: and this was one of the only sports to be
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Speaker 1: included in all four festivals. There are only four sports
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Speaker 1: that were in all four of these pan healtic celebration
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Speaker 1: slash death matches, as we'll find. We know we know
3:17
Speaker 1: about the story of Ricky On because much later in
3:23
Speaker 1: the second and third century CE, there were some guys
3:27
Speaker 1: who wrote about this. The story of the match. By
3:30
Speaker 1: the time they wrote about it was probably already oral traditions,
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Speaker 1: so we know there was a bit of a game
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Speaker 1: of telephone. There might be some exaggerations here, just to
3:37
Speaker 1: be clear. But before we get into the details of
3:43
Speaker 1: what happened with Ricky On, what makes him so special
3:46
Speaker 1: for our story today, maybe we talked just a little
3:49
Speaker 1: bit more about his background. So he was like he
3:52
Speaker 1: was like a Lebron dude. He was like a Tiger
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Speaker 1: Woods or a Michael Jordan's or a Wayne grets They
4:01
Speaker 1: get that, right, Max, Wayne Gretzky Hockey, he's the hockey guy. Yeah, yeah,
4:04
Speaker 1: Wayne Gretzky. Like he's literally the only hockey player whose
4:07
Speaker 1: name I'm aware of, so he must be pretty good. Yeah, Ben,
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Speaker 1: you supprisingly did a good job on the one. I
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Speaker 1: am actually kind of impressed right now, very very sincere.
4:18
Speaker 1: But but I got another one like Matt Hambleton's if
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Speaker 1: you want to do a curling one that you've already
4:22
Speaker 1: mentioned curling. But he knows anything about Matt Hamilton's come home.
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Speaker 1: You know, I will send you a lot of documents
4:28
Speaker 1: about Matt Hamilton's after this. I'm good. No, he is
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Speaker 1: an amazing of a person that do you want to
4:32
Speaker 1: see next with the facts that sleep enough and he's
4:40
Speaker 1: fallen just for you right now. Fact, oh indeed there
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Speaker 1: it is. That is the best thing ever of all time. Um,
4:53
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's true. This guy was a big deal.
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Speaker 1: He was He was known you know obviously throughout Greece
5:00
Speaker 1: and beyond by the Olympics of five sixty four b c.
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Speaker 1: He was sort of a little longer in the tooth,
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Speaker 1: you know, and this was like almost like one of
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Speaker 1: those like uh you know, like like Apollo Creed, you know,
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Speaker 1: like bringing back the old timer to do a big,
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Speaker 1: you know, comeback fight kind of situation. He was a
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Speaker 1: good bit older than many of the competitors in this
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Speaker 1: very very very brutal and no holds barred um fight
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Speaker 1: style that he was going to compete in. Also, there
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Speaker 1: was kind of like a new up and coming champion
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Speaker 1: who was sort of the favorite to like take uh
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Speaker 1: this guy's crown, to take Rickyan's crown. Yeah, exactly. And
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Speaker 1: this guy's name is lost the history, but we know
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Speaker 1: he was a bruiser for sure, so they didn't have
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Speaker 1: a ton of breaks between bouts. So at this point
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Speaker 1: in the story, Ricky Ellen is already probably pretty close
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Speaker 1: to exhausted, as you said, and only his older so
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Speaker 1: worn down he asked to use. He has to lean
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Speaker 1: on his experience to make up for what he might
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Speaker 1: have been lacking in terms of physical skills. So he's
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Speaker 1: still fighting like a wildcat, you know. And then all
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Speaker 1: of a sudden, his opponent gets him in a chokehold,
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Speaker 1: like we said, totally legal in this brutal sport, and
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Speaker 1: so Ricky On is desperate. Basically he grabs this younger
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Speaker 1: guy by one of his feet and then he wrenches
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Speaker 1: the foot and it causes an audible Yeah not no,
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Speaker 1: not a cute pop like that, not a chance, No,
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Speaker 1: it would be a horrific crunching snapping of bones. The
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Speaker 1: foot is now dangling like a floppy fish on the
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Speaker 1: end of this guy's leg, and Rikion Is is milking
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Speaker 1: it like like literally like like flipping like like grinding
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Speaker 1: it back and forth to cause this guy excruciating pain
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Speaker 1: while this guy in an attempt to you know, get
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Speaker 1: him off him, I imagine, and maybe even when about
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Speaker 1: he's like choking ri Kion out Ricky On out, throttling
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Speaker 1: him as it were, and eventually this guy does the
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Speaker 1: signal I believe in these days, it was putting one
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Speaker 1: finger up. I guess he did that with the hand
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Speaker 1: he was not throttling, and that was the signal that
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Speaker 1: he was tapping out that he was like, I'm good.
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Speaker 1: And therefore Ricky on one he was the victor. But
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Speaker 1: there's a slight complication. Yeah, he uh, he was dead.
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Speaker 1: He had died of suffocation while he was ruining this
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Speaker 1: guy's life. Right, this guy is not gonna be walking
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Speaker 1: right ever again, but he is going to be breathing,
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Speaker 1: which Rickyon was not by the time the match got
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Speaker 1: called yep so um. The research for this, we found
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Speaker 1: it referred to as likely the only time a corpse
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Speaker 1: has been declared the winner of a sport. Um. But
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Speaker 1: this just went further in kind of solidifying this dude's
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Speaker 1: legendary status. Right, nothing better than a death to to
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Speaker 1: really cement you know, someone's kind of place in the
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Speaker 1: in the stratosphere of like a sport or you know,
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Speaker 1: musical genre or film. You know, if you die at
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Speaker 1: the peak of your game like that, then you are
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Speaker 1: going to be revered. Yeah, exactly. Uh, and he went
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Speaker 1: out like a g As far as the world of
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Speaker 1: Greek athletics was concerned, they started immortalizing him in sculpture.
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Speaker 1: The whole reason we know about this story today is
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Speaker 1: because people really lionized, almost deified this match and rick
8:51
Speaker 1: Yon's role in it, and he you know, you can
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Speaker 1: see multiple accounts of just the blow by blow of
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Speaker 1: how how gross this is. One thing we should mention
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Speaker 1: here is that ricky On was able to get ahold
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Speaker 1: of this ankle because he pretended to pass out before
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Speaker 1: he actually passed. He was like and then yeah, but
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Speaker 1: because he was trapped in that chokehold by a guy
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Speaker 1: who is very good at chokeholds, he did die of suffocation.
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Speaker 1: But you'll see other reports that say he died with
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Speaker 1: a broken neck. Uh. And this to us, I don't know.
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Speaker 1: To to us, this is pretty startling because you know,
9:38
Speaker 1: what would happened if something like that occurred in the
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Speaker 1: world of modern sports, Like what if maybe the closest
9:46
Speaker 1: analog might be boxing. I mean it's not perfect, but
9:50
Speaker 1: that's a pretty close comparison. Where Like, let's say they're
9:52
Speaker 1: two heavyweight champs, they're going for the belt and then
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Speaker 1: one of them they hit each other at the same time, right,
10:00
Speaker 1: and one of them falls to the ground first and
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Speaker 1: passes out, but the other one gets a concussion that
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Speaker 1: results in their death, you know, or a brain bleed
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Speaker 1: like a day later. That's kind of what would happen.
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Speaker 1: Would that would that person who died, but they still
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Speaker 1: posthumously get the title. I don't know, I don't know
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Speaker 1: how that works. Yeah, I was doing some quick little
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Speaker 1: research over here, and sadly, deaths and boxing are not
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Speaker 1: as uncommon as you think. I mean, you don't see
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Speaker 1: him onlike you know, these big pay per view televised
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Speaker 1: matches stuff like that, but you know, some of the
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Speaker 1: smaller fights that are still you know, professional and stuff,
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Speaker 1: you will see boxers passed away. And most times it is,
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Speaker 1: you know, from an injury. They occur, usually losing a
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Speaker 1: knockout or something, but there are a number of times
10:47
Speaker 1: it's in these last minit twenty years where someone has
10:51
Speaker 1: won the fight, usually a long heavyweight ten round fight,
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Speaker 1: and then they feel woozy after the fight, they don't
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Speaker 1: feel off the fight, and they got to hospital and
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Speaker 1: you know they unfortunately passed away afterwards. Saying yes, in
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Speaker 1: those cases they are champion. Um. Through just some very
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Speaker 1: quick research I've down though, I haven't found any example
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Speaker 1: of someone winning the fight in the ring and dying
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Speaker 1: in the ring, similar like how a raichion on his fight.
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Speaker 1: And I don't know, I think for everyone, I hope
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Speaker 1: not to ever see that myself. Yeah, so we again
11:32
Speaker 1: we know that there are a couple of different guesses
11:35
Speaker 1: because again, like I said, there's this game and telephone.
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Speaker 1: You'll see some sources say diet is of asphyxiation, which
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Speaker 1: is one of the generally accepted explanations. But then you'll
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Speaker 1: see other people who are kind of contemporary. These claims
11:47
Speaker 1: are kind of contemporary with each other, meaning that they
11:50
Speaker 1: occur at the same period in time. Other people will say, no,
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Speaker 1: he had a broken neck, and then someone else will
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Speaker 1: say no, if you really look at it, he had
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Speaker 1: a heart attack. But either way, uh, he died known
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Speaker 1: as a champion. He probably died a few moments before
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Speaker 1: the fight was called, but technically to history he is
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Speaker 1: an Olympic champion and Nolan. The course of our research
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Speaker 1: we found some direct quotes describing this, like there's one
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Speaker 1: from pause and Aus, who was a Greek geographer in
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Speaker 1: second century CE. And I think this would be an
12:28
Speaker 1: excellent opportunity for a dramatic reading. What do you say,
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Speaker 1: bro oh man, You know I'm a big fan of
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Speaker 1: dramatic reading. Any chance we get for when he was
12:38
Speaker 1: contending with a wild olive with the last remaining competitor,
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Speaker 1: whoever he was, the latter got a grip first and
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Speaker 1: held araki On, hugging him with his legs and at
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Speaker 1: the same time he squeezed his neck with his hands.
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Speaker 1: Araki On dislocated his opponent's toe, but expired owing to suffocation.
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Speaker 1: But he who suffocated Arecio, was forced to give in
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Speaker 1: at the same time because of the pain in his toe.
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Speaker 1: The Elians crowned and proclaimed victor the course of Arakia.
13:17
Speaker 1: It's so weird because now it's just the toe, but
13:20
Speaker 1: we're pretty sure it was the ankle. I think there's
13:23
Speaker 1: another guy about a hundred years later, Uh, Philostratus, who
13:28
Speaker 1: tells a similar story, and he says, raid the Pancatas,
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Speaker 1: who had already won two Olympic Games and after this
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Speaker 1: fault in the third Olympiad in the finals, already thought
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Speaker 1: about submitting. His trainer Rixius brought him to despise death
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Speaker 1: by shouting from outside the ring, what a wonderful funeral's feature?
13:49
Speaker 1: One can say. He did not give up at Olympia.
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Speaker 1: So he's also saying like his trainer told him to die. Yeah,
13:58
Speaker 1: that's kind of weird. You think he would. You would
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Speaker 1: want him to live and persevere. So let's talk a
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Speaker 1: little bit more about this bizarro sport called pancreasion again.
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Speaker 1: You described the Greek translation as being all of might uh,
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Speaker 1: and that kind of translates to no holds barred in order, like,
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Speaker 1: in other words, you get to use everything you got.
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Speaker 1: If I'm not mistaken, weren't these done in the nude?
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Speaker 1: At least that's what all of the pottery and and
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Speaker 1: fresco type type paintings and demonstrate. Well, they definitely weren't
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Speaker 1: wearing like full regular street gear just because you know
14:35
Speaker 1: the opportunities that would provide for grappling or for asphyxiating someone.
14:39
Speaker 1: You know, uh yeah, it would be a very surprisingly
14:45
Speaker 1: violent thing for a modern sports enthusiasts to watch today.
14:49
Speaker 1: And I think you're spot on with that, m M.
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Speaker 1: A comparison, we mentioned the four pen Hellenic festivals, we
14:56
Speaker 1: should name them. Those were the ancient Olympic Games, the
15:00
Speaker 1: Mean Games, the Pythian Games. In the Nemean Games, again
15:04
Speaker 1: almost like no safety restrictions. People weren't really talking about
15:10
Speaker 1: the idea of concussions or like no below the waist blows.
15:14
Speaker 1: It was kind of everything goes except as you pointed out,
15:17
Speaker 1: eye gouging. So you might have like, if you had
15:21
Speaker 1: been a veteran of a conflict, you would compare this
15:25
Speaker 1: a lot to hand to hand combat in war. It
15:29
Speaker 1: was considered by far the most dangerous of the three
15:32
Speaker 1: combat sports. And you know, oddly enough, it continued after
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Speaker 1: Rikyon died. It was still in the festival. I's see,
15:43
Speaker 1: we said it was introduced in six b C, right,
15:48
Speaker 1: and then we see this infamous fatal match. It might
15:53
Speaker 1: surprise you then, to no ridiculous historians that pancreaton continued
15:59
Speaker 1: an official part of the Olympics until three CE. So
16:05
Speaker 1: for hundreds of years. It was as as ruthless as
16:11
Speaker 1: it sounds, This death was actually probably great, great pr
16:15
Speaker 1: for the sport. People started to be thought of as
16:17
Speaker 1: like incredibly brave and courageous and just real hard cases
16:22
Speaker 1: for participating. It only ended, as a matter of fact,
16:26
Speaker 1: because of an emperor's decree. Theodosius the First said okay,
16:31
Speaker 1: we we gotta stop doing this. And even weirder, I
16:37
Speaker 1: don't know if you clocked this knoll, But after he
16:40
Speaker 1: says that decree, after he sorry, after he announces that proclamation,
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Speaker 1: or what have you, all of the festivals slowly started
16:49
Speaker 1: to die out. They got less and less popular for
16:53
Speaker 1: a number of factors. But I would argue one of
16:56
Speaker 1: those factors leading to their decline was that people knew
17:00
Speaker 1: that they probably wouldn't see someone die, and so they're like,
17:03
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, I I can spend money on
17:05
Speaker 1: something else. Yeah. I mean, it wasn't like you know,
17:08
Speaker 1: Roman bread and circuses type vibes. I mean, it wasn't like,
17:12
Speaker 1: you know, people were being thrown into the fighting pit
17:16
Speaker 1: against opponents who were far overpowered in terms of like
17:20
Speaker 1: armor and weaponry and all that this was, and even
17:22
Speaker 1: playing field for all intents and purposes, even though it
17:25
Speaker 1: was brutal and often could result in in a death.
17:28
Speaker 1: You know, it was not necessarily required for it to
17:31
Speaker 1: be a fight to the death, but it was certainly
17:33
Speaker 1: on the table, and it actually is kind of back
17:37
Speaker 1: in a weird way. There is a modern movement that
17:40
Speaker 1: has created kind of a small revival of the sport,
17:43
Speaker 1: but it is a bit more regulated and less violent.
17:45
Speaker 1: We talked to about how there would be like a
17:48
Speaker 1: referee that would like hit them with a whip if
17:50
Speaker 1: they got they got a little too saucy. We totally,
17:53
Speaker 1: we totally totally should because we we let's talk about
17:56
Speaker 1: some of the ins and outs. Okay, tell us about
17:58
Speaker 1: the ref It's great, Yeah, that was pretty much it
18:00
Speaker 1: was like a ref but instead of like in boxing,
18:03
Speaker 1: it will separate them. You know, this guy literally was
18:06
Speaker 1: armed with some sort of like braided you know, Cata
18:09
Speaker 1: nine Tales type situation and could absolutely use it when
18:13
Speaker 1: needed if people were getting a little two eye gauge
18:16
Speaker 1: or something. But again, is there really no holds barred?
18:19
Speaker 1: Besides that, it probably didn't happen too too much because
18:23
Speaker 1: it was everything was pretty much fair game, right Yeah, yeah,
18:26
Speaker 1: So your three ways of winning our First, you're supposed
18:30
Speaker 1: to aim to force your opponent into submission, and then
18:34
Speaker 1: they'll raise the index finger, you know, like someone who's
18:37
Speaker 1: walking in church late. Or you could knock them out,
18:41
Speaker 1: or you could kill them. All three of those situations
18:43
Speaker 1: counted as a win. Like you said, the last two
18:45
Speaker 1: are not as common. And then there was no time limit,
18:49
Speaker 1: no pausing to collect yourself, and the only other way
18:53
Speaker 1: out would be for a judge to call the match.
18:56
Speaker 1: Think about this, they're like reading the room of the
18:59
Speaker 1: audience and if they think it's going on too long,
19:02
Speaker 1: then they'll just choose a winner, or they would declare
19:05
Speaker 1: a tie, which no one really wanted, and they would
19:07
Speaker 1: call the fight. Oh we should also mention you're not
19:10
Speaker 1: allowed to bite people. That was seen as uncivilized. What
19:14
Speaker 1: about scratching? Scratching's fine, scratch, He's fine, not in the eyes,
19:19
Speaker 1: but like maybe in the nose. Could you do that
19:22
Speaker 1: movie like remember and have you seen The Lady Killers? Uh,
19:25
Speaker 1: it's sort of a minor Coen Brothers movie where Tom
19:29
Speaker 1: Hanks plays this like kind of Colonel Sanders character. There's
19:31
Speaker 1: a scene where like one of the dudes and his
19:33
Speaker 1: crews like a kung fu master like sticks his fingers
19:35
Speaker 1: up this dude's nose and like, you know, basically has
19:39
Speaker 1: him under his control. And the guy's like, get your
19:42
Speaker 1: fingers out my man's nose. Always remember that, lie. I
19:46
Speaker 1: don't remember much else about the movie except where he
19:49
Speaker 1: talks about the the instrument called the sack butt, which
19:51
Speaker 1: is like a believe is an ancient version of like
19:54
Speaker 1: a loot. You'd think it would be like a bassoon
19:58
Speaker 1: or a wind instrument, but I believe the but was
20:01
Speaker 1: more of a string instrument for some reason. That makes
20:03
Speaker 1: me think of bagpipes. But I guess I'm just I'm
20:06
Speaker 1: just going off the sack idea, you know, or the
20:09
Speaker 1: butt idea. No, I'm wrong, I'm wrong. It was brass.
20:19
Speaker 1: It's like more like a trombone, and the sack butt
20:21
Speaker 1: was a Renaissance and Baroque ere at trombone. My back.
20:25
Speaker 1: There you go, There you go. And Tom Hanks's character
20:27
Speaker 1: in there Is is pretty fascinating to me. I love
20:29
Speaker 1: the voice. Yeah, he's funny. So where does this? Where
20:34
Speaker 1: does U sleeve us? Well? History is a conversation, but
20:36
Speaker 1: it's also a study of precedent and a lot of
20:40
Speaker 1: experts trace the emergence of mixed martial arts to a
20:46
Speaker 1: that revival of this style in nineteen six nine. We
20:51
Speaker 1: know that this continues, right, We know people are fascinated
20:57
Speaker 1: by the idea of one on one combat, even with
21:00
Speaker 1: rules or even with fewer rules. One thing that really
21:04
Speaker 1: stood out to me and our research here and and
21:06
Speaker 1: this is this is a bit of a shorter episode
21:10
Speaker 1: for us, but we we really hope that you're enjoying
21:12
Speaker 1: this strange explanation because this was all news to us.
21:15
Speaker 1: There are multiple athletes who have died in the course
21:20
Speaker 1: of the Olympics, and some of them are a little
21:23
Speaker 1: more recent than you might imagine. There's an excellent list
21:26
Speaker 1: of this on grunge dot com by Deborah Kelly, which
21:29
Speaker 1: lists people who let me see, I'm trying to remember.
21:32
Speaker 1: The most recent one may have been bombing Goldbar Nizad
21:36
Speaker 1: in UH nineteen in actually in the Paralympics. He's the
21:41
Speaker 1: first athlete to die in the Paralympics in a bicycle crash. Yeah,
21:45
Speaker 1: we have actually a pretty sad and heartbreaking one from
21:50
Speaker 1: Vancouver Olympics. Uh. Big fans of Olympics will probably remember
21:53
Speaker 1: this one. There was a losure from the country to Georgia.
21:58
Speaker 1: Name is not kmart Saville. I think I'm staying the
22:01
Speaker 1: last name right, Apologies if I push it a little bit.
22:04
Speaker 1: He was competing the log It was during the training runs,
22:07
Speaker 1: like before they start the whole like qualifying metal rounds
22:10
Speaker 1: for that everyone kind of it's a few runs on
22:13
Speaker 1: the track to get practiced in. So it's the right
22:15
Speaker 1: beginning of the Olympics, maybe even like before all the
22:19
Speaker 1: big extivities happened and an accident happened and he was
22:24
Speaker 1: going like seven miles an hour, hit a metal pole
22:27
Speaker 1: unfortunately and died shortly afterwards, which it was it was shocking.
22:31
Speaker 1: It's like, whoa, somebody dying at the Olympics. It's like,
22:35
Speaker 1: that's not supposed to happen. Um. And then there's been
22:39
Speaker 1: a lot of this kind of conspiracy about it all.
22:41
Speaker 1: I mean, the IOC people in charge Olympics immediately said, oh,
22:46
Speaker 1: well that's the lose federations, charges on the lose federations,
22:50
Speaker 1: like well the tracks, fine, Um, he just wasn't good
22:53
Speaker 1: enough loser, which is like so tone deaf and so bad.
22:56
Speaker 1: I mean, they rightfully have been just run to the
23:00
Speaker 1: mud on this but I mean it's still I don't
23:02
Speaker 1: know what type of resolution was. It's like, yeah, he
23:06
Speaker 1: wasn't like one of the top losers in the world.
23:07
Speaker 1: But like, I think, if someone's competing in the Olympics,
23:11
Speaker 1: the tracks should be safe enough for everyone. But I
23:15
Speaker 1: don't know. It's to end on kind of a more
23:18
Speaker 1: positive note. I guess his um these previous Olympics, the
23:22
Speaker 1: Beijing Olympics, his cousins Sata actually competing in the loose,
23:27
Speaker 1: so that that's cool right there, and lose is so dangerous. Man.
23:34
Speaker 1: It looks fun, but it's like it's like going down
23:37
Speaker 1: a water slide where you're just constantly picking up speed
23:41
Speaker 1: and the only way you have to steer is by
23:43
Speaker 1: like kind of leaning slightly in one direction or another.
23:46
Speaker 1: I mean, I always always picture they're just gonna go
23:49
Speaker 1: up the sides, you know, and then just like fly
23:51
Speaker 1: out into oblivion, which I bet has happened to time
23:54
Speaker 1: or two. How did these guy die? So he went
23:58
Speaker 1: high up on the wall, thought they had built the
24:00
Speaker 1: wall up high enough that like, oh, no one will
24:02
Speaker 1: get up this high, and he turns out he did,
24:05
Speaker 1: which is you know, heartbreaking, but yeah, yeah, scary sport
24:11
Speaker 1: they also have the one word, two of them right
24:14
Speaker 1: on the loose together. Is that is that called the
24:16
Speaker 1: tandem louge? What what's the name for that? Uh? Double luge?
24:20
Speaker 1: I think no offense. But I'm literally not close with
24:23
Speaker 1: any living person, not close enough to do that. You know,
24:28
Speaker 1: if I go down, I'm just going down by myself.
24:31
Speaker 1: Would you guys be down to do like a four
24:33
Speaker 1: person Bob's led with us, so it's like Ben, no,
24:36
Speaker 1: Max and I don't know, sounds good. Strickland can be
24:40
Speaker 1: in the front. You can lead with his shiny bald head.
24:42
Speaker 1: We'll do a cool running thing. I would love that. Yeah.
24:45
Speaker 1: Or if you are illusion enthusiast ridiculous historian, let us
24:50
Speaker 1: know who you think our fourth person would be. I'm
24:53
Speaker 1: okay with I think no. We want to figure out
24:56
Speaker 1: what the respective roles of the four person team are
25:00
Speaker 1: man the bagman, gotcha? Gotcha? As ever? Uh? And I
25:05
Speaker 1: just want to I want to make sure before we
25:07
Speaker 1: volunteer Strickler for this that he is uh, he is
25:11
Speaker 1: on board, or that we have some kind of like
25:14
Speaker 1: blackmail on him that makes it impossible for him to refuse.
25:17
Speaker 1: I've been holding onto some Yeah, I haven't. I haven't
25:19
Speaker 1: played all my cards yet with the quister. Let me
25:21
Speaker 1: tell you, I got some serious. Oh, I got some juicy,
25:26
Speaker 1: some dirty juice, all right. Well, that dirt will get
25:28
Speaker 1: us into our own cool runnings vibe. I love it. Uh.
25:32
Speaker 1: This is the story of This is the story of
25:37
Speaker 1: one of the very first people to die in the
25:39
Speaker 1: course of the Olympics. As we said, it's not the
25:41
Speaker 1: only story, but for some people, this is a very
25:45
Speaker 1: inspirational story. It's a story of the absolute commitment to
25:49
Speaker 1: competition and victory at any price. The question is what
25:52
Speaker 1: price would you pay for victory? And that's that's a
25:55
Speaker 1: question that people have to answer on their own. In
25:58
Speaker 1: the meantime, we're going to call it a day. We
26:02
Speaker 1: are off to do some research for our upcoming super
26:07
Speaker 1: duper collaboration with Mark Kendall and Bill Whorley, masterminds of
26:11
Speaker 1: ridiculous News. In the meantime, you can hear them right
26:14
Speaker 1: now anywhere you find your favorite podcast, and you sure can.
26:19
Speaker 1: You can also hear Max Williams incredible podcast he does
26:22
Speaker 1: with his brother Alex Ephemeral anywhere you listen to podcasts,
26:26
Speaker 1: and you can find ridiculous History on the Internet. We
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Speaker 1: are on Instagram and Ridiculous History we are on Facebook.
26:31
Speaker 1: You can join our Ridiculous Historians Facebook group. You can
26:34
Speaker 1: also find this as individual human people. We exist outside
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Speaker 1: of podcast. Um, it's true. You can find me exclusively
26:41
Speaker 1: on Instagram Where I am at? How now Noel Brown,
26:43
Speaker 1: Ben Bowling? Where can they find you? Oh? Snap, Well,
26:47
Speaker 1: you can say my name three times into a mirror
26:49
Speaker 1: in the dark. If that doesn't work, you can find
26:52
Speaker 1: me on Twitter app Bowling h yeah, yeah, a little bit,
26:57
Speaker 1: a little bit. It's a it's a thing. Um cross
26:59
Speaker 1: room to midnight also, but you know those are timing dependent.
27:02
Speaker 1: So if you want to just hop onto Instagram, you
27:05
Speaker 1: consume me. Where I am at Ben Boland b o
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Speaker 1: w L. I n exciting updates. I sneak in a
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Speaker 1: few spoilers that I don't always say on air, so
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Speaker 1: uh so give me a follow, uh and then let's
27:17
Speaker 1: let's hang out online together. While you're hanging out with
27:20
Speaker 1: me on Twitter, I would love to introduce you to
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Speaker 1: one of my favorite Twitter confederates. That's right, folks, the
27:25
Speaker 1: rumors are true. Mr Max Williams. In addition to putting
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Speaker 1: up with Nolan, me also as a Twitter account I do.
27:33
Speaker 1: You can find me at at a tail underscore Max Williams,
27:36
Speaker 1: where you know, I'll just kind of be looking around
27:38
Speaker 1: the background, trolling bend and uh tweet the bus some
27:41
Speaker 1: sports and stuff exclusively ancient Olympic sports, right and uh,
27:49
Speaker 1: I mean technically curling dates back to the six hundreds,
27:52
Speaker 1: so it's, you know, pretty ancient. We already. I know,
28:00
Speaker 1: I don't want to layer the sound of human digs
28:02
Speaker 1: that stuff, but I mean there's a lot I can
28:04
Speaker 1: tell you guys about curling if you want to hear
28:05
Speaker 1: it right now. No, no, well, we'll do an episode.
28:11
Speaker 1: Maybe we will. We'll do an episode right now. It'll
28:14
Speaker 1: be the snooziest ridiculous history episode that ever did exist,
28:19
Speaker 1: or the most downloaded one. Possibly. Let's make bets. We'll
28:23
Speaker 1: see you next time. Books. For more podcasts from my
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