18 Amazing Moments in Olympic History

Story by Yinzer Crazy Contributor Charlotte Hopkins

2)   From 1900 to 1920, Tug-of-War was an Olympic sport. This moment was captured at the 1912 Games in Stockholm, Sweden. The British team was eliminated that year when their athletes, made up of London police officers, sat down to gain leverage. In 1904, American athletes won three medals for Tug-of-War.

3)   Women were allowed to compete in archery at the 1904 St Louis Games. American archer Matilda "Lida" Scott Howell won three medals in those games. Emma Cooke of Fayetteville, Pennsylvania, won the silver, and Jessie Pollock of Hamilton, Ohio, was awarded the bronze.

4)   At the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, painting was an Olympic sport, along with architecture, literature, music, and sculpture. Carlo Pelligrini of Switzerland won the gold that year. These competitions were removed in 1948 because artists were deemed to be professionals, and the Olympics were supposed to be for amateurs. Other sports no longer played in the Olympics include croquet, running deer shooting, hot air ballooning, polo, rackets, and motor boating.

5)   Jim Thorpe first competed in the Olympics at the 1912 Games in Stockholm, Sweden. The favorite to win was Avery Brundage but Jim Thorpe took the lead on everything. On the second day there, he woke up to find that his shoes were gone. They blamed Avery but no one knew for certain who did it. Thorpe found two mismatched shoes in the garbage so he could continue to compete. That day, he went on to win gold in the decathlon. Afterward, the King of Sweden approached Thorpe to tell him that he was the best athlete in the world. To date, Thorpe has competed in 17 Olympic events. That has never been matched.

6)   At the 1928 Olympic Games, Australian Rower Bobby Pearce, stopped in the middle of the race to let a family of ducks pass and still won! France took a temporary lead, but he passed him, even setting a new course record.

7)   Brazil could not afford to send a team to the 1932 Olympic Games. So, they decided to send their athletes on a ship full of coffee, which they sold along the way to raise money to fund their journey. Unfortunately, they did not win any medals.

8)   At the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, they released 25,000 pigeons during the opening ceremony. When they fired off a cannon, it startled the birds, who started pooping on the people in the audience.

9)   Also, at the 1936 Berlin Games, Japanese Pole Vaulters Sueo Oe and Shuhei Nishida tied for second place. They refused to compete against each other, resulting in Nishida's silver medal and Oe's bronze medal. When they returned home, they had their medals cut in half and spliced together. They called this creation the “friendship medal.”

10)  At the 1960 Rome Games, marathon runner Abebe Bikila became the first Ethiopian to win the gold medal – and he ran the entire race on bare feet. He set a world record at those games and went on to beat his own record in the 1964 Games.

11)  Wilma Rudolph contracted polio as an infant and was unable to walk properly until she was 11. For several years, her family massaged her legs four times a day, and she wore a metal brace to get around. At the Rome Games in 1960, she won three gold medals in track and field and broke three world records, earning the name “The Fastest Woman Alive.” That year, she became the first American woman to win three gold medals in the same Olympic event.

12)  After the 1972 Olympic Games, Mark Spitz jokingly told a Russian swim coach, “His mustache increased his swimming speed by deflecting the water away from his mouth.” A year later, every Russian swimmer wore a mustache. (header photo)

13)  In 1976, the West German women's luge team arrived at the Montreal Olympic Games with “aerodynamically designed helmets,” which the crowd nicknamed "conehead" helmets. The helmets were banned after those games for being “too aerodynamic.”

14)  During the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow, Jimmy Carter pulled Olympic hopefuls from the games in protest of Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan. In lieu of the Olympics, the United States hosted the Liberty Bell Classic in Philadelphia as an alternative competition for athletes of countries who also pulled from the Olympics. Athletes from 29 countries participated in the Liberty Bell Classic in Philadelphia.

15)  Boxer Wladimir Klitschko won the Olympic gold medal in 1996. When he returned home, he sold the medal at auction to raise money for underprivileged children in Ukraine. The medal sold for $1,000,000. The buyer immediately returned it to Klitschko so that it would stay with his family.

16)  Usain Bolt first appeared in the Olympics at the 2004 Athens Games. He was eliminated in the first round after he pulled a hamstring. At the Beijing Olympic games in 2008, Bolt ate nothing but chicken nuggets because that was the only thing he knew to say.

17)  At the 2016 Rio Games, Faith Kipyegon won the gold in the 1500-meter women’s race. To reward her, the Kenyan government finally connected her family and 29 other households in the Ndabibit village with electricity.

18)  When Duke Kahanamoku, the Father of Surfing, received gold in swimming at the Stockholm Games in 1912, he asked the International Olympic Committee to include surfing as an Olympic sport. His wish became a reality this year in the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. This will be the first year that surfing will be in competition.