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Olympic Urban Legends History

Here are quick descriptions of each of the previous editions of Olympic Legends Revealed.

To see if they are true or false, you have to click on the link!

* Dan O’Brien missed out on competing in the 1992 Olympics due to an act of pride.

* Olympic skiier Picabo Street was named after the game “Peek-a-boo.”

* The idea of running a four minute mile was considered impossible before Roger Bannister did it in 1954.

* The Olympic Torch Relay was started by the Nazis.

* Tara Lipinski stood on Tupperware as a 2-year-old to imitate the Gold Medal winners at the Olympic Games.

* A German man was ordered to pretend to be a woman to win a medal for Germany in the 1936 Summer Olympics.

* The International Olympics Committee created a new rule just to make a certain participant ineligible for future Olympics.

* The Jamaican bobsled team carried their sled to the finish line after a crash.

* An Olympic rower paused during a race to let a family of ducks pass in front of his scull.

* The rings of the Olympic flag were meant to stand for the five continents of Earth.

* Five years before winning a Gold medal, an Olympic athlete was declared dead at the scene of a plane crash.

* Joe Frazier qualified for the Olympics due to Buster Mathis suffering an injury – an injury Mathis suffered when he defeated Frazier in the qualifying rounds!!

* A Jewish Olympic athlete lost the Gold medal in the long jump by a centimeter because a fellow athlete competed on the Sabbath when the Jewish athlete would not be able to.

* The Chinese Table Tennis team cut four players for “falling in love.”

* A gymnast won six medals at an Olympics…with only one leg!

* The Olympic rings date back to the Ancient Greek Olympics.

* A British athlete had to make a quick (and strange) move to find a country to compete for in the Olympics.

* A 17 year old took up the decathlon a few months before he won the Gold Medal in the event.

* An Olympian missed out on a chance at a world record because the official lap counter was not paying attention to the race.

* Adolf Hitler snubbed Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics.

* An Olympian who stole the Olympic flag in 1920 returned the flag…eighty years later!!!

* Through strange political circumstances, the very first Chinese delegation to the Summer Olympics was a single athlete.

* The current distance for the Olympic marathon was based on where Queen Alexandra was sitting at the 1908 Summer Olympics.

* Famed 1924 Olympian Eric Liddell did not learn that his planned race would be on a Sunday until he reached Paris.

* Of the first two finishers of the 1904 Olympic Marathon, one nearly died due to taking drugs designed to help him win the competition – and that’s the one who DIDN’T get disqualified.

* The BBC had to ask for their payment for the broadcast rights to the 1948 Olympics to not be cashed due to money problems.

* An Olympian won two Silver Medals in Women’s Equestrian despite not being able to use her legs!

* Johnny “Tarzan” Weissmuller took on a fake identity so he could represent the United States in the 1924 Olympics.

* A cigarette lighter was once used to re-light the extinguished Olympic Flame.

* The Paralympics got their name from the fact that they run parallel to the actual Olympics.

* The Olympics led to a watch company becoming one of the largest printer manufacturers in the world.

* Athletes during the Ancient Greek Olympic Games were amateurs.

* The first Olympian banned for using illegal substances was an athlete who drank two beers before an event.

Ta da!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 at 4:11 pm and is filed under Archives. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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