For some reason this year I am more excited about the Olympics than I have ever been. I still don’t know all the sports that the USA is searching for gold in, or when they are going to be on TV. I do know that I plan on watching them but I don’t know if I actually will or not. If they are on while I am at work then I will DEFINITELY be watching them this year. Anyways, in honor of the opening ceremonies tonight, here are 10 CRAZy but true facts about the Olympics. Did you know that instead of medals, they got paintings one year? Do you know how many white people have run the 100 meter in under 10 seconds? How about the oldest and youngest Olympians EVER? Find out those and more cool facts after the jump!
#1.) The Olympic rings are yellow, green, red, black, and blue because at least one of those five colors appears in every flag in the world.
#2.) Only one white person has ever run the 100 meters in under 10 seconds . . . several hundred black men have done it. In 2010, a French runner named Christophe Lemaitre ran the 100 meters in 9.98 seconds.
#3.) At the first modern Olympics, in Athens in 1896, first place finishers got a SILVER medal, not a gold. Second place got a bronze. Third place got nothing.
#4.) At the 1900 Olympics in France, winners got PAINTINGS instead of medals, because the French believed those had more value.
#5.) The first athlete ever to get an Olympic drug suspension was a Swedish pentathlete at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. He tested positive for ALCOHOL because he pounded a few beers before the pentathlon.
#6.) China’s one of the contenders in almost every Olympic event now . . . but they didn’t win their first medal until 1984. They won one in the 50 meter pistol event.
#7.) The 1908 Olympics in London lasted for 187 days . . . they started in April and went until October.
#8.) The oldest Olympian ever was 72-year-old Oscar Swahn, who competed for Sweden in shooting at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, Belgium. The youngest was 10-year-old Dimitrios Loundras, who competed in gymnastics for the Greeks in the 1896 Olympics in Athens. The oldest athlete this year is 71-year-old Hiroshi Hoketsu of Japan, who will compete in equestrian. He was also in the 1964 OLYMPICS. The youngest appears to be a 14-year-old fencer from Algeria.
#9.) The heaviest Olympian EVER will compete in judo this year. He’s Ricardo Blas Junior of Guam and he weighs 481 pounds.
#10.) At some point, all of these have been Olympic sports: Tug-of-war . . . poodle clipping . . . firefighting . . . solo synchronized swimming (???) . . . delivery van driving . . . live pigeon shooting . . . rope climbing . . . and hot air ballooning.
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