When a marathon took 54 years to finish, and more Olympic trivia | #63
Also, can you name all 5 female medalists from India?
“The Olympics have just started and the Greeks are already 14 medals in debt.” - Conan O’Brien
Depending on whom you ask, the Olympics are either a foolhardy exercise or the pinnacle of sport. No modern day edition has been able to recoup the huge costs involved in building infrastructure and hosting the games, yet most countries wish to host these Olympics at least once. This year’s edition will have largely be devoid of spectators, yet we’ll all be cheering for the Indian contingent as they attempt to better their haul from 2016.
On that note, this week’s newsletter has some interesting stories from the Olympics.
Things we learnt this week
In hindsight it was probably a mistake to award the Olympics to Rio De Janeiro in 2016. The country was in the midst of a deep recession and with public apathy towards the high expenditure of the games. Emblematic of this was the fact that the organizers lost the keys to the main Olympic Stadium 2 days before the start of the event. Media took a fence about the laxity in organization.
Running marathons are tough and finishing them takes a lot of effort. But what if you did not finish it in your first attempt at the Olympics? Shiso Kanakuri was one of 2 members in the Japanese team. It was an ordeal to get to Stockholm, a 10 day train journey on the trans Siberian express and finally running a marathon in 33 degree heat. Kanakuri collapsed mid way. He was rescued by a family and Kanakuri quietly went back without informing the race organizers. Kanakuri was later tracked down in Tokyo in the 1960’s and after some cajoling completed the marathon in 1967 - taking a total time of 54 years, 8 months, 6 days, 5 hours, 32 minutes and 20.3 seconds. There is a running late joke around here to be made.
The very first Olympics saw American brothers - Sumner and John Paine dominate shooting events. The duo won 2 of the 3 events to take place and were considered top marksmen. It helped Sumner later in life when he caught his wife having an affair. He fired his pistol 4 times at the lover and missed. Initially charged with assault, the police learnt of his Olympic Medal and concluded that he missed on purpose - Sumner had some troubleshooting.
From IWTK, with love
Five Indian women have reached the pinnacle of their sport by winning medals at the Olympics. A short thread
About a remarkable Olympic performance that confused the scoreboard.
Only in India
The greatest nicknames ever - Poison Rama, Cycle Ravi, Jagga alias Tattoo, Venkatesh alias Slum. Also BTS Manja - not to be confused with the Kpop band.
Quiz Announcement
Bhasha Talkies is a first-of-its-kind series of regional national language quizzes in 5 different languages!
Brought to you by India Wants To Know in association with Southbay Live. Rounding off this series we have the Hindi Talkies Quiz. Hosted by the extremely knowledgeable Mayank Shekar with panelists - the awesome Maanvi Gagroo and Aniruddha Guha.
Bring along your saathis and Kasam Paida Karne Wale ki, yeh miss nahi karne ka!
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❤️ IWTK