[HN Gopher] Poetry was an official Olympic event
___________________________________________________________________
Poetry was an official Olympic event
Author : apollinaire
Score : 114 points
Date : 2024-08-07 16:24 UTC (5 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
| jfengel wrote:
| What happened was some godawful poetry.
|
| I can't really say what would comprise great poetry but I know
| overworked doggerel when I see it.
| al_borland wrote:
| It sounds like "professionals" weren't allowed to compete.
| Image if no one from the NBA was allowed in the olympic
| basketball games. It would be pretty second rate.
| runevault wrote:
| That was true for a long time, used to be NCAA players
| competing for olympic medals. I believe the Dream Team was
| the first team (not sure if ever or in a long time) where
| Basketball pros could compete in the Olympics.
| dingaling wrote:
| Well yes, the Olympics were all-amateur until the 1980s.
| Tennis boycotted the games from 1924 to 1988 because of the
| ban on professionals competing.
|
| Today it's primarily professional and bears little
| resemblance to Baron de Coubertin's vision.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| > It sounds like "professionals" weren't allowed to compete.
| Image if no one from the NBA was allowed in the olympic
| basketball games. It would be pretty second rate.
|
| TIL Olympic basketball of my childhood was second-rate.
| imchillyb wrote:
| Oh freddled gruntbuggly, thy micturations are to me, as plurdled
| gabbleblotchits, in midsummer morning, on a lurgid bee...
|
| No one wants to hear that in a competition.
| tgv wrote:
| It's like that fake smile and arm gesture after a landing in
| one of those gymnastic events. And then to think some are
| trying to include ballroom dancing as a discipline.
| jfengel wrote:
| Those ballroom dancers are in fantastic shape. At that level
| they really are athletes.
|
| I dunno if it would make a good Olympic sport but I'd watch
| it.
| tcgv wrote:
| The list of Discontinued sports at the Summer Olympics [1] also
| includes:
|
| - Pigeon racing
|
| - Cannon shooting
|
| - Life saving
|
| Among other interesting entries.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Discontinued_sports_a...
| nemo44x wrote:
| I'm kind of surprised bowling was an event (briefly) but now is
| not. I don't keep up with it but I've somehow been bowling in a
| variety of countries. Is it the professional game is just too
| biased towards the USA? I believe top player is Australian?
|
| Also I have to imagine Pickle Ball will be featured in the next
| Olympics. Maybe it can take break-dancings spot.
| bargle0 wrote:
| Flag Football and 6-player Lacrosse are next up in 2028.
| omnicognate wrote:
| It was an event at the Seoul Olympics in 1988, but attempts
| to have it made a permanent event failed, apparently partly
| because it requires expensive facilities that aren't always
| available in poorer countries. Doesn't seem to have been a
| blocker for sailing or ski jumping...
| Macha wrote:
| I suspect if Sailing and Skiing were proposed as events in
| 1998 and not 1896 and 1936 respectively, they would face
| similar issues.
| wongarsu wrote:
| They held an event in 1936 and tried to make it an
| official part of the 1940 Olympics. If the Olympic games
| of 1940 hadn't been cancelled it might have made it in.
|
| https://www.topendsports.com/events/demonstration/bowling
| .ht...
| wongarsu wrote:
| Bowling lanes are a bit more involved than a race track,
| but it doesn't seem _that_ involved. It 's basically waxed
| wood flooring with some dividers. You can just put that
| down in a regular stadium for a couple days.
|
| Normally bowling alleys are expensive because of the
| machinery, but the Olympics aren't lacking in manpower.
| Just dedicate one person per lane to manually setting the
| pins. If you dress them up a bit that can even add some
| visual flourish.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| The concern isn't that the country hosting the Olympics
| won't be able to afford a bowling alley, it's that
| competing in the sport would be economically out of reach
| for much of the world.
| dagw wrote:
| _it 's that competing in the sport would be economically
| out of reach for much of the world._
|
| I don't know anything about 'high end' bowling, but I
| cannot see how it could be any more expensive than many
| other sports at the Olympics.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| My local bowling alley charges $25 an hour to rent a
| lane. Practicing 20 hours a week makes it $2000 a month.
| Admittedly, they probably have strong discounts for
| someone bowling that much, but that's only the price for
| a beginners practice spot.
|
| Winter sports and some older competitions probably match
| that, but I think they try to be more aware of that for
| summer sports. Compare it to another recent addition,
| skateboarding. One of the competitor's (medalist I
| think?) family went without electricity for a month to
| afford her first board, but after that it with some luck
| it was affordable enough to get her to the Olympics.
| wongarsu wrote:
| But doesn't the same line of though still apply? Making a
| bowling lane in your back yard or in a community center
| is pretty cheap if you set the pins manually.
|
| In terms of costs for a training spot with Olympic-like
| conditions it would be pretty middle of the pack and
| probably in the cheaper half. It's more expensive than
| say table tennis or marathon, but a lot cheaper than
| swimming, pole vault or golf, never mind the heavy
| hitters like ski jumping.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Making a 60ft flat level surface is harder than you'd
| think, and even with your human pin setters a lane would
| effectively allow 1 or 2 people to practice at a time.
|
| Plus, as another poster pointed out, I think several
| other sports would be rejected for the same concerns if
| they weren't effectively grandfathered in.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| You're basically describing the Winter Olympics.
|
| And all of the equestrian events in the Olympics.
|
| Tim Duncan famously took up basketball after his swimming
| career was derailed when a hurricane destroyed the only
| pool on st Croix, and they couldn't rebuild it.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| >Plus, as another poster pointed out, I think several
| other sports would be rejected for the same concerns if
| they weren't effectively grandfathered in.
|
| Including most of the Winter Olympics.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| There's no such thing as grandfathered in, events are we
| considered every olympics. Just because there is no world
| where the 400 m sprint will be removed does that mean it
| is grandfathered in. Wrestling was almost removed from
| the Olympics a few years ago. Which is one of the actual
| events from the ancient olympics.
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| > Doesn't seem to have been a blocker for sailing or ski
| jumping...
|
| The boats they use in the Olympics are generally
| standardized designs that have been around for a very long
| time.
|
| The most common Olympic boat is the Laser, which has been
| around since the 1960s. You can make one yourself if you
| feel like it. They'll take out a measuring tape and if all
| the dimensions are correct you are good to go. You could
| buy an Olympic-quality one from a manufacturer for $6k or
| less, including all the sails. You can watch out for a
| Craigslist post offering one up for free if you just come
| get it. There are stacks and stacks of them all over
| sailing clubs everywhere in the world - because they've
| been building them exactly the same for 70 years. There are
| so many Lasers out there people don't know what to do with
| them.
|
| The exact kiteboarding thingy they use can be bought off
| the shelf at plenty of sailing stores for $3k or less.
|
| Yes, the bigger boats they are using for the two-person
| races can get pricy, but that's just a fraction of Olympic
| sailing.
| cjpearson wrote:
| The sports for 2028 have already been decided. Flag football,
| baseball/softball, cricket, lacrosse and squash will be
| added. Breaking will not be included.
| nemo44x wrote:
| Flag Football sounds interesting. I'm curious if much of
| the world will compete in it. Looks like a fun format with
| a small field, 5 players per side and clear rules - 4 tries
| to get a touchdown. And very fast I'm guessing.
| AlexAndScripts wrote:
| I'd love to see Olympic capture the flag.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Apparently 42 teams competed in the last IFAF Flag
| Football World Championship. More countries than are
| members of the International Kabaddi Federation.
| b3ing wrote:
| Breakdancing seemed way too late, like someone old on the
| decision team was out of place with that one.
|
| At that rate, Pickleball will be added in 40yrs - "Oh yeah
| I remember back after the Covid Pandemic, Pickleball was
| popular", says 60-70yr old person.
| klyrs wrote:
| Oh hey that's my mom-in-law!
| KingMob wrote:
| Damn you, Raygun! /s
|
| Though tbf, I'm not sure any competition with an artistic
| element belongs in the Olympics. I would ditch stuff like
| figure skating and synchronized swimming. Gymnastics can
| stay, but I'd prefer it be more standardized.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| How familiar are you with gymnastics scoring? It's quite
| rigid. The ongoing controversy is not really related to
| the objectiveness of judging, but an administrative error
| (assuming the IOC is truly in the wrong here).
| dagw wrote:
| All the sports you mention have had most of the artistic
| elements beaten out of them by standardised scoring
| systems. No one wins olympic gold in figure skating or
| synchronised swimming by being artistic, they do it by
| repeatedly and perfectly executing the highest scoring
| techniques as defined in the rule book.
| a-french-anon wrote:
| I was surprised to know petanque was never included _and_
| that it is slated for the 2026 youth Olympics.
|
| Still waiting for pankration's comeback and the addition of
| Quake 3 CPMA, though.
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| > Flag football, baseball/softball, cricket, lacrosse and
| squash will be added
|
| Don't forget that modern pentathlon is dropping the
| equestrian portion and replacing it with a ninja-warrior
| obstacle course.
|
| Running, swimming, fencing, shooting, obstacle course.
| usrbinbash wrote:
| > Cannon shooting
|
| I'm sorry, _WHAT_? oO
| i_am_proteus wrote:
| Not the Olympic "cannon shooting" event, but there is a
| tradition of athletic competitions for gun crews. A 'famous'
| example is the Royal Navy Field Gun competition, an obstacle
| course for howitzer and crew:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhdcnQZf3fo
| arethuza wrote:
| _" This tradition came into being as a direct result of the
| heroic actions taken by Admiral Meux and his crew during
| the Boar War."_
|
| Those must have been impressive boars if they needed guns
| that big! ;-)
| greenavocado wrote:
| Search youtube for "texas boar hunt m134" or HeliBacon
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Why not link directly to a relevant video?
| greenavocado wrote:
| In case it is taken down
| xeromal wrote:
| Yup. Happens more than you like
|
| "This video has been made private"
| Scarblac wrote:
| Cannon shooting made the addition of the life saving event
| necessary.
| arethuza wrote:
| Possibly also fire fighting - which is also on the list...
| temporalparts wrote:
| I mean, we have pistol, which is a smol cannon shooting.
| ffhhj wrote:
| Hopefully not as depicted in Monkey Island.
| dilawar wrote:
| Also cricket. It's coming back to the Olympics next time
| though.
|
| The last time (and only one time) was in 1900 in Paris. Only
| two teams participated: one was France and the other of course
| Britain.
| exabrial wrote:
| Honestly the last one needs to be a thing for so many reasons.
| I had an experience in the Florida keys a number of years ago
| that has stuck with me. I was on a snorkeling charter and some
| foreigners were aboard [of Asian decent]. (I've included their
| race here just for context, not racism, as formal swimming
| lessons overseas are not nearly as common as they are in the
| USA). I was near the front of the boat on the second level when
| I saw someone splashing. I had a small flashback of what a swim
| coach had told me at 13 years old: Drowning does not look like
| drowning in the movies. I yelled that captain who was setting
| an anchor, and the first mate who was helping tourists put
| their fins on. Both looked confused what I was trying to signal
| through the bussle, so I dove off the second deck and swam to
| the person. He was under before I got behind him, so I yanked
| him above water by his un-inflated vest and tipped his head
| back over my shoulder. He rapidly tried to pull me under so I
| had to restrain his arms with one hand and inflate his vest
| with my other hand and mouth, while treading with just my legs.
| Scariest 10s of my life, but it was over that quick once I got
| a little positive buoyancy into his vest. The current had
| pulled us about 35 yards from the boat at that point so I had
| to swim towards the boat a bit to grab the rescue line. Captain
| and first mate thanked me profusely. The guy couldn't speak
| english and didn't realize he needed to wait in line for the
| first mate to check everything (including vest inflation).
| Instead he just jumped in off another part of the boat. The
| tour company gave us a refund and bought us dinner.
| jabroni_salad wrote:
| I saw fire fighting was in there. That could make a comeback,
| there is (at least in the US) actually still a national circuit
| of firefighting challenge courses and they are pretty sweet to
| watch. Plus, firefighters are good for PR in basically every
| country in the world, right?
|
| I've also seen lineman challenges where they compete to rescue
| a dummy from the top of a pole. Lineman is always interesting
| to me since nobody wants to get close to the kinda things they
| have to get close to, so they end up needing to do all of their
| own stunts.
| mc32 wrote:
| What I'd like to see come back is amateurship, or at least non-
| professional, non-salaried participants again. Like, it's not
| their main gig. They do something else, but are level A
| amateurs who love a sport or activity without getting paid a
| salary.
| stray wrote:
| Doping.
| krispyfi wrote:
| Poetry would be the only event where drinking absinthe counts
| as doping.
| jon_richards wrote:
| Already counts in pistol shooting (and probably other target
| shooting). The slower heartbeat helps.
| sandbx wrote:
| Architecture event: provide a site in the host city and make it a
| design competition, and then build the winner. The hall of
| submitted 3D models would be a great attraction.
| kaliqt wrote:
| That would be nice, though modern _official_ architecture (and
| art) always ends up quite ugly and appalling, so it 'd only be
| nice with proper judges (quite rare apparently).
|
| Architecture and art done on ArtStation alone is superior to
| anything that is funded by your local government usually.
| lupusreal wrote:
| Have the event judged by a panel of locals selected from the
| general population by lottery.
| dagw wrote:
| Why not have all judging panels selected like this? I'd
| love to see 6 people chosen at random judging the dressage
| based entirely on whatever they happen think dressage
| should be judged on. And at the same times the riders are
| trying to alter their routine based on what they think
| someone who knows nothing about dressage would want to see
| in a dressage competition.
| input_sh wrote:
| Yes, why wouldn't those that trained some disciplines for
| years want to have their fate decided by complete randoms
| with no judging experience in their sport!?
| dagw wrote:
| If it's good enough for artists...
| hobofan wrote:
| That's essentially what a World Expo is, isn't it?
| nrp wrote:
| As noted in the article, Architecture was indeed previously an
| Olympic category:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Olympic_medalists_in...
| throwup238 wrote:
| It was subsumed into official Olympic art festivals that
| morphed into the Cultural Olympiad which is held concurrently
| with each Summer Olympics.
| Filligree wrote:
| How do you _judge_ a poetry competition?
| hk__2 wrote:
| The same you judge the olympic break-dancing competition: with
| human juges that rate competitors based on a handful of
| criteria.
| riehwvfbk wrote:
| The criteria: 95% politics.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Your cynicism doesn't match reality.
| riehwvfbk wrote:
| It matches my reality perfectly, but maybe it doesn't
| match yours. When medals are clawed back years after the
| competition and awarded to the loser - there is no other
| explanation. And the loser with a medal they didn't win
| is even more of a loser.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| I'm not arguing that this never happens, I'm arguing at
| the magnitiude:
|
| > 95%
| hk__2 wrote:
| That's what you say when you don't accept your defeat but
| it's hard to prove. I've seen the finals and the Canadian
| guy who won was clearly better than the French one; if it
| were 95% politics the French would probably have won.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| Just looked up videos of the first and second place medalists
| for breakdancing this year. It was decent, but I've seen
| better breakdancing in random videos taken on the streets of
| LA back in the 80's, for example. Or pretty much every single
| sequence in Breakin' and Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo.
| hk__2 wrote:
| It might have to do with the fact that was the very first
| edition at the Olympics. It may also be the last because it
| won't be there at Los Angeles in 2028.
| matrix2003 wrote:
| Playing devil's advocate, many of the judging criteria for the
| sports seem pretty subjective.
|
| For example if diving or gymnastics was purely objective, you
| wouldn't need multiple judges (or any). Track and field is a
| lot more straightforward in most cases.
|
| I would even go as far to say the "criteria" the judges are
| looking for have some analogous counterparts in poetry.
|
| I think breakdancing was a sport for this Olympics, so poetry
| doesn't seem like much of a stretch. Maybe it's just not
| "exciting" to modern people?
| jerf wrote:
| Gymnastics and diving have had multiple judges for another
| reason, which is that the nominally objective portions of the
| judging involved spotting things at the edge of human
| perception. (That is, I'm discounting the obviously
| subjective things like "style".) The judging is definitely
| not just "hey, that looked good, I think I liked that 8.5
| worth"; you can tell just by listening to the commentary.
| Things like "they're attempting an 8.6 point dive" and
| "that'll be two tenths off". They're often not guessing at
| the numbers in question, though it may be a tossup whether
| the human judges see the same thing the commentators did.
|
| There has been some discussion of moving to computer vision
| analysis for these portions.
|
| While one could easily judge poetry by equally objective
| metrics, I don't think it's hard to imagine what the result
| would be once the min-maxers get into the game.
| Love! love love love love love poet, love! hate no!
| love love love throw it.
| .,!.,!.,,..,,,.!!!!.,.,,.,,!!..,.! rhyme time
| lime slime mime mime love, a a a a a a glove
| o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o love.
| sdwr wrote:
| I actually liked that poem!
|
| Funny to think that the Olympics started out as LARPing
| ancient greece. Tradition old and new at the same time
| dhosek wrote:
| There was a scene in the not particularly accurate First
| Olympics miniseries back in 1984 where the college
| students looked at books about the ancient Olympics and
| saw that the athletes competed in the nude so they came
| out of the building, sheepishly, in the nude and were
| sent back by their coach to put some clothes on.
| matrix2003 wrote:
| That's fair! I still maintain my point about breakdancing,
| though :)
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| same way you judge anything else, it's not a science
| esafak wrote:
| Just like the sprint races then?
| Zambyte wrote:
| Those aren't decided by judges, they are decided by clocks.
| Olympic events decided by judges include things like figure
| skating, gymnastics, and diving.
| dagw wrote:
| Those events aren't decided by the judges just going on
| how 'cool' they think the performance was, but by
| comparing how close to perfect (as defined in the rule
| book) the techniques the athlete did was and then giving
| it a score based on how that technique is scored in the
| rule book.
|
| The rulebook will say something like "technique A is
| worth 4.5 points; subtract 0.1-0.3 points if the arms
| aren't straight throughout the whole technique...". The
| judges role is then to judge if the arms where in fact
| straight or not. These sports are a lot more objective
| than people think.
| Zambyte wrote:
| And the same can be applied to poetry, no?
| dagw wrote:
| Rank the different poetic metres from lowest to highest
| score? What is objectively the hardest type of metaphors
| to execute perfectly? How many fewer points should a
| simile get compared to an equivalent metaphor? Are
| onomatopoeia worth any points? List all the allowed
| poetry topics and then given them a base difficultly
| score from 1-5.
|
| Once you have finished writing the rulebook for Olympic
| Poetry, do you think the poetry that would result from
| people going through that rulebook and min-maxing their
| poem would actually be interesting.
| Zambyte wrote:
| I'm not suggesting that poetry should be in the Olympics,
| I'm just agreeing with the parent comment saying that
| judging could be done the same as any other Olympic sport
| that uses judges.
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| No it can't. That's GP's point. We can reason that one
| gymnastics skill is more technically difficult than other
| skill, with various degrees of certainty. We cannot
| reason and especially codify the same for poetry or its
| component parts.
| Zambyte wrote:
| What? They started giving examples of exactly how it can
| be codified.
|
| Their point was that it would likely produce
| uninteresting poetry, not that poetry can't be judged by
| some set of metrics.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| > giving it a score based on how that technique is scored
| in the rule book
|
| giving it a score based on the _judge 's interpretation_
| on how the technique is scored in the rulebook -- there
| have been plenty of unpopular interpretations over the
| years
| Y_Y wrote:
| Fastest poem, longest poem, saddest poem etc
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Judging by how thing goes in the Olympics and high level
| competition in general, probably using technical criteria. Like
| rhymes, meters, and form, quality of delivery with proper
| prononciation, rhythm and lack of hesitation, grammatical
| correctness, etc...
|
| Maybe no emotion will come out of it, but writing a sonnet with
| perfect rime riche an two alliterations delivered with perfect
| pitch and with the accuracy of a metronome will certainly win
| gold.
| Gupie wrote:
| when each competitor would use one of their country's official
| languages and poetic forms.
| Eumenes wrote:
| Couldn't be worse than racewalking or breakdancing
| hashtag-til wrote:
| How about instagramming? It can always get worse.
| tgv wrote:
| And there the contestant from Belgium strikes the one knee
| bent backwards pose, immediately followed by thoughtful face
| with sunglasses profile glance in the distance, which makes
| for ten poses in the first 60 seconds.
| edflsafoiewq wrote:
| Forget the Olympics. Bring back the Dionysia. I want to know who
| writes the best tragedy.
| jfengel wrote:
| The Oscars are a weak substitute. Much less wailing and
| gnashing of teeth.
| klyrs wrote:
| They tried, it roused the snooze mob
| elashri wrote:
| One particular difficulty is that now we have hundreds of
| countries with hundreds of languages (thousands) so you will not
| be able to put any objective (and probably even subjective)
| criteria to judge. Some languages have better poetry structure by
| default (i.e Arabic) and if we translate everything to English
| (one of the worst languages for poetry in my subjective opinion)
| then you will lose much of the originality and meanings that is
| attached to language structures used.
| TomK32 wrote:
| If anything the number of languages is decreasing and
| Independent participants do exist
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Olympians_at_the_O...
| and we even saw mixed team
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed_teams_at_the_Olympics
| duxup wrote:
| During the opening and closing ceremony they liked to use the
| word "athletics" a lot.
|
| Granted I think it would be cool to have art Olympics but also
| ... judging would be kind of painfully subjective.
|
| And if it wasn't subjective, somehow, it would be horrible.
| TomK32 wrote:
| Are poetryslams a thing outside the german speaking sphere? How
| about olympic hip hop battles?
| EGreg wrote:
| I think they were a big thing in Arabia during the time of
| Mohammad
| dhosek wrote:
| They're a thing in the US as well. I think, in fact, that the
| first slam poetry event took place in Chicago. The youth slams
| that I heard while I was teaching tended towards overwrought,
| but I've heard some good stuff at the more professional level.
| HBO used to show slam poets, but I don't think they do anymore.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| International Rap Olympics.
|
| I love Hip Hop, but you can't directly compare rap between
| languages.
|
| International DJ competitions could work though, I think DMC is
| one.
| NoNotTheDuo wrote:
| Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def) and Russell Simmons
| hosted/ran a TV Series on HBO in the early 2000s called Def
| Poetry: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0329823
| karaterobot wrote:
| > "The main stumbling block can be summed up in a few words: fear
| of the classical," the baron wrote. He believed this fear
| permeated every category. Take literature: Writers were "wholly
| unfamiliar with the joys of violent muscular effort" and
| therefore "incapable of describing them for a public that was not
| very familiar with them either," he bemoaned. "In painting,
| sports scenes required more line than color, that is to say the
| opposite of the reigning trends."
|
| Whether this describes the original reason for removing art
| events from the Olympics, I don't think it's why we won't bring
| them back.
|
| I also don't believe it's because poetry is wildly unpopular
| these days. After all, how closely does anybody follow most
| Olympic events outside of the Olympics themselves? That's kind of
| the cool thing about the Olympics: they make you white hot
| interested in diving, curling, etc., for a little while.
|
| Personally, I think the reason a traditional poetry category
| wouldn't work is because the idea that you can objectively judge
| poetry is anathema these days. People would hate it, call the
| judges sorts of disparaging things. It would only be
| controversial, not satisfying.
|
| Also, poets themselves generally want their work to be
| appreciated in a different way other than by live, public snap
| judgments. Our whole orientation toward art is so different these
| days that this would all be an alien concept.
|
| That said, a battle rap event seems plausible, and would be
| pretty interesting. But that's distinct from the type of poetry
| the article is concerned with, both in form, process, and
| tradition. Low odds that it'll happen in the short term, but it
| would be pretty neat if it did.
| knbknb wrote:
| Roman Emperor Nero introduced these in the year 67 AD during the
| 211th Olympiad:
|
| - Heraldry - Lyre playing - Chariot race with foals - Chariot
| race with ten horses - Tragedy writing
|
| (He won all of these competitions, of course, despite having
| crashed during chariot racing.)
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| At first this seems absurd, but then I think about how fun
| eurovision is and it seems more doable.
| GuB-42 wrote:
| My theory is that they cancelled the poetry event the year they
| expected the Vogon delegation to arrive.
| monooso wrote:
| A recent episode of 99% Invisible discussed this [1].
|
| The first half of the episode, which is equally fascinating, is
| about the 1968 Mexico Olympics.
|
| [1]: https://pca.st/episode/3edd4bad-573d-4c3a-8430-91e5ffbd6e9f
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Olympic medalists in art competitions_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34410511 - Jan 2023 (12
| comments)
|
| I feel like there have been other threads about weird Olympic
| events? (not counting the 1904 marathon here which is its own
| niche)
| andrewla wrote:
| Poetry is a hard sell but musical performance is close to an
| athletic competition -- requires precision and style.
|
| Host city chooses five songs by living artists in a couple of
| genres, and for each song they decide whether the competition is
| technical or stylistic. Live performances, nothing pre-recorded,
| and professional musicians can represent their country of
| residence.
| Minor49er wrote:
| How does one judge and score style in this case? Would an EDM
| and soul fusion cover of Mary Had a Little Lamb defeat an
| instrumental acid progressive rock version of the song?
| lekanwang wrote:
| Freestyle rap should be the modern equivalent. Can judge on
| things like lyricism, flow/delivery, concept/cohesiveness, etc.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| On a similar note, the Irish Free State's first Olympic medal was
| a silver in Painting at the 1924 games, for _The Liffey Swim_ by
| Jack Butler Yeats, brother of the better-known William Butler
| Yeats.
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