10 Things You Didn’t Know About the Olympics

Frankly, the trivia is more interesting than the games.

Creative Commons: spcbrass

I have to admit, I’m not a huge fan of the Olympics. The Winter Olympics in particular. I enjoy ice hockey and maybe a few other things, but that’s about it. It seems like a lot of these events are just random stuff somebody made up because they had no particular athletic skill.

Take the biathlon for example. This event combines cross-country skiing with shooting. It’s hard for me to relate to that. I think that’s true for most Americans. I think we can see a variation of the biathlon as a summer event. It would go something like this:

Contestants break into an electronics store, steal some merchandise and run with the merchandise while returning fire to law enforcement. No medals are involved. Participants just keep whatever they can get away with without being apprehended.

As I think of it, this event plays out all the time here in the US, it’s just not an Olympic event. The Summer Biathalon is an event Americans could be dominant in. No other country can rival it when it comes to theft and gunplay.

Enough of the sour grapes, here are some Olympic facts you might not be aware of:

1: Some early Olympians performed in the nude.