This sounds like the kind of America that Republicans thought was so great that they want it back.
Seeing how it coincided with the Worlds Fair in St Louis that was a big success in showcasing America as a modern country while the Olympic competition was all white people and the US got 248 of the 280 medals (the US team was 80% of the athletes because travel sucked), yeah, I can see how the pedo party sees it as the good old days.
From the wikipedia:
While Frederick Lorz was greeted as the apparent winner, he was later disqualified as he had hitched a ride in a car for part of the race.
Seriously go read the wiki, this post barely scratches the surface of the nonsense that went down
From then until the end of the race, Hicks received several doses of strychnine – a common rat poison, which stimulates the nervous system in small doses – mixed with brandy and egg white.[3] This was the earliest recorded use of performance-enhancing drugs in the revived Olympic Games.[6] He continued to battle onwards, hallucinating, and was barely able to walk for most of the course. When he reached the stadium, his support team carried him over the line, holding him in the air while he shuffled his feet as if still running.[6] Hicks had to be carried off the track on a stretcher, and might have died in the stadium had he not been treated by four doctors. He lost 8 pounds (3.6 kg) during the course of the marathon.[6]
I don’t watch the Olympics, but if shit went down like that today, I definitely would.
What the fuck, this is hilarious!
Why hasn’t anyone made a Death of Stalin style dry satire film from this!?
It doesn’t have to be satire, it could be an actual documentary.
Are we sure the whole thing wasn’t just a skit?
I’ve never wanted something to be true more
It is true. :-)
Mostly TrueLooks like the srychnine was intended as a performance enhancing drug, but Hicks was carried over the finish line by his team, so he should have by rights been disqualified.
Some pretty crazy shit, all in all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletics_at_the_1904_Summer_Olympics_–_Men's_marathon
Not having eaten in 40 hours, he saw a spectator eating two peaches. He asked if he could have the peaches, and the spectator declined. He then stole both peaches and ran away.
Lol
I mean, give the fucking man some peaches.
Got to be millions of those bastards.
the strychnine was intended as a performance enchancer
???
Based solely on the adage of “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”.
I’m guessing the blood thinner was supposed to help somehow?
I looked it up and the reasoning seems to have been that strychnine poisoning causes lethal, uncontrollable muscle spasms, so a very small dose might increase the strength or speed of muscle contractions in a way that improves athletic performance. They got the idea because it was sometimes used medically for the same reason, to try to treat heart conditions prior to the development of more effective treatments.
Obviously it didn’t really work.
You’d think they would have tested it a couple times before trying it on race day
that wikipedia article is a work of art
That fucking wild!
Unfortunately sounds like something humans would do. We really suck
I would watch the shit out of this as a movie. Why isn’t this a movie?
It would be a fantastic comedy film, but could be seen as too far-fetched.
“Based on a true story”
All you need
I mean I guess…
I just watched Coyote v Acme the other night, and that movie starts with “based on a true story.” I can assure you that it was not.
Turns out that title card does not need to actually be true
Technically, Game of Thrones is based on a true story, since it was based on the War of the Roses
100 Years War.It doesn’t mean “non-fiction.” It just means the idea was based on something non-fiction.
So what true story was Coyote vs Acme based on?
I’m aware it doesn’t need to be the exact story, to be ACTUALLY based on a true story.
However, movies and TV shows are under now obligation to fit that criteria just because they put it in a title card.
Another series that comes to mind is the Fargo TV series where the intro to each episode says it’s based on a true story or whatever. And that show has aliens in it and shit. It’s also explicitly not based on true stories, aliens or not. Putting it before every episode is a form of dark humor.
A quick Google suggests that the original Fargo movie was also not based on a true story.
It’s not a legally binding term - it can be used sarcastically, or as a plot device. Has someone been murdered in North Dakota ever? Close enough to count for Fargo. Is the Fargo show based on the movie that was released named Fargo? Maybe that’s what 2 writers thought up at 3:42am on a Tuesday. WHo knows.
Specifically with Coyote v. Acme, it’s one of those “no reasonable person would interpret this as being real” standard. It’s a cartoon coyote. It’s a joke. It should make you laugh because it’s obviously not based on a true story.
You can’t possibly understand that Fargo using it was a form of dark humor and then expect that a movie about a cartoon coyote should be based on a true story, right? What is this cognitive dissonance?
You can’t possibly understand that Fargo using it was a form of dark humor and then expect that a movie about a cartoon coyote should be based on a true story, right?
Jesus Christ how stupid do you think I am? I was using that movie specifically to show that your original comment I replied to (maybe go back and read it for a refresher) says that the disclaimer means that it’s at least based on some sort of non-fiction.
The entire point of my reply was to point out that no, that’s not the case at all. That literally anyone can put that disclaimer before anything.
There is zero requirement that anything in the story you’re about to watch is true. It’s a plot device.
Game of Thrones is based on the War of the Roses, not the 100 Years War.
Thanks for the correction, my bad!
Not after Fargo
Fool me once, Coen Brothers
Today’s major film studios couldn’t handle it without fucking it up somehow. The 2000s/early '10s would have been the peak time to film this
not movie length but still quite good:
Well, there was the blatant racist shit that they didn’t mention in the post but was there in reality. Also, it makes the US look like dolts. Not exactly patriotic, lol.
Na, man. This whole story is fire.
First new Olympics outside of Europe held in… St. Louis? In the summer? Ick.
Things were such a mess that only 12 nations showed up.
First ever use of the 3 medal system (gold, silver, bronze).
Tug of War was a legit Olympic sport.
The “Racist Shit” was the incomprehensibly terrible human zoo stuff. Bonus that an Indian Boarding School girls basketball team apparently played. And then they had competitions like “baseball throwing” for the human zoo folks.
This isn’t even worth a movie. A whole season of 6 or 8 one-hour episodes. Easily.
That was back when Olympians were Olympians, not the finely tuned, pampered sports professionals we see today! /s
Is amazing that they ever did another marathon in the modern Olympics.
That said the Olympics are just a rich kids talent show at this point, with the possible exception of the generic outliers that happen to be physically perfect for their sport (Bolt, Phelps, etc).
Didn’t the original Marathon runner, Pheidippides, die of exhaustion soon after? Maybe the organizers were trying to recreate history as understood in their time.
Yeah but he ran like 130 miles, then fought in a battle, and then sprinted another 26 miles.
Which is wild cuz they definitely had horses, and it’s a story from the 1800s
Boomers describing their way to school:
Also, I believe the guy who finished first was disqualified for riding in a car for part of the race. I could be misremembering though.
Correct he was riding with the car for nearly half the race, assuming Wikipedia is correct. I strongly recommend to read the Wikipedia article about this race, but this meme is a good summary of it.
Asian Games 2026 in Japan will be the modern example
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20260924/p2a/00m/0na/017000c
“We are sorry for your inconveniences, the competent people are all being trailed for corruption” 🍒
Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games organizers apologize for wrong anthem
Kuwait played the Borat anthem when a Kazakhstani shooter won an international competition there.
Jon Bois, an excellent and hilarious video essayist, did a video on this! Really good, and I recommend watching anything and everything Jon Bois makes.
I think there is a pretty good episode of the Dollop on it too.
Other keystone sports episodes of The Dollop: Rube Waddel, 1908 New York To Paris Car Race.
I don’t think I’ve heard the car race one.
They went the long way 'round.
The gas station had not been invented yet.
There’s a joke about the rat race in there somewhere
They should add this alongside the regular marathon. Call marathon: Chaos mode
So do they spin a big wheel-of-fortune type thing to see who gets the rat poison, or do they give every competitor a cocktail of weird stuff, one of which also contains the poison?
I’m not a doctor, but I don’t think that’s how stomach lining works. Or else, people working in very dusty environments 40 h/week would constantly get stomach issues.
Maybe he was so hungry he ate the dust
